Timber Frame Conference

The 24th Western Regional Conference of the Timber Framers Guild is being held April 23 through April 25 in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. One of the pre-conference workshops on April 22 is on how to use Google Sketchup for timber frame design. I had tried playing around with this a bit on my own, but found it quite challenging, so I decided to sign up for the workshop and get some hands-on experience.

So far, it's been a lot of fun. The workshop was a little overwhelming, but well worth it. Even though I make my living as a software engineer (or maybe because of it), I sometimes find learning new technology to be a pain in the brain. But the class was taught by Clark Bremer of Northern Lights Timber Framing, who has created a set of plugins for Sketchup specific to timber frame design, so he is the Sketchup for timber frame guru. Sketchup is a powerful 3-D CAD program that Google offers for free, and the plugins and "rubies" Clark has developed allow frames to be designed quickly, as well as the associated shop drawings and timber lists. It's pretty amazing what he has come up with, and he has made his work freely available.

And timber framers tend to be pretty interesting people. I met Barr Quarton of Barr Tools, who makes timber framing chisels and other tools specific to the trade. I'm looking forward to his forging demo tomorrow.
 I also talked to Mike of Montana Reclaimed Lumber, whose company salvages timbers from old barns and other structures. I had a great conversation with him about trees and timber, and we ended up talking about the importance of the remaining old growth forests. Here's a shot of his exhibit booth, built from some of his reclaimed timbers:

Here's a 2-D rendering of the frame we "designed" in class: