I’m cutting the frame for a solarium. Under the watchful eye of my boss, but as the Lead on this project (!), I’ve laid out knee braces, posts, tie and ridge beams, and made mortises and tenons, routed out housings, and drilled peg holes galore. I’m cutting cleaner, working faster, and wrapping my head around the trigonometry involved a bit better everyday. Exiting times in the life of an apprentice timber framer! :)
More images from the tadelakt workshop with Ryan Chivers of Artesano Plaster that I attended last weekend -
Top to bottom: Freshly applied tadelakt plaster on a tile and a ball; ‘stoning’ the tadelakt to achieve the smoothness and waterproofing; finished balls and tiles, with some of the stones used; applying the first coat of tadelakt to the bathroom walls; soaping the tadelakt with olive oil soap; a bit of scrafito detailing on a finished tadelakt tile.
Before and after pictures from a tadelakt project in a bathroom that I helped with recently. A picture can’t capture the way this traditional Moroccan lime plaster feels - luxuriously smooth and soft. Nor can it accurately depict the amount of loving labor involved in getting the tadelakt to that state!
The treehouse in Salem is coming along - as is spring!
Diana Wynne Jones (1934-2011)
I’m a woodworker by trade now, but I still mess around with paper in my free time!
Here are the two sets of sawhorses I’ve built recently, using timber framing techniques. The first set took me the better part of 6 days, as I learned various ways to go about cutting mortises and tenons, and how to use a variety of tools. The second set took me roughly 16 hours to complete. I learned an outrageous amount while building these, and have a better understanding now of just how much more there is to learn! Onward.
Some fun joinery in the Rotary Pavilion in Salem, OR, which my boss (owner of Oregon Timberworks) worked on with other members of the Timber Framers Guild a few years ago.
Hall Tree House Raising, a set on Flickr.
I’ve been working for Oregon Timberworks for a few weeks. I spent all of last week helping with a raising - a “tree house” for some folks in Salem, OR. It’s been a fun experience and super hard work. I’m learning a ton - how to use so many different tools, and how to put these giant puzzle pieces together to form a structure. I even got to cut two of the mortises on this frame and to my relief the opposite tenons fit and everything carried on smoothly! We will return to the building site on Tuesday to start laying down decking and finish the “house” part.
Tis the season for paper carving…! Someday I’ll get an exacto knife, but this year I once again applied pocket knife to paper and made some bizarre/beautiful and geeky snowflakes. While the designs were inspired by images I discovered online, the Tardis-flake has some additions unique to me and the seahorse-flake and tree-flake were more or less hand drawn.
I did another Storm Trooper-flake this year but forgot to photograph it. For the curious, here’s a bit about last year’s paper carving (which should still have good links to the Star Wars snowflake designs).
Happy holidays!
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Chicken Coupe
