Preface

The former edition of this Treatise, forming one of Weale's Rudimentary series, gave a brief outline of the Carpentry of floors and roofs, together with a popular account of the action of forces in the several pieces which compose a truss. The present edition, whilst it retains a considerable portion of the former one, is also greatly enlarged, and is in the main an abridgment of Tredgold's folio work on Carpentry.

Alterations, additions, and corrections have been made wherever the advanced knowledge of the strength of materials and the science of Carpentry proved such to be necessary.

The mode of calculating the strains on the parts of a truss by geometrical diagrams is explained, and an example given; the tables of scantlings for the timbers of roofs being calculated by the help of this process.

The subject of Joinery, which was altogether omitted in the former edition, has a considerable space allotted to it, and is made an important feature in the present work; the various technical terms and modes of operation adopted by the Joiner being explained as far as the limits of the work would permit.

The book is illustrated with numerous engravings, so as to render it, as far as possible, complete in itself; but frequent reference is made in its pages to an Atlas of Plates, published, as formerly, in a separate volume, in which will be found a large number of examples of the various works which come under the denominations of Carpentry and Joinery.

E. W. T.

January, 1873.