I’ve been training with my friends Paula & Robert of www.econest.com for the past few weeks. I’ve found my niche! I feel great joy when crafting, working with my hands, building a beautiful, healthy, holistic house with them. I will be documenting the many learning experiences I’ve had over the next few weeks…stay posted…
Here are some pictures of me working on sawing and chiseling my very first timber frame member…
Timber frame sawing with a special Japanese hand saw
Here I am chiseling the surface perfectly flat – 90 degrees in both x and y axis. It was so hard to do that I had to do it 2x and cut the whole thing back half an inch before I got it right.
Chiseling at 90 degrees perfectly flat to 1/32′ of an inch
Here you can see special markings indicating where and how the beam should be placed
Look at the cool suction marks that happened - looks like a tree branch...
I spent hours sanding my chisel on progressively finer japanese water sanding blocks – from 600 grit, to 800, to 1200, to 2000, to 8000 grit. Phew! That was intense!
Here you can see how dull it is after only the first level of sanding (half an hour or so of work)
Here finally after about 3 hours or so, you can start to see the reflection of the trees above through the shine – WOW!
Even the insects are 'green' & sustainable!
Sometimes, the coolest bugs would drop by….
Laying out the timber beams to cut the mortise & tennon joints
There were about 20 of us, off and on, cutting, sawing, chiseling the joints in many pieces of timber – it was a joyous experience for several days….
Taking a break for lunch and giving thanks for the scrumptious meals that I helped Paula Baker Laporte make as well each day
Detail of Japanese Timber Frame brace - one of the pieces that I made...
Detail of a timber frame joint connection in process of coming together
Standing in front of a great accomplishment finally with the team – Feeling the satisfaction of one beam integrated with 2 posts and the second horizontal member ‘Japanese Brace’ all in place finally on the first side of the square – Yeah!!!