Once classes wrapped up this past September (2019), we got to work on the foundation for our new Dutch timber framed building (which I wrote about in my last post).

Here are some highlights of the process of creating the foundation.
Spoiler alert: first photo above is of the finished work.

Dan was in charge of fabricating 12 tapered, wooden forms for the foundation piers. He used salvaged wood from Kenneth’s famous POPs (Piles Of Potential).

Each tapered, wooden pier form was custom made and then scribed to the ledge in place. The taper is helpful for frost heaves, but mostly we use the taper to provide a wider base of support.

Here, Lily and Kenneth lower one of the tallest forms into place. They were working on scribing the form to the contour of the ledge, so the form needed to be placed, the scribe line drawn, form removed and cut, then placed in the hole again. (Repeat, until the connection was right)
It was a custom fit for each of the 12 forms.

One corner of the foundation met the granite ledge about 5’ down, the other corners were much shallower, more like 1’ or 2’ deep, so only two of the forms were as large as the one you see Kenneth and Lily working with above.

5/8” rebar was drilled about 6” into the granite in the center of each pier to serve as a pin.

The forms were positioned and then backfilled with the displaced earth and then gravel. Our farmer friend Ben, below, was instrumental in cheerfully helping with the earth-moving work.

Kenneth, below, grinds the rebar to the appropriate height so that it reaches below the level of the concrete and does not show in the finished pier.

It was a bit much to get all 12 wooden pier forms level on top. Each was a different height overall, and each was buried at a different depth down to the ledge.

Therefore in order to be able to guarantee a consistent height for our finished concrete tops, Kenneth “shot” a mark across the tops of the wooden forms with a transit level, starting with the shortest form of course.

Then we drove a nail through the wood at the level mark on each of the other piers. The nail was visible on the inside of the form and allowed us to fill each one just right.

And here’s the concrete.
We requested the fiber-mix, which is ultimately stronger.

Austin taps the form with a hammer to help move air bubbles up and out of the concrete.

The wooden forms were dismantled above grade. We’ll leave the wood to rot below the soil, since digging the piers out again is just too much moving of dirt.

We're fond of the wood grain now forever visible on the piers. It reminds us of Kenneth's late friend Huston Dodge, whose life-long salvaging skills provided the boards we used.

The final task before winter sets in is to spread gravel over the mud and around all the finished concrete piers, then we’ll be ready to go in the spring.

The structure will pop up pretty quickly, now that the foundation is ready and the joinery has all been cut by Kenneth and Amy Umbel during the spring of 2019.  

This blog entry is basically a re-telling of the story which I documented in a series of posts on Instagram - check those posts if you’d like more information about some of our many helpers during this project.

All the best to all of you,
Angela Kortemeier

Work began on a new timber framed structure this past winter (2019) here at the craft school. The 16’ x 19’ building will be a comfortable place for sharing lunches and also fika (that’s the traditional Swedish tea break) during our classes.
The upper floor of the structure will be a year round home for Angela’s office.

We decided to build another timber framed structure versus some other building style first of all because we really enjoy the process of building this way.

We also had Amy Umbel arrive in April to help as our spring intern.
She was especially interested in learning about joinery and non-sculptural wood working, so this project suited her hopes for learning with us very well.

But the most tangible and practical (and wonderful) reason comes down to our friends/former students Dave and Kim Landry, who donated the timbers, processed and delivered, for this new building.

During the first two seasons of classes at the craft school, we shared meals under a large canvas tarp, generally a lovely place to gather.
But when the rain and wind intensify during a storm it can be wet and cold, especially toward fall.

In fact, it was last September (2018) while Dave and Kim were taking a spoon carving class with Jögge Sundqvist that Dave decided it was time for us to build a more solid structure and offered the means to do so.

The Landrys generously thinned some of their acreage in New Hampshire of some very large hemlock trees in January, and we joined them in February to assist at their saw mill to create the posts, beams and other dimensional lumber for the project.

This style of timber frame is called a Dutch Frame.
That means it has high posts along the eve walls and the tie beam (or anchor beam) will connect into the posts near the top plate with wedged dovetailed through-tenons.

