Mike and I met the freight driver this afternoon to receive our Issue Three delivery! After unloading and stacking thousands upon thousands of copies into our storage facility, Mike and I plopped down on the ground and silently flipped through our copies. After a few minutes of quiet, we turned to each other and asked the obvious question, “What do you think?” We discussed the elements we spent time fussing over during the designing process. We nitpicked here and there but rejoiced to find no surprises. It turned out exactly as we envisioned it would. The nature of uncoated paper always seems a bit unpredictable so when it turns out as you’d hoped, it brings a sigh of relief. This...
Tomorrow is the last day to pre-order Issue Three so if you haven’t yet ordered consider this the last call for free (US) domestic shipping and the special pre-order wrapping with wax-sealed trade card. All magazine orders submitted after Tuesday will be mailed naked in our rigid mailer. This includes Issues One and Two. If you want any of these three issues wrapped, it’s now or never. You can get: A yearly subscription (#3 & #4) here. Issue One here. Issue Two here. Issue Three here. Mike and I have poured ourselves into this issue and we are super excited about how it turned out. One of my favorite pieces in this issue is about the passing of the craft...
Friday morning was the first day of fall and, boy, did it feel like it. The characteristic crisp nip in the air, the breeze, and even geese migrating overhead: All of it was right on cue. John had to head back to Vermont and Mike went to the Common Ground Fair with his family so Luke, Isaac, Matt, and I attached the roof sheathing to the rafters. We spent all day nailing these gorgeous 200-year-old hemlock boards in place. Because they had already cut, fit, and labeled the boards before bringing them up, the process went smoothly. The patina in these boards is sacred to this crew. Because they’ve worked so hard to de-nail, power wash, repair, straighten edges, and lay...
Yesterday we completed the frame. Matt suspended the ridge into place while Luke, John, and Isaac began assembling the round cedar rafters from one gable end. Luke said the first pair of rafters is the hardest, especially when they have diagonal braces and a collar tie to be installed along with them. After that gable end was secured, though, the rest popped into place without issue. As they worked through down the ridge, the manual lift help stabilize it and hold it at the optimum height (decreasing as they went along). This careful and methodical process was really impressive to watch. The whole process took several hours of careful adjustments and minor paring of the tails that were a hair...
Today began with finishing the bird's mouths for the rafters to seat into. Because the original roof system was damaged in a fire, Luke salvaged materials from other Vermont frames that weren’t going to be restored. Because the replacement ridge mortise layout was different than the original, the plates needed to be cut to match the ridge. While Mike and I cut the bird’s mouths, the rest of the team made preparations for the plates’ raising including installing a temporary deck on the second floor joists. Once the rafter joinery was complete, Matt lifted the first plate up to the posts and we began guiding it down into place while holding the six braces in position. Due to some unexpected...
This morning the crew gathered at 7:00 and devised a plan for raising the next three bents. The members between the bents are connected to each other with a 24’ long joist and so they were assembled as a unit and raised into place with a manual lift. The next bent was assembled on horses on the ground and carried into place by Matt via telehandler. This process continued all the way through to the fourth and final bent. Happily, there is little to report on because everything went so smooth. Even the twist in the joist between bent two and three was easily pulled into proper alignment. By the end of the day, we had all four bents assembled....
Today was the first day of the shop raising and, wow, was it momentous. The day started with finishing the new sill Luke, Matt, and Isaac began the day before. This 8” wide by 10” tall sill sits on top of the deck to raise the ceiling height. It is joined in the traditional manner with pegged mortise and tenon joints. After the sill was assembled and bolted to the deck, we began assembling the first (rearmost) bent. We assembled the joints on sawhorses and drilled and pegged each tenon. Peg sizes varied from 1-3/8” to 1” to 3/4” depending on the joint. Because the pegs Luke purchased weren’t available in the odd 1-3/8” size that this frame was made...
After Mike and I got all the granite blocks squared and leveled on the gravel pad, we fit hardware cloth over the ventilation spacing between the blocks to keep critters out. This cloth was bent around top and bottom of the blocks and glued in place with construction adhesive to ensure there was no way anything was getting under there. We laid six-mil plastic over the gravel inside the foundation to seal off future moisture release. Then, on top of the granite we half lapped a pressure-treated 2x6 to overhang the blocks by 1” on all sides. The conventional TJI deck was then constructed on top of that. These man-made joists are unpleasant to work with but are functional and...
All photographs by Jessica Smolinksi. Courtesy Yale University Art Gallery. Last Friday’s visit to the Yale Furniture Study went off without a hitch. The seven-hour drive was pleasant and quiet, bringing me into New Haven 45 minutes ahead of schedule. I hauled my tools and sample table parts down into the Study’s workshop and got things set up. I began the presentation by exploring three table examples from Yale’s collection. We had the tables upside down so that everyone could take a turn looking at the joinery under the table. I had the attendees specifically examine the tenon layout lines and the tenons’ pins protruding to the inside. To illustrate that these tables are constructed in the same way, we...
Mike and I have finally settled on a logo for M&T. We’ve spent two years going back and forth trying every idea under the sun: plane shavings, hand planes, joinery dissections, etc. None of it worked. We needed something dead simple that eluded to (but didn’t clobber you over the head with) the heartbeat of M&T. We knew the most effective logos (such as those of Apple, Nike, and Target) can be drawn in a few lines and are recognizable from across the room. After many abandoned designs, we decided on the one above. This drawing is from the title page of London-based painter and engraver William Hogarth’s 1753 book, The Analysis of Beauty. The image is simple, powerful, and beautiful....
