Publications


These are some of the publications which the Carpenters Fellowship believe are relevant to Timber Framing.
If you have a book that you think should be listed on this page, please email the Carpenters' Fellowship
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 ABCTop of page
Title:   A Timber Framer's Workshop  cover
Author: Steve K. Chappell
Description: Joinery, Design & Construction of Traditional Timber Frames. The book breaks the timber framer's art, and science, into discrete chapters, each with a clear focus and gives each adequate coverage. All recommendations given in the text are well supported by the "whys and wherefores" and the more technically inclined will find thorough analyses of each aspect of frame design and practice.
Isbn: 188926900X
Price: £14.43
Title:   Bouts de Bois – Bois de Bout cover
Author: Compiled by François Calame
Description: From Turkish Pit Sawyers, to Swedish Axe wielders, this book describes a collection of craftspeople with many traditions, but one thing in common – a passion for woodcraft.
It not only covers the tools and techniques of traditional woodcraft from around Europe, it also gives a vibrant impression of the working life and ethos of those committed to this way of life. The detailed text and beautiful illustrations make this book an inspirational work for anyone seeking an insight into the European carpentry tradition.
This book is available through the CF at £25 (CF members £18), including P&P. Please contact tim@greenwoodworks.co.uk if you are interested.

To purchase this book from the online CF bookshop, please click here
Isbn: 2-908730-72-3
Price: £25/£18CF
Title:   Build a Classic Timber Framed House  cover
Author: Jack A. Sobon
Description: US based timber Frame projects & craft. Square rule explained.
Isbn: 0882668412
Price: £11.89
Title:   Building the Timber Frame House  cover
Author: Benson T
Description: Fully explains the craft of timber building from planning and designing to actually constructing, with chapters on house plans, site development, foundation laying, insulation and timber assembly, and raising.
Isbn: 0684172860
Price: £10.46
Title:   Building with Structural Insulated Panels (SIPS)  cover
Author: Michael Morley
Description: Structural insulated panels are sandwiches of foam insulation between two sheets of fibreboard or plywood, and are used to build walls, roofs and floors in all kinds fo modern buildings. Instead of three components - a frame, insulation and sheathing - SIP panels are all three thing and come ready to install. SIP-constructed buildings are vastly more efficient, quicker to build, stronger, quieter and more draught-free than older post-war building systems. This illustrated manual takes the reader through the entire process of building a panel-constructed house, from planning and estimating, ordering, storage and handling to construction.
Isbn: 1561583510
Price: £16.80
Title:   Classic Hand Tools  cover
Author: Garrett Hack
Description: Classic Hand Tools reveals the rich variety and history of hand tools through vivid colour photos while providing in-depth information on how to integrate there use into modern woodworking.
Isbn: 1561582735
Price: £16.80
Title:   Conservation of Timber Buildings  cover
Author: F.W.B. Charles, Mary Charles
Description: Conservation. One of the best if this is your interest or area of work. Plenty of case histories, surveying, specifications, sketch drawing, contractual, repair detailing, modern and traditional solutions, even framing method. Lots of information.
Isbn: 1873394179
Price: £37.50
Title:   Conversion & Seasoning of Wood (the)  cover
Author: William Brown
Description: Wood conversion
Isbn: 0 85442 037 1
Price: £15.95
 DEFTop of page
Title:   Discovering Timber-Framed Buildings  cover
Author: Richard Harris
Description: This book looks behind the common image of the 'black-and-white' houses, showing how timber buildings were built and how they vary from region to region. The classic poket sized learned reference work. Absolutely essential.
Isbn: 0 7478 0215 7
Price: £4.99
Title:   English Historic Carpentry  cover
Author: Hewett C A
Description: Timber frame evolution. C Hewett is considered by many to be the father of timber-frame historians. A classic.
Isbn: 0 85033 354 7
Price: £30.00
Title:   Fine woodworking range (esp. Wood and how to dry it)  cover
Author: Fine woodworking magazine
Description: Various compilations of past articles inc. joinery, Hand tools, making and modifying machines,'Wood and how to dry it'wich also has some great articles on timber as a material, chainsaw mills and more.
Isbn: 0 918804 54 X
Price: £7.66
Title:   Framed Houses of Massachusetts Bay 1625- 1725 (the)  cover
Author: Abbot Lowell Cummings
Description: New England Architecture
Isbn: 0 674 31681 9
Price: £23.95
 GHITop of page
Title:   Green Oak in Construction  cover
Author: Peter Ross, Christopher Mettem, Andrew Holloway
Description: "Green Oak in Construction" is a highly illustrated technical guide to the use of green oak, celebrating the use of oak in the building of modern structures and showing how to achieve excellence in practice. Its key features are: eleven case studies demonstrating best practice and inspirational design (such as the Globe Theatre, York Minster and The Downland Gridshell); comprehensive text - specifiying information, design data and grading rules, compiled by an expert author team; and, numerous colour photographs and diagrams. The authors describe the whole process of green oak construction: the design, framing and enclosing of structures. In an inspirational series of contemporary case studies they show how to use green oak to best effect, supporting this with design data and specifing advice.