By placing the posts close together and limiting the length of the tie beams to 16’, there is no need for central posts or floor joists on the second floor.

To reduce potential twisting and leveraging of the posts by the rafters, we have limited the height of the posts to 12” above the anchor beam.

The extra length of post that comes up above the second floor will create a short knee wall. This knee wall will raise the rafters up a bit and make it a more livable space.

We chose this type of frame partially because it has multiple bents that are all very similar. This makes cutting joinery with people who are new to timber framing much easier.
We knew we’d have lots of people who wanted to participate and learn with us while we were working on this building, so we chose a design which accommodated that.

This size & style frame, very common in Euro-American timber framing because of its simplicity, could easily be made into a tiny house and would be a good choice for someone wanting to cut their first timber frame.

If you would like to learn more about Dutch frames and their history in America there is an article from Winterthur Portfolio by Clifford Zink - linked here.

There are three basic joints we have used in this frame.
The most complex one is the wedged dovetail through-mortise,
it’s also the strongest joint for this application by far.

The dovetail through-mortise joint is used to hold the 6x8” posts and the 8x9” tie beams together. The tie beams will do double duty and function as joists or carrying beams for the second floor.

For the corners of the 8x10” sill, we have chosen a joint that our friend
Micheal Alderson introduced to Kenneth.

Michael said he found this joint in an old barn here in Maine and has always liked it because of its strength and minimally exposed seams. Exposed joint seams can introduce rot into the sill, so it’s an excellent, well protected joint.

For the 4x6” floor joists on the first floor or deck, we have a simple housed joist pocket. This joint is interesting because of the curved “dive” that is cut on the underside of the joist to reduce its thickness as it is let into the sill.

This is done because we want maximum stiffness in the joist but it would weaken the sill to take a full thickness mortise. The strength of the joist is a bit reduced by cutting away the thickness, but it remains plenty strong for this application and we retain the stiffness of the joist by keeping it as thick as possible across the central span of the joist.

The joist dive is curved to spread out the forces and to prevent splitting the joist at the reductions. Kenneth has seen joists split that were cut with a square notch (which concentrates the forces acting on the joist), therefore he likes the gradual curve to spread weight & force out over a longer distance.

It has been such a wet spring here that work on the foundation for the building has been delayed. And now it’s time to get the shop organized and ready for this summer’s classes, so we’ve decided to stack and cover the (mostly cut) timbers of the new frame for the time being.

We’ll get back to work and raise it next spring, once the ground is thawed enough to allow us to start digging holes for all the foundation piers.
Looks like one more summer under the big tarp.

Sometimes Huston did a good job of keeping things covered and sometimes not so much. There are hundreds of stacks of boards, generally all of them now have years of organic material piled on top.

Sometimes he had covered them with sheet metal - those held up better than the ones which he covered with tarps. Sometimes he had stickered them, these generally had boards which were in much better shape.

Usually the top layer or two was pretty well rotted, and then you’d have some good boards in the middle and then as you got closer to the ground you’d find more rot.

Sometimes the rot was in the form of mycelium running through the boards, sometimes carpenter ants had gotten in there, but mostly it was water damage
and fungus.

Never the less, it’s pretty amazing to think that one person amassed so much stuff in an effort to keep things from being thrown away or wasted, like a little snapshot of how much has actually gone to the dump in our culture.

It is a sad thing to me that a lot of Huston’s efforts did not manifest into new projects, and much of what he collected is on its way to returning to dirt.

I’m really glad that I can use a few of his materials so that there will be something of his that is tangible and able to continue on into the future, in a way that I know he would have liked.

Not all of the materials for our school building will come from Huston's.
I have posts, tie beams and studding from a reclaimed building I bought several years ago.
We have bought new wood for the rafters and the bottom plate.

Our friend Andrew donated these tie beams which have been a key part of our new structure, I’m particularly fond of them since they are hand hewn, which dates them to be the oldest beams in the building.

Hand hewing was often done on-site; people would fell a tree, hew it up and put it into the building right there.
The marks that you see in this photo have been made by squaring up the tree with an scoring axe, followed by work with an adze and a broad axe to smooth and finish.

