List of timber framing tools
Wikimedia list article

Tools used in traditional timber framing date back thousands of years. Similar tools are used in many cultures, but the shapes vary and some are pulled rather than pushed.
Gallery
Preparing timbers
Conversion of logs into timbers was often done by someone other than the timber framer including a lumberjack, sawyer, farmer, or laborer using a variety of tools including:
Whipsaw types of rip saws used in the conversion of logs into timbers in a saw pit
felling, carpenter's, and broad axes are used in hewing.
Sawmill
Wood splitting, also called riving uses wedges, splitting mauls, and/or froes.
Historically most timbers were used green but some went through a process of wood drying using some tools and equipment.
Marking and measuring tools
Tools for marking out and measuring:
A rule, now better known as a ruler and similar to a yard stick, is used to measure.
Repeated measurements often use a storey pole
Carpenter's marks were made with a race knife, chisel, gouge, saw, grease pencil, chalk pencil, or lead pencil.
Chalk line or ink line used to snap lines on the wood. Ink and a slurry of charcoal were used like chalk.
Carpenter pencil
Scratch awl or similar tools were used to scratch lines on wood before the pencil was commonly used beginning in the 19th century in the U.S.
Try square
Steel square is also known as a framing square.
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