beam me up

Here's one of the beams with an intricately carved end that will fit into other beams and posts. Carpenters now use a combination of traditional joinery techniques like these and metal fittings and fastenings that have been dictated by the government in order to make buildings more earthquake resistant. The joinery cuts used to be all done by hand with saw and chisel. Now they're cut with machine tools to computer specifications. According to the carpenters, the pieces fit much more tightly now, since everything is much more uniform. Still, I remember watching some carpenters many years ago make these intricate cuts on site, and they seemed to fit just fine. I doubt whether the house would have gone up quite as quickly, though.


A few of the tools they used to lift the beams onto the posts.


Most of the lumber pieces have also been marked by computer with their placement location so all the carpenters instantly know where it goes. They've also been marked with my name on each piece.