INSIDE THE WORKSHOP
We draw the frame in 3D before any oak is cut, and our consulting engineer checks every frame we make. Our standard oak is French and green, with the sapwood cut out at the mill. Machines do the plain cuts and our carpenters cut the complex joints by hand. Every frame is put together in the workshop before it goes to site to be raised.
THE TEAM
Every frame is assembled and pegged by our carpenters, in our workshop near Abergavenny.
1 · DESIGN
It starts with a design visit to your site, and we draw the frame as a 3D model in Shapr3D. Nothing is cut until the design is signed off, because a frame cut wrong can't be adjusted on site.
How is an oak frame designed? →2 · OAK
Our oak is grown in France, and most frames are cut from it green, because sections this size are rarely available dry. We pay our sawmills more to cut the sapwood out during milling. Sapwood is allowed even in the highest visual grades, but it is the part of the board most vulnerable to insect attack and decay, and paying to lose it is the simplest way we know of making sure the frame lasts. Where a project uses air-dried oak instead, we can't guarantee it's sap-free, because it comes to us already cut.
Braces show shrinkage most, so we cut them from air-dried oak as standard.
3 · CUTTING
Until 2026 every joint we cut was cut by hand. We now have the plain work, planing, simple mortices and square tenons, machined on the CNC at our sawmill from our own files, which also gives us a regular section instead of oak varying by 10 to 20mm.
The complex joints, the shaping of posts and jowls, everything curved or scribed, the fitting and the pegging are still done by our carpenters, and some jobs are still cut entirely by hand.
4 · TEST ASSEMBLY
Yes. Every frame, from a porch up, is put together in the workshop before it leaves. The frame is made to the millimetre, so the base it stands on has to match it, and it is checked before delivery.
On a well-run job the base is built while the frame is on the bench, not after it. That is what keeps the time on site short.
5 · RAISING
The frame arrives in pieces and goes up on the base. A porch frame takes a day, a three-bay garage two, and a single-storey extension frame two to four. It is the noisiest day of the job and the only one worth taking off work to watch.
After that come the roof, cladding, glazing and doors. On supply and install, that is where your builder takes over.
COME AND SEE US
The frame on the stocks, the carpenters at work, and a cup of tea.
Arrange a visitTALK TO US
The fastest way to find out if your project is one we'd take on.
01873 379050