These are all old growth hemlock beams with tight growth rings, maybe 1/32” apart.

These tie beams have joist pockets that will create the floor structure for the 2nd floor of the building.

This photo shows beams that were sawn with a water powered saw mill.
Huston called these up-down saws. They were basically a big frame saw.

Think of a section of a band saw blade (one that is not connected to itself in a circle) locked into a frame. This frame is attached to a series of cogs and a track, and every time the saw retracts after having sawn down through the wood, the log is moved forward one increment before the saw blade comes down again.
So you get those very regular marks from the saw, as well as distinct little marks from the cog as it moves the log along.

Most of the siding boards we have were also sawn with up-down saw mills that would have been water powered.

Circular saw mills didn’t really come into this area the until the late 1800’s,
before that it was all water-powered saw mills.

A circular saw of course leaves round saw marks, you would have seen those more after the Civil War, when they became more popular.

Here’s a shot of our newer beams, the ones we bought for the bottom
floor system, with modern circular saw marks.

We didn’t have any of the first floor system from the building which I had bought, I assume it had all been rotted.

We’ll be using new hemlock for the floor structure of the ground level as well as the roof rafters. This new, 2nd growth wood ultimately has a much lower weight and density, with wider growth rings. 
It's still all very heavy right now since it’s so freshly cut and full of water.

All these windows are from Huston’s. There are a variety of sashes here, the bottom white ones are a little bit thicker, they’re solid wood but they’re machine made.

The thinner ones above are all handmade with lovely through-cut mortise and tenon joinery, they are hand-planed with special moulding profile planes.
Huston actually had all the wooden moulding planes for making wooden window sashes.

These windows will all need to have frames made and be reglazed. The wood will need to be treated with linseed oil and some of the glass needs to be replaced.

All the windows have 9 over 6 lights, that is 9 panes of glass in the upper sash, above 6 panes in the lower sash, which you see on historic houses around here.

Our new/old windows will all need to have frames made and be reglazed. The wood will need to be treated with linseed oil and some of the glass needs to be replaced.

These are grown braces that we’ll use to place in the building to prevent our timber frame from racking.
Some of the limbs of these knees are over 3’ long. They’re pretty massive.

The four posts in the middle of the workshop space, upstairs and down, will get knees to connect them to the second floor structure. You’d be more likely to hit your head on a brace, which is connected with 45 degree angles from the posts to the tie beams, and therefore intrude into the room a lot more, so we’re happy to have these beautiful knees instead.

There were a lot of ship builders in this part of the country, and knees were used on ships to save space inside, so I think that some of those folks must have lent their skills to sawing knees for buildings as well as boats.

Here I have filled an old mortise (one that we won’t be using) with a plug of wood. That’s so we won’t have so many voids in the post and it will be less confusing during assembly if we have mortise pockets only where we need them.

This photo shows a beam (clearly cut with a water powered saw mill) with an old mortise.

The layout lines are interesting, the X shows that this is a place where the wood needed to be removed for a mortise.

Especially interesting is that we have been re-using a lot of these old lines for our new layout, someone back in the 19th century often marked 2” in from the edge, just where we are needing a mark today.

Angela asked me how I know what the different marks mean and how
I can estimate the ages of some of these elements.

Huston, of course, would point things out to me when I visited
and talked with him, but I have been doing work for a few years with
Michael Alderson Restorations.
Michael restores timber framed buildings in this area, occasionally with enough attention to detail to recreate a period correct frame.
That is, if a structure had been repaired with newer wood, Michael’s team will remove those beams or boards and find vintage material to replace it with, so that a truly old house will be restored to the way it had be built before the Civil War.
We had a lot of practice identifying the different ways which a timber frame had been sawn and worked."                     - KK

some specific species to look for

As a general rule, if the tree or shrub produces fruits or nuts, even non-edible ones, it’s generally going to be a good choice for carving.

The wood should have a uniform density and tight, fairly consistent grain and a solid pith (that’s the center point of a branch or limb).

