Monday, November 11, 2013

Veteran's Day Siding




Every time I visit the little building I feel good.  And the progress continues.  This morning (Veterans Day), I went down and set up some sawhorses to finish one side.  I only have a few hours of battery life on the saw, so I've been working in short increments, but today I started to get the feel of what the building will look like. I worked up to the rafter tails on one side and got started on the door end of the building.  A little chain saw work was needed to clean up one of the main posts, but the rest went quite smoothly.  Now I'm getting the itch to finish it.  I may go after it this week, and try and get a full eight hours in, and just use a hand saw, or see if I can bum some power.  Regardless, it's getting close.

It's also interesting working with wood that was handled by carpenters 123 years ago.  Their writing is on the rough side.  Measurements like 56 4/5 are marked out in pencil in long looping handwriting.  I'm trying to keep as many of those visible on the outside of the building, but occasionally I'll have to discard one or two because of cracked wood or a section of rot or mold.  It's sort of cool to have some connection to the past like that.


I also am including a water color painting of the original train station that the wood came from.  I think I'll have to go to the local library to find a photo of the station, but the person I bought the wood from had this painting.



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