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Michael Cuba from the Timber Framers Guild joined the Practical Preservation podcast to discuss:
- Timber framing, of course, but also the differences between modern and repair/preservation techniques. I had never thought about building timber frames in earthquake prone areas…they have the engineering figured out for that!
- Learning using hand tools to insure you understand how wood works and reacts before using power tools – learn the classics first as your foundation.
- How the timber framing can be reconstructed after the fire at Notre Dame
- The Timber Framers Guild’s almost 40 year mission as a repository of timber frame knowledge and development of future talent
Contact information:
Timber Framers Guild email: info@tfguild.org
Bio:
Michael Cuba is a preservation joiner and co-founder of Knobb Hill Joinery in northern Vermont. He also runs a consulting and dendrochronology business under the name Transom HPC, located in Stockton, NJ. Michael has recently finished two consecutive terms on the board of directors of the Timber Framers Guild, serving as president and interim executive director for 2018. He remains active on several Guild councils and committees. Along with Adam Miller, Michael now serves as editor of TIMBER FRAMING, the journal of the Timber Framers Guild.
Speaker 1:
Thank you for tuning in to the Practical Preservation podcast. Please take a moment to visit our website Practical Preservation Services dot com for additional information and tips to help you restore your historical home. If you’ve not done so, please subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher, or SoundCloud, and also like us on Facebook. Welcome to the Practical Preservation Podcast, hosted by Danielle and Jonathan Keperling. Keperling Preservation Services is a family owned business based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, dedicated to the preservation of our built architectural history for today’s use as well as future generations. Our weekly podcast provides you with expert advice specific to the unique needs of renovating a historic home, educating by sharing our from the trenches preservation knowledge, and our guest’s expertise, balancing modern needs while maintaining the historical significance, character, and beauty of your period home.
Danielle:
Michael Cuba is a preservation joiner and co-founder of Knob Hill Joinery in Northern Vermont. He also runs a consulting and [inaudible 00:01:19] chronology, am I close?
Michael:
Yep.
Danielle:
Okay. Business under the name Transom HPC located in Stockton, New Jersey. Michael has recently finished two consecutive terms on the board of directors for the Timber Framers Guild, serving as president and interim executive director for 2018. He remains active on several Guild councils and committees. Along with Adam Miller, Michael now serves as editor of Timber Framing, the journal of the Timber Framers Guild. Thank you for joining us today for the Practical Preservation Podcast.
Michael:
Sure thing. Glad to do it.
Danielle:
Okay. So how did you get started in preservation or timber framing? Were they always joined for you?
Michael:
I don’t think they were quite, initially. When I was in college, I went to a small college in Vermont, Goddard College, which used to have a residential program, and they did teach some timber framing there. I hadn’t been thinking of it as a career at the time, but the person who was an instructor was a fellow by the name of Rob Tarule. And Rob was involved with the Fairbanks House Project back in the early eighties in Massachusetts. And so he has been very involved with preservation work and he came from a preservation background.
Michael:
So we were taught from a traditional point of view. After college, I worked at another small school, the Institute for Social Ecology, and they taught appropriate technologies, and among them timber framing. And the fellow that they hired to instruct timber framing is Seth Kelly, who is now my business partner and has been for almost two decades. And he, at the time, was working for Jan [Levondowski 00:03:15], who did a lot of historic preservation, timber framing work in Vermont. Actually, he’s still going strong. And I basically begged and pleaded for him to take me to work. And so I started working with Seth and Jan doing preservation and restoration work.
Danielle:
Okay. I know, regionally, the architecture changes, but was that mostly barns or was it different structures?
Michael:
I was very lucky. We certainly did our share of barns, but Jan, he’s been around for a while and he got a lot of good high profile jobs. So I ended up working on a number of steeple restoration projects-
Danielle:
Oh, that’s exciting.
Michael:
… and some covered bridges as well. So I really jumped right into the fire when I started my preservation work and sort of started at the top. So that was a fantastic introduction. I was lucky to have that kind of opportunity.
Danielle:
Yes. Yes. So is preservation your passion or is it timber frame? Why did you choose that then as your career path, since it wasn’t your initial path?
Michael:
Oh, that’s a good question. I was hooked on timber framing right away and doing the preservation work, the old buildings that you work on tell you what works and what doesn’t work. And so over that first couple of years of doing preservation timber framing, you would see what are the things that fail? What are the things that succeed? And over time, the buildings themselves become the best teachers. There’s plenty of books and there’s lots of people with opinions, but when you see something that’s been standing for 200 plus years-
Danielle:
Right.