I grew up and have spent most of my time on the east coast of the United States, so apologies to those who live in different regions —
it’s possible that the varieties I list do not grow where you are.
The general fruit or nut rule applies to any region though.

Some good species here in Maine are lilac, apple, beech and hornbeam. These four are some of the harder, more advanced woods for carving around here. For starting out or if you are feeling like your hands need
a break, try white birch or red maple.

In Southern Appalachia the rhododendron and mountain laurel are fine for carving. “Spoon wood” is actually a regional name for Mountain Laurel.

The black birch, tulip poplar, cherry, walnut, and the American holly
are all good. In the magnolia family, the Southern or Frasier are good choices. Any fruit trees, such as cherry, apple, peach, pear, dogwood,
or mulberry are great choices.

The ideal carving woods are ones that have a consistent density and close grain, rather than open or ring porous grain.
Such consistently dense woods will allow you to carve more detail and achieve crisp facets and polished looking tool marks.

          birch (good for carving)                           red maple (good for carving)                          striped maple (not so good)

Wood that is more porous, with different densities between the early and late growth rings can be challenging to carve because your knife will jump a bit between the soft and hard rings as you’re pushing your knife along. It’ll be hard to make nice, consistent cuts.

If you carve a spoon out of some kind of very porous wood those pores might wind up on some of your edges. If so, those edges are going to be brittle and problematic, they’ll appear to have a rough texture.

The surface of your carving will look rough and your cuts will lack definition. It will also be difficult to get a slick surface when you oil and finish your project.

An example of wood that has inconsistent grain density between early growth rings and late growth rings is Southern Yellow Pine. Examples of woods with more consistent densities are Bass wood or White Birch.

Once you find wood, here are some things to notice and consider

green wood:
We’re mostly talking about using what’s called green wood versus dry wood.
It’s ok to carve items from dried wood, but it’s generally easier to carve green wood.
Green wood just means that it still has moisture in it, that it was freshly cut.

You can cut a section of wood and then freeze it to help contain the moisture and greenness.
Keeping a chunk of wood in the refrigerator, or leaving it in the snow or outside if it stays below freezing are good ways to preserve the moisture in your green wood until you can get around to carving it.
Place green wood in a plastic bag to help hold the moisture, even if you’ve got it in the refrigerator or freezer (think freezer burn).

I have put wood in a flowing stream or pond and kept it submerged with rocks as weights. This works in a pinch for a short period of time but eventually it will begin to rot and discolor if left underwater for more than a handful of days.

If you cut a fresh branch and then let it sit in the sun, your wood will start to dry out and often that will cause it to develop cracks or checks.
So if you have found some green wood, it’s better to either go ahead and carve it as soon as possible. Otherwise put it in the refrigerator or freezer until you can get to it.
Wood can be kept for years wrapped in plastic in a freezer. I like to re-wet the surface of the wood before wrapping it in plastic to give it a layer of ice on the surface, I think it is extra insurance against drying out.

dimensions:
The size of the tree or branch will of course dictate how big your project can be.
I’ll list some general guidelines — Chopsticks only need a branch or shoot about 1/2” to 3/4” in diameter, by about 12” long.
For a serving spoon you need a limb that’s not much larger than about 4” in diameter. You can get away with a smaller diameter for eating spoons, maybe down to 2” in diameter. If you want to do a ladle you need to find something with a larger diameter.

crookedness and imperfections:
Straight grained wood it is fairly easy to find, you can often just get a chunk of firewood and split out a section for a spoon or some other project.
I personally think that more interesting looking spoons are usually made from curved branches, so keep your eye out for curved wood and give it a try.

You’ll want to keep and eye out for knots and other imperfections that might make it challenging to carve your spoon.
Aim for wood that doesn’t have a lot of knots in it — if you’ve found a piece of green wood you want to check for deformities in the bark that would show where hidden branches have grown over. You might find that just the top part of a limb has knots and hidden branches while the bottom doesn’t, so you might be able to use just half of it.

I’ll get into more information about spoon design, layout and probably something about steam bending wood for curved spoons in a future blog entry. For now I’m hopeful that this will get things rolling in the right direction for budding green woodworkers.”   - KK