American Barn Building: A Staple in Construction History « The Build Better Blog

American Barn Building: A Staple in Construction History

Mortise-and-Tenon

The Origins Of The American Barn

The barn stands out as one of the most recognizable icons of rural America. Immigrant groups of the 17th century (English, Germans, Dutch, Swedes, etc.) each brought over their own agricultural influence as well as some form of barn-building tradition. Of these groups, the English barn construction style served as the most influential. The most prominent barn that the English brought became widely known as the threshing barn. It was designed having a three-bay width, in which each bay had its own special purpose. The frame was assembled of hand-hewn, heavy timbers with mortise-and-tenon style construction. The central bay served as an area for the farmers to process crops and the two side bays were utilized to either hold animals or store hay (often known as the haymow).

Mortise-and Tenon Construction
Basic mortise and tenon construction consists of a tenon (tongue) that is cut into the rail and a mortise slot that goes completely through the uniting rail (see image left). These joints can be further strengthened by incorporating dowels as seen in the image below.

Another interesting type of mortise-and-tenon style construction is known as stub (or sometimes referred to as blind) tenon. The mortise does not go completely through the timber, which conceals the end of the tenon. The joint can be further secured using dowels or wedges as well.

A Square Peg in a Round Hole
Remarkably, during the fronteir times of America, square pegs were used as dowels in round holes. Square pegs could easily be sawn from a plank of wood; whereas a round peg would need to be spun on a lathe. Also, it was much more difficult to chisel out a square hole, as opposed to simply drilling out the hole. With this approach, the holes did not need to be an exact sized match; the peg could be a small amount larger, and the corners would peel away as the peg was hammered into place.

Tags: American Construction, Barn Building, Restoration

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 29th, 2009 at 2:33 pm and is filed under Restoration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

American Barn Building: A Staple in Construction History

The Origins Of The American Barn

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