Michael:
… it gives you a sense of engineering, load paths, general conditions, and things to look out for. And I think if I were working in a shop building new timber frames all the time, everything looks great the day you cut it. Well, it should. But you don’t know how it’s going to fare in 50 or a hundred or 200 years.
Michael:
So having that opportunity to look at things that were successful was of great interest. And the traditional aspect of it is very interesting to me. There’s such a wide array of traditions in timber framing currently. There’s a lot of modern timber framers-
Danielle:
Right.
Michael:
… using CNC machines, using lots of routers and power tools. My business partner has been teaching at the Yestermorrow Design Build School in Vermont for over 20 years. And he always taught students with hand tools first.
Danielle:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Michael:
Because it teaches you about wood and how-
Danielle:
Yeah.
Michael:
… grain is going to react and how to anticipate things. Your power tools can cut right through anything, but when you just have blades in your hand, you have to think about things a little bit differently. And so I have found that part of the tradition really appealing.
Danielle:
Yeah. And that makes sense to me. Right out of high school, I went to culinary school and you learn French cooking, you learn the basics, and then you can build anything from there. But you need that traditional, that classic foundation. So, that really makes sense to me.
Michael:
Yeah. And every once in a while, we cut new frames in traditional fashions. But, you work for a year or two just doing preservation projects and you feel like, “Boy, I’m tired of old wood. I’d really like to work with something new, new frame.” And then you’re itching to get back to something old, dirty, and rotten.
Danielle:
Yes. Yes. So, let me think. So can you tell me a little bit about the Timber Framers Guild?
Michael:
Sure. The Timber Framers Guild is an educational nonprofit organization. It was founded in 1985. The mission of the Timber Framers Guild is to advance timber framing through research, education, and industry. The general vision is to enrich the community through craft. So first and foremost, the education is what the Guild is pushing. So personally to educate people who want to be timber framers on resources, techniques, methods, to just show them the world of timber framing and what’s available, but also for people who are established, if they’re starting businesses, there’s resources there. And so the Guild hosts a big annual conference every year, and that’s sort of the largest event, and I know they’ve been as big as 500 people. And then they have a lot of smaller regional events and they often do a lot of community building projects.
Michael:
So over the years, the Guild has gone into different communities and taught people from far and wide, but also people in their own communities, how to build something for themselves. And so this has been since right around 1990, they’ve been doing this. And they’ve built a number of pavilions and farm markets and community centers, welcome centers. They’ve done a couple of-
Danielle:
So it’s like a hands-on.
Michael:
… very much start to finish. And I think one of the more exciting projects, there was a synagogue in Poland that had been destroyed during World War II. And the Guild joined forces with a number of European groups to rebuild that synagogue, It was just about 10 years ago. And so that was a fantastic project. And they usually do two or three of these every year.
Danielle:
Oh, that is very, very cool. And you kind of talked about the services that the Timber Framers Guild offer too. Is it more of a trade organization then?
Michael:
No.
Danielle:
Or do homeowners reach out to you or property owners?
Michael:
We do get inquiries from homeowners and property owners and DIY-ers, people that are just looking for basic information, or they’re looking to be directed toward resources. There is a full-time staff at the office in Bellingham, Washington, and they direct people as well as they can. But often what happens is, we’re a pretty big network of talented craftspeople. And so the staff in the office will direct inquiries to the most relevant person. And so there are four councils within the Guild. One is TTRAG, the Traditional Timber Framers Research & Advisory Group. I’m a part of that group, and it’s a very small group. It’s only about 30 of us who are really dedicated to doing documentation. So to be a member of that group, you need to be presenting new material annually. And you don’t necessarily have to publish, but you do have to present-
Danielle:
New material.
Michael:
… new material every year to maintain your membership in that group. So that’s the group that’s sort of doing active research about historic practices. And they do certainly a lot of writing and publication and have a wonderful archive of information. There’s an engineering council, which has done great work in actually testing engineering and loading capacities of timbers and joints and various materials.
Danielle:
That’s great.
Michael:
That’s a lot of fun. They often set up joint busting at the conferences, they’ll invite people to cut their favorite scarf joint, and they’ll come and hook up some [inaudible 00:11:34] potentiometers and crush it, see what it takes. And then there is also an apprenticeship training program that is accredited with the U.S. Department of Labor. And so, if people really want to commit and they want to become an apprentice or a journey worker, they can enroll in that program, which generally we say takes about three years to fulfill the requirements.
