Post and beam failure pictures/video

[Jim_Rogers]

I just posted the video for you to see what could happen if you don't do it right.

http://youtu.be/LEhCty-WvNs

Jim Rogers

[jimdad07]

That's a pretty big failure.  Are those 3/8" bolts?  Thinking only about 2" center to center?

[Brad_bb]

I would not have the bolts in line.  They should be staggered and the holes have sufficient bearing and shear area.

[S.Hyland]

   I'm guessing that this example was just someone "winging" it, hopefully not a "professional". I don't do metal plate connections like that, but it seems like a bad practice to interrupt the bottom chord like that without some sort of fully housed metal bracket. It looks as though someone took a 2x4 truss and tried to replicate it's format in heavy timber.
   It would be really interesting and educational at a guild conference or something like that for someone to put together a slideshow of TF   structural failures along with engineering commentary. I'll bet Ben Brungraber or someone like that would have loads of material. Something like that would be really educational. Ben once sent me a series of photos of hammerbeam failures, while we were working on the engineering for a project, and it was really eye opening!  There is nothing like seeing what can go wrong, to make someone resolve to never ever get ones self in that position!
   Thanks for posting that, Jim. It's always good to bear in mind the consequences of mistaken assumptions.

[LittleJohn]

Why would you every have a joint on the horizontal and point load on top of it