Isbn: 1900510456
Price: 69.42
Title:   Green Woodworker's Pattern Book: Over 300 Traditional Craft Designs  cover
Author: Raymond Tabor
Description: A book of over 300 patterns for traditional craft designs featuring projects ranging from fences, gates, garden furniture, through benches and stools to light pulls and door wedges - all with metric and imperial dimensions. Each item has annotated black and white line drawings and patterns, a brief description, historical details where relevant and information on the materials.
Isbn: 0713489146
Price: 12.59
Title:   Home Building and Woodworking in Colonial America  cover
Author: C. Keith Wilbur
Description: Traditional Colonial craft practice
Isbn: 1 56440 019 0
Price: £7.67
 JKLTop of page
Title:   Living Wood - From buying a woodland to making a chair  cover
Author: Mike Abbot
Description: A lovely inspiring and informative book.
Isbn: 0 9542345 0 2
Price: £15
Title:   Log and Timber Home Building  cover
Author: James Mitchell
Description: Log and Timber Home Building: The Modular Method: Building Your Home as You Can Afford It.
Covers in excellent detail basic, advanced post and beam design and construction. House design, foundations, floors, walls, doors and windows, and an extensive chapter on roof design and construction.
Isbn: 0881791318
Price: 12.04
 MNOTop of page
Title:   Natural Timber Frame Homes  cover
Author: Wayne Bingham, Jerod Pfeffer
Description: "Natural Timber Frame Homes" is a book about the future of houses - those inspired not by a technology-governed and energy-intensive world, but instead developed organically in response to the places in which we live. Through beautiful photography and informed text, it explores the quiet splendour of traditional timberframe homes built with straw bales and plaster or clay-finished walls. "Natural Timber Frame Homes" addresses the home in five areas: effect on the surrounding environment, relationship to personal health, interaction with economy, engagement of the builders, and beauty and character. The homes featured are adaptable to a variety of locations and can be constructed primarily with human power.
Isbn: 1586858602
Price: £17.99
Title:   New Timber-frame Home  cover
Author: Tedd Benson
Description: Shows how to adapt timber frame construction to the needs of modern life, and includes recent developments in timber frame homebuilding from the last ten years.
Isbn: 1561581291
Price: £16.80
Title:   Oak-framed Buildings  cover
Author: Rupert Newman
Description: A practical book on the technique of timber-frame construction for carpenters, builders and aspiring self-builders, but also a source of inspiration to anyone who appreciates beautiful buildings.
Isbn: 1861083793
Price: £17.46
Title:   Old barns in the new world - reconstructing history  cover
Author: Richard W. Babcock and Lauren R. Stevens
Description: The story of Richard Babcock who learned from his grandfather about otd american timber-framed barns and here passes on his knowledge and results of his own experiments. A fascinating read full of surprises and old lore, gives basic accounts of hand raisings, framing methods, hewing, dismantling and assembling old barns. Caution though to those uninitiated to the scribe rule, Mr. Babcocks version of scribe rule is different to what we in europe would call scribe rule and though perfectly valid this difference could cause confusion. A very interesting book.
Isbn: 0 936399 79 1
Price: $22
Title:   Old ways of working wood  cover
Author: Alex W. Bealer
Description: US based. Full of interesting and sometimes odd bits of info on carpentry as practiced by the American Village Carpenter.
Isbn: 0 7858 0710 1
Price: £4.80
 PQRTop of page
Title:   Precision Framing  cover
Author: Mick Guertin, Rick Arnold
Description: An all-in-one reference book, text book and training manual for builders who want a well-rounded, practical guide to all aspects of quality hand-made wooden-frame housebuilding. With more than 30 years of combined experience in building custom-made wood frame homes, the authors bring to the world of professional and self-building a hands-on manual that details in clear language and with full colour photographs and drawings all the steps, tips, short-cuts and techniques they have developed over the years to build sound, durable homes. Professional builders, self-builders, architects and potential home-owners who strive for squeak-free floors, straight walls and cost-efficency should learn procedures from this textbook that they can adapt and blend into their own projects.
Isbn: 1561584630
Price: £13.96
Title:   Regional variation in timber-framed building - in England and wales down to 1550 
Author: D.F.Stenning & D.D.Andrews
Description: This is just what it says. Actually the proceedings of the 1994 Cressing conference (not Frame2004) it comprises various articles submitted by specialists on particular regions. Lots of design detail & historical context. Great drawings & accounts of local oddities.