Michael:
But at the end, you are certified as part of an accredited program with the Department of Labor. Then there is TFG Companies, which offers support for whether you’re just getting started with business, I mean, there’s always a lot to learn with business-
Danielle:
Right.
Michael:
… and there are plenty of business resources, but it’s really hard to find things that are specific to timber framing. And that’s one of the nice things that the Guild offers is that, the veterans that started the Guild 30 plus years ago, and have been very successful, can be very helpful in telling us, “These are the pitfalls you’ve got to look out for. These are ways that you can streamline your operation.” So that’s provided a valuable resource as well.
Danielle:
Yeah, that is that sounds like the organization offers so much and is giving so much to the trains and documenting and educating and also helping to build strong businesses. So I’m glad to hear that. I did not realize the extent of all the things that you do.
Michael:
And of course we have all of our publications. So we’ve got Scantlings, which is a newsletter that comes out six times a year, and then Timber Framing, which is a quarterly journal, which is more of a technical journal, a little bit less editorial, and that’s been going since 1985. I’m currently working on volume 132 right now. So it’s a heck of an archive of wonderful contributions from the timber framing community.
Danielle:
That, and to be able to go back and look at that, the documentation of the work that you’re doing is going to be valuable moving forward and for future timber framers. So I believe that the tradespeople need to have education and things that they can look back on, because you’re right, the best practices and the things that you’ve discovered that work and don’t work, you’re not reinventing the wheel every time. You can go back and look and see what worked and what didn’t.
Michael:
That’s right. And now that the Guild, I don’t want to say the Guild is getting on in years, but with three decades under its belt and so many projects that it’s participated in, now we’re sort of going backward and looking at that as a resource that Guild members are now looking at some of the early projects and evaluating, how did this perform?
Danielle:
Right.
Michael:
How’s this working out? How can we improve this?
Danielle:
Yeah.
Michael:
So they’re not reinventing the wheel, but they’re definitely trying to make it a little smoother, a little rounder.
Danielle:
Right. Yeah. And it’s true. I’m worried about people who aren’t going back and thinking, “How can I do better? How could we have improved on this?” Or, “Now that we know what we know, how could we have increased the longevity or done something better on the project?” So I know I had mentioned to you that during the news coverage of the roof fire at the cathedral at Notre Dame, I was hearing many newscasters and I’ll use that loosely because it was just [inaudible 00:15:21] on TV talking about how it couldn’t be rebuilt because of the lack of skilled labor and or materials that would match. Do you have any thoughts on that? My initial reaction was, “That’s not true. There’s timber framers all around.” But I know the material might be a struggle. So I would be curious to hear what you think.
Michael:
I was very surprised to hear that. When I read your question, I was really struck by it. And of course my initial reaction is “That’s absurd. That’s absolutely absurd.”
Danielle:
Right.
Michael:
But, I’m really glad you asked the question. Because if people are saying it, then it suggests that people don’t know what-
Danielle:
Right.
Michael:
… are available. In the case of the craftspeople, there are plenty. We train them all the time. We’ve been training them for quite some time. And our European counterparts are better at it than we are. I don’t want to admit-
Danielle:
Well, that’s what I was thinking. I was thinking, “You’re in Europe.”
Michael:
Yeah. So the French, I don’t want to butcher their name, but there’s the French [foreign language 00:16:28]. They’re an apprentice guild that has been going for centuries. So for as long as there’s been a Notre Dame, the French have had a tradition of teaching traditional craftsmanship and timber framing and joinery. They are among the most qualified in the world to address a problem like this. And the Guild is eager and willing to pitch in and help however we can.
Michael:
The Germans also have a very strong tradition, as do the UK has the Carpentry Fellowship. So there are guilds around the world and we all work together. When it comes to materials, I would say that the United States is among the worst in the world for forest management. I spent a lot of time in Europe and Switzerland in particular, and the forest storage ship and management that I’ve seen in Europe is really impressive and-
Danielle:
Oh, that’s great.
Michael:
… really sustainable. So do they have these trees right in downtown Paris? I’ve spent time in Paris, I’ll say that they don’t have the trees in Paris. But can they find them within a reasonable distance? I’m fairly confident that they can.
Danielle:
Oh, that’s good to hear. Yeah, my initial thought was that these are people who probably don’t talk to preservationists ever, and they don’t really understand that just because it was built 800 years ago, there aren’t people still doing that. But I had seen some debates then, within the preservation Facebook group that I’m a part of, too. And I just was thinking it surprises me sometimes the questions that come up in different places, so I’m glad to hear that they… and I thought that they had the people, but then I thought, “Well, maybe the materials will be an issue.” So I’m glad to hear that they’re better at managing their forests than we are. They’ve had longer to understand the history and understand that they need to do better.
