List of timber framing tools

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Illustration of carpentry (charpente) in the French Encyclopédie showing hewing, mortising, pit sawing on trestles. Tools include dividers, axes, chisel and mallet, beam cart, pit saw, trestles, and bisaigue . The men talking may be holding a story pole and rule (or walking cane). Shear legs are hoisting a timber. Below, the sticks on the log are winding sticks used to align the ends of a timber.

Tools used in traditional timber framing date back thousands of years. Similar tools are used in many cultures, but the shapes vary and some are pulled rather than pushed.

## Contents

* 1 Gallery
* 2 Preparing timbers
* 3 Marking and measuring tools
* 4 Hand powered cutting tools
* 5 Powered cutting tools
* 6 Splitting tools
* 7 Holding tools
* 8 Material handling tools and equipment
* 9 Tool maintenance
* 10 Access
* 11 Safety
* 12 External links

## Gallery

* A folding type of race knife

* Race knife capable of making circles.(ritsmes en ritspasser met uitgeklapt). Image:Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands

* Hand boring machine (Carpentry and Joinery magazine, 1925)

* A type of mortising chisel called in German a Stossaxt (Stoßaxt) or stichaxt. No wooden handle is inserted in the head, the metal head itself is the tools grip.

* A chain mortiser.

* Draw-bore pins (hook pins) are the metal pins sticking out of the plank above the plank being added to the USS Constitution during restoration.

* A hook pin or draw-bore pin

## Preparing timbers

* Conversion of logs into timbers was often done by someone other than the timber framer including a lumberjack, sawyer, farmer, or laborer using a variety of tools including:
* Whipsaw types of rip saws used in the conversion of logs into timbers in a saw pit
* felling, carpenter's, and broad axes are used in hewing.
* Sawmill
* Wood splitting, also called riving uses wedges, splitting mauls, and/or froes.
* Historically most timbers were used green but some went through a process of wood drying using some tools and equipment.

## Marking and measuring tools

* A Japanese ink line called a Sumitsubo. Miki City Hardware Museum, Japan. 10s3200

* Winding sticks are used to measure twist (winding) by viewing across one stick and comparing how parallel the other stick is.

Tools for marking out and measuring:

* A rule, now better known as a ruler and similar to a yard stick, is used to measure.
* Repeated measurements often use a storey pole
* Carpenter's marks were made with a race knife, chisel, gouge, saw, grease pencil, chalk pencil, or lead pencil.
* Chalk line or ink line used to snap lines on the wood. Ink and a slurry of charcoal were used like chalk.
* Carpenter pencil
* Scratch awl or similar tools were used to scratch lines on wood before the pencil was commonly used beginning in the 19th century in the U.S.
* Try square
* Steel square is also known as a framing square. Historically a square with measurement markings on it was known as a "square rule" which is also a layout method.
* Combination square
* A Plumb-bob on a string is sometimes used with a plumb-rule or plumb-square to measure vertical or horizontal and to transfer marks between timbers while scribing.
* Spirit level
* Dividers Used in measuring and proportioning
* Layout floor - a large, flat surface to mark lines and scribe timbers.

## Hand powered cutting tools

* Saw
* Crosscut saws to cut timbers to length and in making joints.
* Japanese saws are special saws used in woodworking including timber framing
* Axes were sometimes used to cut timbers to length and in joinery.
* Hatchet
* Adzes are of many shapes and names.
* Framing Chisels are heavy duty. In Western carpentry common sizes are 1 1/2 and 2 inches wide. They are designed to be struck with a mallet
* A slick is a very large chisel designed to be pushed by hand, not struck.
* drills for boring holes in timber framing were typically T-auger. The cutting edge of the bit can be of many shapes, the spiral auger being the standard shape since the 19th century.
* Timber framers boring machines were invented by 1830 and hold an auger bit. They made mortising easier and faster.
* Draw knives are used to chamfer edges of beams and shape pegs (treenails)
* Sometimes, particularly in wooden bridge building the pegs were shaped by being driven through a hole in a heavy piece metal.
* Historically timbers meant to be seen in houses were smoothed with a hand plane (Japanese plane including what is called a spear plane, yariganna or yari-kanna) and decorated with a chamfer or bead.
* Twybil The name literally "two blades", historically rare in the U.S.
* Bisaigue A French tool with similarities to a long handled twybill

## Powered cutting tools

* Circular saw
* Drill
* Band saw
* Router (woodworking)
* Power planers
* One or two sided stationary rotary, thickness planers in a shop and up to a four-sided planer (timber sizer) at a mill.
* Hand held rotary power planers up to twelve inches wide.
* Chain mortiser
* A few modern framers use computer numerical control (CNC) machines to cut joinery.
* Chain saw

## Splitting tools

A Froe is struck with a mallet to split blocks of wood into rough sizes for making pegs. Large and long timbers are split (riven) with wedges

## Holding tools

* Shaving horse may be used in making pegs
* Draw-bore pins temporarily hold a frame together during construction.
* Iron dogs or log dogs are used to hold timers during hewing, scribing or historically to repair or reinforce a joint
* Sawhorses, short sawhorses are called ponies.

## Material handling tools and equipment

* Gin pole or shear legs may be used in lifting wall sections or timbers.
* Pike pole used to push wall sections up during a barn raising
* Rope is used to lift or pull objects, sometimes in combination with a windlass, bullwheel, or block and tackle.
* Cranes are sometimes used to lift assemblies and materials.
* Commander or beetel is a large, long handled mallet for forcing timbers together or apart.
* Rollers, carts, or other lifting equipment are used to move the heavy timbers

## Tool maintenance

Tools require sharpening and replacing handles.

* file (tool)
* sharpening stone
* Grindstone (tool)
* hiring a blacksmith
* mechanics tools for general repairs such as repairing power cords, changing bits, etc.

## Access

* Ladder
* Scaffolding
* Aerial work platform

## Safety

* Fall protection
* Hard hat
* Safety glasses
* Hearing protection
* First aid kit

## External links

* The Takenaka Carpentry Tools Museum, Kobe, Japan
* The Debate of the Carpenter’s Tools, Edited by George Shuffelton. Originally Published in Codex Ashmole 61: A Compilation of Popular Middle English Verse

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