. BALLOON FRAMES. 

 By Geo. E. Woodwakd, Architect and Civil Engineer, 29vBroadway, N. Y. 



[The papers given below originally appeared in the " Country Gentleman." 

 Mr. Woodward courteously permits their re-publication here. They will be 

 found worthy perusal by all interested in building.] 



In these days of ballooning it is gratifying to know that there is one prac- 

 tically useful, well tested principle which has risen above the character of an 

 experiment, and is destined to hold an elevated position in the opinions of the 

 masses. That principle is the one applied in the construction of what are 

 technically, as well as sarcastically, termed Balloon Frames, as applied to the 

 construction of all classes of wooden buildings. 



Since Solon Robinson's description of the mode of building balloon frames, 

 published a few years ago in the New York Tribune, there appears to have 

 been but little further information furnished on the subject. 



Who the originator was is not known ; the system is not patented. The 

 first approach in that direction is a plan for a portable cottage or tent, or a 

 combination of both, published in Loudon's Encyclopedia of Architecture, 

 some twenty years ago. it is more than probable, however, that the balloon 

 frame has been known since the early settlement of the West, or after the 

 demand for a class of buildings above the grade of a log cabin. The settlers 

 on the prairies, remote from timber, now tind, as a matter (jf economy, that 

 frame buildings are the most desirable, a comfortable log cabin really costing 

 more money ; and from the fact of portable buildings or frames being prepared 

 at the mills or larger towns, and with absolute conditions of lightness for 

 transportation and economy in construction, shows pretty conclusively tho 

 origin of the so-called Balloon Frames — a frame that, throughout the great 

 West, is almost exclusively used in the construction of every grade of wooden 

 buildings, from a corn-crib to the largest railroad freight depot — adapted to 

 sustaining heavy loads ; entirely secure from lateral thrust ; without a mortice 

 or tenon or brace; exposed to all the fury of the prairie blasts, it stands, 

 ■with more than 30,000 examples of every conceivable size and form, a perfect 

 success. 



So general is its use west of Lake Michigan and throughout California, that 

 a builder of the old style of timber frame would be regarded with the same 

 sympathy as a man who prefers to travel by stage instead of by rail. 



The decreased amount of timber to be used, the whole labor of chopping, 

 hewing and framing dispensed with ; the great economy in its construction, 

 and the ease with which any intelligent man who can lay out a riglit angle 

 and adjust a plumb line may do his own building, are among its recommenda- 

 tions. 



The moment the foundation is prepared and the bill of lumber on the 

 ground, the balloon frame is ready to raise, and a man and boy can do all of 

 it. The sills are generally 3 inches by G inches, halved at the ends or corners, 

 and nailed together with large nails. Having laid the sills upon the founda- 

 tion, the next thing in order is to put up the studding. Take a 2 bj 4 stud 



