Fox Maple Timber Framing Workshop
Kauai, Hawaii November 2002

The following are a few photos from the Wainiha Valley workshop. Despite 4 days of hard rain and having to harvest all of the materials from stone to timbers in the 2 week workshop, the frame went up thanks to the fine joinery produced by the students. No flying-wedge harmonic distortion blocks required. The timbers were albezia and paper bark. Posts were scribe fit to large river stones. We'll try to post a few more photos of the process shortly. Thanks to everyone involved.
Aloha, Steve Chappell

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The frame was dedicated using green tea leaf as a roof tree. The plates were paper bark, very dense and heavy. Pulling up an albezia upper tie, a relatively light wood. The posts were scribe fight to stones. Ties and braces were scribe-fit. Lifting the parperbark plates, and driving them home.
The heavy lifting complete. Part of the local crew, Roots, John, Gerry, Wilbert and Kaiana.
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The frame was 20'x30'. Layout was both scribe and square rule. The plates were all scarfed with gooseneck scarfs, all of which were of sound-tract quality (you need to be a student to understand what that means. It's a Jean-Claude Kielly thing, perfection and grace...known to all Fox Maple students). The materials were harvested primarily from the valley within a few hundred yards from the site. The paper bark came from the south side of the island. 99% of all building materials used on Kauai come from off island. This was a great lesson in how one can make beautiful structures by using only what is at hand.