Michael:
Yeah. They’re excellent stewards. And I think part of what happened here was, when Europeans came to the new world, they saw what seemed like endless forests-
Danielle:
Right.
Michael:
… and an unlimited supply. And unfortunately, they did not use the same care. But there were forest management practices at the time that Europeans came here in the early 1600s, the Europeans were very conservative with their use of forest materials. And they came here and they didn’t-
Danielle:
They went crazy.
Michael:
… they sort of exploited the resource as if it was limitless. And by the early 1800s in the Northeast, they were running out of forests.
Danielle:
Yes.
Michael:
By the 1850s, you see a switch from primary materials to secondary tree species in the construction. So they had pretty much locked everything down.
Danielle:
Yeah, yeah. The old growth versus the new growth. So what are the biggest challenges that you see in preservation in timber framing?
Michael:
I think one is definitely educating the public as to the possibilities of usefulness of the resources that are historic, and that they are finite and not truly replaceable.
Danielle:
Right.
Michael:
People certainly need to understand that these structures represent not just culture, which is very important, but also embodied energy that work already went into creating those spaces and they can be maintained almost indefinitely. Parts of Notre Dame that burned were about 800 years old.
Danielle:
Yes.
Michael:
So, we really can push these structures for a long time. I think, currently, the biggest threat is legislation. I think building regulations don’t take into consideration existing structures. I know that there was a change in 2017, there’s the International Existing Building-
Danielle:
Yes. Yeah.
Michael:
… Code that came out, but it hasn’t necessarily been universally adopted.
Danielle:
I think that 42 states have adopted it.
Michael:
Yes.
Danielle:
Yeah.
Michael:
And with that, though, there was not a big news flash. They didn’t really go-
Danielle:
No, no, no. You have to fight your way in to make sure that the building inspector’s going to listen too.
Michael:
That’s right.
Danielle:
You have to [inaudible 00:21:25].
Michael:
It’s going to take time for-
Danielle:
Yeah.
Michael:
… those codes to become more common practice. But currently I think that’s a lot of what we end up fighting with, is that people with the best intentions for safety or energy efficiency want to require certain modifications to historic structures that can sometimes be a real detriment. Somebody will say, “Oh, we want to seal this thing up and put an HVAC system in it.” And there are certain structures that you go and change the temperature in the attic by 10 degrees, and all of a sudden you’ve got a condensation problem and-
Danielle:
Right.
Michael:
… [crosstalk 00:22:06].
Danielle:
Yeah, not understanding how all the systems work together.
Michael:
So there’s a gap between the building sciences and understanding and incorporating or accommodating historic architecture.
Danielle:
Yes. Yes. Have you noticed any trends? I know that you have a big educational component. Have you noticed any trends in timber framing or in preservation?
Michael:
Yes. I think there’s a lot of trends. When you look at the history of timber framing in the United States right around 1850, people started moving away from timber framing.
Danielle:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Michael:
And of course, in the 1860s, we had the Civil War and we lost a lot of talent and knowledge. And that, combined with deforestation and the popularity of romance revival architecture, gave us a pretty solid hundred year period where we didn’t have timber framing and there wasn’t a lot of good material written down.
Danielle:
Right.
Michael:
So the people that founded the Guild in ’85, a lot of them were sort of the back-to-landers. I’ll admit, there’s a lot of old hippies in the group. And they really did have to reinvent the wheel. They sort of had to deconstruct things, look at things, try to figure it out, and they put great effort into it. But I would say, I’ve seen, reading all of the material that’s been, not that I’ve read everything that’s been generated in the last 50 years, but I do read quite a bit. And I have noticed a lot of broad concepts had been put forward in the 1960s, seventies, eighties.
Michael:
And during the last couple of decades, I think a lot of the nuance has been sussed out. A lot of broad notions have been squashed, or at least, people are starting to understand the regional specificity of different methods and modes of timber framing, so that’s one issue. Material choices, material handling, there’s certainly a big difference, especially because we’re a national organization. You’ve got timber framers on the East Coast working under a different set of rules than timber framers in the West Coast.
Danielle:
Right.
Michael:
And they’re building and engineering for seismic loads that are not necessarily a consideration here. And so, they’re often required to use metal fasteners and other reinforcements that we wouldn’t normally consider incorporating in our timber frame. So-
Danielle:
Do they do that in conjunction with, like, a mortise and tenon joint? Or do they do it-
Michael:
Unfortunately, it’s often in lieu of-
Danielle:
Okay.
