The Framing Square
Another one of the most commonly used layout tools for Timber Framing is, of course, the Framing Square.
Some of you probably use it every day in one way or another.
Did you know that there are names to the parts of the framing square?
The wider of the two parts, which is 2” wide, is called the body. Sometimes this part is also called the blade.
The narrower of the two parts, which is 1 ½” wide, is called the tongue.
Did you know that the framing square has a front and a back?
When you hold your framing square like this:
The point where the two parts of the square meet, at either the inside corner or the outside corner is called the Heel.
Near the corner of the Heel on the back side of my framing square in the middle of the tongue you see a row of numbers
The first set in the corner is 18 over 24 beside a larger number 30. If you didn’t know what this is, it’s a 3-4-5 triangle layout. Three times six is 18, four times six is 24, and five times six is 30. These can be inches or feet. You can use this to prove your layout has a true 90° corner.
Now let’s look at some of the other numbers.
Look down the tongue and find the numbers 36 over 36 with 50 and 91 beside it.
These are the layout lengths for a timber frame brace. If you measure over from the corner 36” and make a mark on your horizontal timber and down from the same corner 36” on your post and make a mark, the distance from mark to mark is 50.91 inches, diagonally.
Now if you’re out on the job and you don’t have a pocket calculator with you to convert your dimension of 50.91 into 16ths, how are you going to lay it out?
Well if you have these numbers on your framing square then one of the scales on your framing square should be in 10ths of an inch.
If you look at the picture above, the one that shows the 18 over 24, you should be able to see the bottom scale on the back side of my framing square’s tongue a scale where the inches are divided by 10ths.
If you ever wondered why they put that scale on your framing square, this is why.
You have to be careful when using the framing square and laying out 16ths of an inch that you are using the correct scale on the face or front of the framing square and not one of the other scales on the back.
If you do have your pocket calculator with you, and you want to convert .91 into 16ths of an inch you multiply .91 by 16 and get 14.56. That is 14 and .56 sixteenths. We round up the 6 to make it .6 and then round up the .6 again to make it 15. So that’s 50 and 15/16” for the length of the brace in sixteenths.
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