Building Bents

The primary building block of a timber frame building is a bent. A bent consists of two posts and at least one girt (crossmember), and typically braces. My gable end bents included two girts (second floor and attic level), and four braces, and 9 or 10 second floor studs. The bents for the center of the building just had two posts and two girts. The members are pegged together with trunnels pegs, or trenails,

For the project I sawed up almost 200 maple blanks, and had a few oak blanks around as well. I then used my table saw to square the blanks, and joiner to make them into octagons.

Some of the maple pegs I made.

The first bent we assembled. This will be the last one to be raised, and will be the North gable wall of the building.  

The two central bents assembled on top of the first bent. They will be the second and third bent to be raised. 

The stack of bents was getting too high, so we built the last bent, the south gable wall on the slab. It will  be the first bent to be raised by the crane.