Miniature Timberframe
Monday, January 6th, 2014 @ 11:15 pm
miniature, scale, timberframe, tool, wood
As a way in to thinking about scale and inventing environments, I built the thing I’d last built, and knew most how to. A miniature timberframe. The fun of it got under my skin in a heartbeat and I was able to zoom through a few weeks, excited about making a fully realistic miniature timberframe structure, mostly the way it wouldn’t been constructed (all the joinery is accurate and real, the braces all have live edges).
As I progressed through the process of making the parts, it became clear that a simple structure wasn’t going to be enough, so I left it incomplete, made piles of materials on bunks, miniature sawhorses, and scattered debris around the worksite.
But of course if this was a real worksite, there needed to be tools! I delighted in the metal shop, taking old bandsaw blades and grinding them down into tiny handsaws, filing little scraps into chisels and drawknives. I had to use a Bridgeport to drill the holes for those axes, the regular drill press didn’t had a chuck small enough to hold the right bit. I even got to do a bit of forging to make the eye for that froe.
I tried to draw-bore the peg holes, but the tolerance was so tiny that I’m not sure it made a difference. Superglue was needed in a bunch of places where the wood was rotting away (locust rotting, what?) But otherwise there is no glue holding the thing together, just joinery and the pegs.
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Terence Alderson Says:
I wish there were a place to get miniature timbers. I found your site based on that search. Very cool but I don’t have any tools here and I’m trying to devise a small proof of concept for a business plan.
If you know of a place feel free to drop me a line. :)
Thanks for the fun site. I just sat and stared at the miniature timber frame.
June 24th, 2018 at 2:11 am
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