Isbn: 185281 1722
Price: £16
Title:   Reverence for Wood  cover
Author: Eric Sloane
Description: Colonial woodcraft & practice
Isbn: 0 345 31991 5
Price: £27.50
 STUTop of page
Title:   The Encyclopedia of Green Woodworking  cover
Author: Raymond Tabor
Isbn: 1899233075
Price: 16.95
Title:   The Timber Framing Book  cover
Author: Stewart Elliott and Eugenie Wallas
Description: The Timber Framing Book by Stewart Elliott and Eugenie Wallas. Illustrated by Linda Foss.
Isbn: 091146932X
Price: 12.98
Title:   The Timberframe Way: A Lavishly Illustrated Guide to the Most Elegant Way to Build a Home  cover
Author: Michael Morris, Dick Pirozzolo
Isbn: 1592281508
Price: 20.13
Title:   Timber Building in Britain  cover
Author: R.W. Brunskill
Description: The standard textbook on timber buildings which include many of the most beautiful houses in Britain. The book is extensively illustrated with outstanding photographs and line drawings which reveal in great detail how these attractive buildings were constructed.
Isbn: 030436665X
Price: £17.50
Title:   Timber Frame Construction  cover
Author: Jack Sobon, Roger Schroeder
Description: All about post & beam construction. US based.
Isbn: 0 88266 365 8
Price: £9.09
Title:   Timber Frames: Designing Your Custom Home  cover
Author: Jeremy Bonin and Rebecca Sandiford
Description: Timber Frames: Designing Your Custom Home by Jeremy Bonin and Rebecca Sandiford
Isbn: 1896980341
Price: £9.83
Title:   Timber Framing for the Rest of Us  cover
Author: Rob Roy
Description: This book describes the timber framing methods used by most contractors, farmers and owner-builders; methods that use modern metal fasteners, special screws and common sense building principles to accomplish the same goal in much less time. And while there are many good books on traditional timber framing, this is the first to describe in depth these more common fastening methods. The book includes everything an owner-builder needs to know about building strong and beautiful structural frames from heavy timbers.
Isbn: 0865715084
Price: £10.40
Title:   Timber-framed buildings of england  cover
Author: R.J.Brown
Description: A detailed look at the subject. Fine line drawings throughout. Historical perspective covering whole country. Includes discussions of construction methods and decorative details.
Isbn: 0 7090 6092 0
Price: £14.99
Title:   Timberframe Interiors  cover
Author: Dick Pirozzolo, Linda Corzine
Description: Designers looking to capture the unique appeal of timberframe construction receive a definite resource illustrating a variety of styles, with specifics on colour, patterns, lighting, and room arrangements.
Isbn: 1586857436
Price: 9.89
Title:   Timberframe: The Art and Craft of the Post and Beam Home  cover
Author: Tedd Benson
Description: Explores the versatility of timberframe design and construction with examples from twenty-three homes and six additional structures.
Isbn: 1561582816
Price: £19.23
Title:   Traditional buildings accessible to the public 
Author: J.R.Armstrong (countriside leisure series)
Description: UK based. Excellent overview but quite old (1979)prob. out of print but can be found at second hand shops
Isbn: 0 7158 0678 5
Price: £10.99
Title:   Traditional buildings of England (the)  cover
Author: Anthony Quiney
Description: Contains much info on frames as well as masonry and other buildings (definitely unbalanced towards the former though). Many pictures & drawings throughout
Isbn: 0 500 27661 7
Price: £9.07
Title:   Traditional Woodland Crafts  cover
Author: Raymond Tabor
Description: This is a practical guide to green woodwork and the coppice crafts giving information on the tools and techniques for making traditional items, with emphasis on the conservation of the native woodland. The contents include sections on woodmanship and coppicing, tools and devices, buying, measuring and cutting, products for gardens, riving wood, fencing, thatching, tent pegs, withes, walking sticks, besom brooms, gate and wattle hurdles and the situation of the marketplace.
Isbn: 0713475005
Price: 11.19
 VWXYZTop of page
Title:   Wood and Wood Joints - building traditions of Europe and Japan  cover
Author: Klaus Zwerger
Description: This is one of the more expensive books on our list but it is definitely worth every penny. It covers the whole of Europe, including the east, stave churches and all. The drawings and photographs are exquisite, the depth of the research great. And of course the Japanese architecture and joints are quite astounding. It will provide many long hours of absorbing reading if wooden buildings of every conceivable type are your thing. Beware though that some of the names used for parts of timber buildings do not tally with common usage in britain at this time. At least not in the timber-framing world. This does not really detract from its value overall though.
Isbn: 3 7643 6333 9
Price: £ 32