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Bundwerk barn

GaryR

Nordic Pine
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Gary
A friend of mine in Oregon is building a "bundwerk" barn. His family is originally from Bavaria and he visits there frequently. He fell in love with the style there. His family owns a sawmill in Oregon used to make hardwood flooring, and he has a second smaller mill at the site that he uses to saw his own Douglas fir timbers. He recently stood up the main gable end bent. All Douglas fir with Oregon white oak pegs.

The barn will be used to store his collection of antique woodworking machines that were made in the west coast (Oregon, California, or Washington).


His inspiration is a barn such as this:

BF43A484-4E42-4494-A7DE-DF2AD1368185.jpeg

His own barn will be smaller and not as ornate but features the same pegged lattice. For scale, the posts are 6 x 6 inches.

F175294D-88D6-40DD-AAB2-AEF4AFA3E1A1.jpeg68097AC7-63F4-418B-AE0B-D97A2F7AE370_1_201_a.jpeg1FBA423D-DCAA-432F-8F68-00BD8722A387.jpeg9AA3CF3A-0A46-48A7-A285-C103443CC5B7.jpeg
 
My god, what a lot of wood! That's a fun detail on the end of the diagonals.
 
Wow. That's quite some project. I can't imagine what must be involved in shaping those curvy joints to fit.

Lovely old bandsaw in the background.
 
My god, what a lot of wood! That's a fun detail on the end of the diagonals.
Yes it is! But when you own your own forest and sawmill in the Pacific Northwest, wood supply is not an issue! Note also that all the wood is clear: not a knot in sight.

The curved ends of the diagonals apparently was a common style developed in Germany in the 1800's. My friend did them mostly with a router and set of templates with some chisel clean up. I'll see if I can some pix of his process.
 
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I'm not an architect or engineer. But the lapped diagonal lattice does add a lot of extra strength to the structure. But I think a second reason is aesthetic. A kind of display of wealth, in 19th century Bavaria. They often were further elaborately carved and painted.

Reuben said that when they picked the frame up in the center, with the ends dangling, the posts at the ends might have been expected to droop towards each other at the base. He measured, and the most they moved was an eighth of an inch.
 
More progress on Reuben's barn. The other three walls will be "balloon framed" using 16 ft studs. Reuben got one wall up today, by himself. Tilting it up required wall jacks and trailing support studs for safety.

balloon wall1.jpeg

Wall jack.

wall jack.jpeg
You can maybe see the lever arms of two of the jacks in use. Once the wall was up the long pry bars (usually called "Johnson bars" here), were used to lift the wall up and over the tie bolts in the concrete.
balloon 2.jpegballoon3.jpegBalloon 4.jpegBalloon 5.jpeg
 
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It's amazing what can be achieved with just one or two people and a few minutes thought. Lifting walls into place is a bit of an art.
 
Is is nice to see and reassuring that there are still people in the world who can put so much effort into to making something look beautiful and not just functional. The work in that gitterbund alone must have taken longer than a bog standard steel frame building could be erected.
 
What a pleasure for the eyes... Thanks for posting this. Makes me think of my youth when I lived in Germany. Although most houses were a bit less elaborate being "just" Fachwerkhauser.
 
There will be plenty of natural light. I think Reuben said something like 20+ windows.
Metal roofing starts going up today. You can see some of the panels in the foreground.

There was some discussion about whether the roof framing to accommodate those dormers was sufficiently supported. That is beyond my expertise to judge.

IMG_7275.jpeg
 
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