Where did the butt and pass method originate??

[heavyopp]

Hello all. I am very new here. I just found the site a few days ago. I've been reading a lot of new info to me.

I have a question --- Is this method of building something Skip came up with?

How long have log homes been made with the B&P method? What kind of history does it have?

Thanks for any info. I look forward to spending a whole lot of time here.

Jer

[Shark]

I am not sure of dates etc, but a few months back I saw an interesting show on PBS about the original settlers that came to North America, & they showed how they used to use butt & pass shelters, with smaller sticks/branches to pin the layers together.
Very interesting show, so from that, I'd gather it's been around quite a while.

Skips method is more 'up-to-date' of course, due to building codes etc.

I'm sure other members will have some more detailed info.

[heavyopp]

I did google butt and pass construction. I came up with not a whole lot of info.

It is obvious that Skip is not the creator. It also seems that there are a few Kit builders using some form of it.

Jer

[mhiles]

Very very old method of building. Carved hardwood pins were originally used long before rebar.

[adubar]

Back, way back in the days when I was an archeology student (changed my major 10 times!) I remember examples of butt and pass from very far cornerof the globe that ranged from a few hundred to a few thousand years old. One example that stuck in my mind used sinew or some other cord like material to weave or rather stich the logs together. It reminded me of the method of boat building that is still practiced ins some parts of the Arab world. Iron spikes in other examples held them together as well as wood pins.


If you look at the simplicity of the stacking method, it surely would have been one of the first that man figured out. Especially for the fact that is is less labor intensive in pregaring the logs. You see the same thing in boat building. Our modern NA's can't really improve on hull shapes that were fashioned by our ancestors thousands of years ago using simple observation, an artful aye and intuition.

-A

[clairenj]

Northern Russia has petrified log structures that probably were temples and they date at about 1000 years old! Some have onate turnip style turrets or towers all of log! I will find the book and post that info....

[adubar]

A thing or, rather an argument, that I seem to run across from detractors to the butt & Pass method is the fact that one does not see more old examples that are still standing. They usually then point out all the cabins on the Eastern Coast of North America (usually, because they live in close proximity and/or they have a very thin knowldege about architectural history) and say" well, you see all of those, they are old and they are still standing. They must be "better."

I think if the casual reader stops and thinks, in history are there many examples of "common tools?" Or, do we tend to have more examples of tools and artifacts that had a special meaning or purpose? The truth is, we tend to see more of the later. We also tend to see artifacts that are in better condition than others when the specific artifact was not actually ever used during the owners' time or any following generations---OR, that had a "special meaning" therefore were taken better care of.

Like one historian/archeologist once pointed out about making assumptions about what was common in a previous era by using only what is left from that time period for your statistical analysis---go to any shoe sale where there are men's shoes.

Look for a size 10 (43 in Europe and is/was the averag size shoe for Europeans and Americans for the past millinium or so). If you find some, compare how many of them you find on the sales rack compared to larger and smaller sizes.

This will show you something that you may never have thought of or took for granted.

The simple fact is that commonly used and well constructed items get used up--they are reused at a far greater rate than other objects. There is probably a good case to make that many old b & p structures were dismantled for their logs. The logs used for fuel or lumber.
Very handy objects are very often taken for granted by the users in their time.


If we go to a land fill, we might find the missing size 10 shoes--in hordes!
If we could only trace every piece of lumber in older houses and reassemble the ashes of fires, we might find the missing strucutres.

-A

[heavyopp]

Adubar -- You certainly make a point. Now that you mention it - I have to think about all those old timber framed barns. They are always being taken apart for their beams. Either resawn for flooring or the actual entire beams being used for new construction. Used to be lots of them in eastern pa. Now they are almost extinct.

There was a place just a few miles away that used to do the cutting of the old wood. They usually always had something interesting around.

Jer