Timber Framing: Building Without Nails
Timber Framing Workshop: Building without nails
Spring 2023 Workshop
A 6-day introduction to timber framing at the Canelo Project. Come and join us for a traditional timber frame construction for our new and beautiful frame for a strawbale home in New Mexico.
You will learn the art of laying out a timber frame structure, cutting mortise and tenons both by hand and power tools, plus lumber selection and milling. You will gain a good understanding of tools and how to maintain them. We will also show you many examples of natural building and finishes here on the property.
This structure is for a home in New Mexico, but we will test “raise” and assemble the timber frame on the final day of the workshop.
No experience required: This course is accessible from beginners with little experience to builders who want to learn the craft of timber framing. We want all to leave Canelo with the confidence to build your own small timber frame structure at home.
* This course begins with orientation and dinner Saturday evening 6pm, March 25, and ends Saturday at 12:30pm April 1, with a morning class.
Daily Workshop Schedule
- Arrival previous evening, October 23, dinner included at 7pm, introductions at 8pm,
- 24 Oct – Learning Base Coat and Levelling
- Clay and Lime overview and theory
- Joinery introduction
- Intro to tools
- Sharpening tools
- Intro to cutting tenons
- Finish layout & cutting tenons
- Intro to cutting mortises
-
Cutting mortises & tenons
- Continue posts
Milling lumber demo
- Making a knee brace intro
- Make knee braces and continue posts
- Blacksmithing demo
- Continue knee braces & posts
- Canelo Tour
- Frame Raising Day!
8.30 – 12pm – Wrap up raising / final questions and reflections / clean up
Workshop Instructor: Benito Steen
Benito was born and raised in southeastern Arizona where his parents teach natural building. He comes from a long lineage of artists and makers and grew up surrounded by people from around the world coming in with new skills and crafts every day. Homeschooled, he gravitated early on as teenagers towards the trades and arts such as: plastering, blacksmithing and woodworking.
A builder and an artist, Benito strives to find the connection between space and beauty, shelter and nature, the hand and materials. He has taught natural building throughout Latin American and Southeast Asia. Always learning and experimenting he mixes old techniques with the new, to create beautifully sustainable and healthy houses.
He and his brother Kalin have a youtube channel, making videos about natural building and crafting with earth. See the Nito Project.