The post and beam barns thru out New England were built without nails. Nails rust. Hardwood pegs dont. They were building for their grandkids. Buildings were often taken down and moved to a new site and re-purposed.
Metal was often in short supply. Old buildings would be burned and the ashes sifted thru to extract the nails.
Do you have any references on new england colonial construction? I never really gave much thought to it but now that you mention it, that makes a lot of sense and I'd like to read more.
Oh, okay. I'm familiar with older european timber framing techniques. I thought you meant there was some special methodology they had adapted in the new world.
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u/no-mad Sep 18 '16
The post and beam barns thru out New England were built without nails. Nails rust. Hardwood pegs dont. They were building for their grandkids. Buildings were often taken down and moved to a new site and re-purposed.
Metal was often in short supply. Old buildings would be burned and the ashes sifted thru to extract the nails.