Michael:
It ends up being belt and suspenders. And one-
Danielle:
Right.
Michael:
… of the tricky things is, when you’re using a lot of those metal fasteners and metal connections, there’s also a requirement that there’s, I was going to say, “Don’t quote me,” but since this is live, I think you’re required to have roughly two inches of wood protecting that metal, so in the case of fire. So we know how wood burns and we-
Danielle:
Right.
Michael:
… know that metal also fails catastrophically, in that it doesn’t really give you a lot of an indication when it’s going to go.
Danielle:
Right.
Michael:
With timber, you can watch what’s happening. You get a sense of how much time you have.
Danielle:
Right.
Michael:
That’s pretty well-known. So there are ratios of combining the metal fasteners and how they’re protected by the timber, but oftentimes in the location where you would expect to see a mortise and tenon, there’s a set of metal fasteners holding things together. So in some cases, it ends up being heavy timber construction rather than timber framing. And of course, there are a lot of people, I feel like the vast majority of people building new timber frames are really building hybrids. They won’t have a fully timbered sill system, there’s no stub tenants on the post feet, which is fine. So there’s a lot of integration of modern systems with the timber frame.
Danielle:
With the old, yeah.
Michael:
That’s part of it. There’s so many trends rising and falling, but educationally, I think people understand timber frames and what you can do with the timber and the joinery far more now than they did 30 years ago.
Danielle:
Yeah, yeah. Okay. So how can someone get in contact with you, the Guild? And I’ll put all this information on our-
Michael:
Sure.
Danielle:
… website too.
Michael:
I’m easy to find, I’m all over the Guild website.
Danielle:
Okay.
Michael:
So if you go to the TTRAG page and you’re trying to find out how to become involved with the Traditional Timber Framing Research & Advisory Group, there’s a link to my email there, which is Cuba TF Guild dot org. And anybody looking to get in touch with the Timber Framers Guild, you can go to info at TF Guild dot org. So we’re pretty easy to find, we’re all over the place.
Danielle:
Okay. And I’ll make sure there’s a link to the website too.
Michael:
Yep.
Danielle:
Are you having any seminars or any events coming up that you want to promote?
Michael:
Constantly.
Danielle:
Okay.
Michael:
There is always something coming up. So, our a big conference this year is going to be up in Manchester University, or it’s Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester, New Hampshire. And that is at the beginning of August. There’s information starting to get posted about that on the website. There will be an engineering symposium offered as a pre-conference event. There is also going to be a pre-conference tour offered, part of the TTRAG track. There’s going to be four different tracks in that conference, which is usually what we do, four or five tracks. So there will be skills, business, design, and engineering, history. And there will be a trade show there as well. And naturally, things like ax throwing and other-
Danielle:
Of course.
Michael:
We had a couple events that just passed. Trainings for non-destructive evaluation of timber, we had a timber grading course, and we had another course in documentation, another one in engineering. There will be a rendezvous at the Garland Mill, which is a wonderful place in Northern Vermont. And that’ll be early October, I want to say the first and second. But all of these things are listed on the website.
Danielle:
Okay.
Michael:
And if you sign up on the website, you can get the weekly Guild notes, which usually has a list at the bottom of all of the events and things like that.
Danielle:
All the events coming up. Okay. Very good. Well, thank you. Is there anything else that you feel like you wanted to share that you didn’t get a chance to?
Michael:
Oh, boy. I could probably talk about the Guild all day. [crosstalk 00:29:34] go to the website and, if you’re not a member, sign up if you want to know about timber framing. If nothing else, the Timber Framers Guild is the best networking tool.
Danielle:
It sounds like it. I wish that there was something as well built out for preservation, like woodworking, as the Guild sounds like it is.
Michael:
I mean, there are some.
Danielle:
Yeah. It just doesn’t seem as well built out.
Michael:
Yeah, yeah.
Danielle:
But we don’t have to talk about that on the podcast.
Michael:
Sure.
Danielle:
Oh, goodness. Well thank you very much for joining us today.
Speaker 1:
Thanks for listening to the Practical Preservation Podcast. The resources discussed during this episode are on our website at Practical Preservation Services dot com forward slash podcast. If you received value from this episode, and know someone else that will get value from it as well, please share it with them. Join us next week for another episode of the Practical Preservation Podcast. For more information on restoring your historic home, visit Practical Preservation Services dot com.