Inspired by Roman Woodworking

I've been reading a book called Roman Woodworking by Roger B. Ulrich, and I find it fascinating that so many of the forms we're used to are really thousands of years old. Handsaws, rules, plans, axes, adzes, chisels, hammers: all were similar in Roman times to what we use now.

I've spent a bit of time looking at and puzzling over the section on joinery. The Roman joints also mirror our modern joints, including butt joins, mortise and tenon, dovetail, and half lap. The author shows illustrations of them in use, and most of these are on the scale of buildings rather than furniture.

Since I've been working on outdoor wooden structures at my house, one joint caught my eye: a way of using wooden posts to cap the end grain of a fence or retaining wall. It looks like this:


The rebates in each post form a convenient cap for the end grain of the slats. While this is great for fences and composting boxes, I immediately thought of how it would be used in a porch:

Looks pretty good, and solves at least one problem of exterior wood exposure. Here's another view:

Notice that the rebates are cut unevenly. I believe this was in order to avoid having the end section snap off, as it might do if the rebates were closer together and in a position to intersect with one of the same growth rings.

Because they are unevenly cut, I found it is important to have the same sized rebate on each side of the structure. Notice how the posts above are mirror images to allow the same width of post to show. It would look rather odd otherwise.