Plank Frame Barn Construction

A vanished art revives in this indispensable early 20th-century manual for anyone who builds with wood. John L. Shawver documents the plank frame barn method that transformed agricultural construction across Central Ohio and the broader American Central West, offering a system that slashed timber usage by 40 to 60 percent while delivering frames of remarkable strength and durability. What makes this book remarkable is not merely its practical instructions, but its window into an era when builders actively refined their craft through hands-on experimentation, gradually perfecting a construction philosophy that prioritized economy without sacrificing integrity. The method had spent two decades evolving from crude beginnings to what Shawver confidently calls 'very near perfection,' tested through severe conditions and proven in real barns across the region. For modern readers, whether restoration enthusiasts, traditional timber framers, or historians of American agricultural life, this book offers something rare: the actual voice of an early practitioner sharing knowledge that predates modern building codes and power tools. It is a time capsule of practical ingenuity, written for builders who understood that a barn must simply work.