When I lived at home when I was young we had timber frame barns and the house was timber frame. I have a pretty fair memory of what the barn looked like inside and out. Think I will build a scale model of the old barn. I have a pretty good judgement of measurements. Our barn had four bents spaced about 20 feet apart making the barn about 60 feet long.

In this video it was all manpower and brute strength. When I was younger there were still some old timers around who worked on barn raisings. They told of the dangers that use to occur and there have been many accidents and deaths during barn raisings. 

You see in the video the men lifting up individual pieces for the barn. Solid timbers that long and that size are stinkin heavy. Those main timbers used in barns are something like 10 x 10 inches or there about.

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Historic Timber Frame Barn Raising

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpBCIv-yTok