‘building materials’ Category

If you give the artisans an oak tree…

December 8th, 2012 by Rick McKee

…they’ll want to build a house with it.

And if they build a new house, they’ll need to take the old one down first.

Making a new house reminds them that they’ll need a plan.

So they’ll meet with old friends, and they’ll open books and make drawings.

Once they have a plan, they’ll want to hew round logs square.

And to hew round logs into timbers for building, they’ll need the right ax.

So their blacksmith will make them one.

They’ll need charcoal to bring iron and steel to a great heat.

For that they’ll build a collier’s pit and burn the earth and the wood inside.

And if they build a coal-pit in a field, they’ll need to mow tall hay with a scythe.

Once they have the field, the pit, the charcoal, and the ax, they can hew the oak.

When they’re finished hewing one, they’ll want to hew another.

And another.

And another.

And when they’ve squared enough timber,

they’ll pit-saw some of the big pieces into smaller ones.

They’ll start pit-sawing.

The work will remind them of old friends they used to saw with.

Some will even come to saw with them.

Soon, they’ll have enough timber to frame a cottage.

And if they build a house, they’ll probably want to put a roof on it.

So they’ll put down their axes and go to the marsh to gather thatch.

And after they go to the marsh for thatch, they’ll need a place to dry all of it.

When the thatch has seasoned and been put away, they’ll want to return to the frame.

They’ll scratch their heads and pull their beards & carefully lay out the oak timbers.

To cut the joints, they’ll need sharp chisels and saws.

When they start joining parts together, they’ll want to share their labors

with people who are interested in what they do.

When enough timbers are ready, they’ll need to clear the lot,

and dig holes for the corner posts.

They’ll join the squared oak pieces together on the ground.

And because the oak is heavy, they’ll invite some friends to come help them raise the frame.

After two posts are put in, they’ll all want to put in two more,

and set them firmly in the ground.

And having so many friends there to help, they’ll want to carry over big timbers

to put on top of the posts and beams.

And chances are, if they build a house where the old one once stood…


…they’ll want an oak tree to help finish it.

 

photos by Marie Pelletier, Peter Follansbee, and Sally Rothemich

 

 

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Posted in blacksmith, building materials, charcoal making, hewing, oak, pit-sawing, The Francis Cooke House, timber frame | 19 Comments

Last kerf

November 24th, 2012 by Rick McKee

Well, another interpretive season is in the books. Time to lose the beards and drop the regional English dialects. Time to exchange our pipkins for coffee cups and our canvas for carhartts.

If we may say it, we finished the year in fine fashion, introducing thousands of museum guests to the unmitigated joy that is Plimoth Plantation’s saw-pit. Each Thanksgiving, we wrap up the year with a bonanza of pit-sawing–it’s our version of Thanksgiving football.

'tis like unto x-box, only different.

Several notable guests took turns joining us in the pit, including Mark’s son, who shows some promise as a pitman. Old friend and former artisan Rick C. happily took a turn below and he didn’t miss a beat. Bob Reimel, who’s runs a portable saw mill and does some amazing work, stopped by because, we assume, he wanted to see some “real” sawing. He had never pit-sawn before, so we convinced him to give it a try. Bob rocked the pit with an unorthodox but effective full-body technique. He even did a little steering on his own accord when we started trending off the line. Very impressive! This man understands sawing and wood-grain in any century and with any saw.

Some enthusiastic young people helped us carry the newly quartered oak away from the saw-pit, much to the delight of their parents. I’ve never seen a 4 x 4 x 8′ walking  to its destination with so many shuffling feet. Many hands make light the labor. It was a fitting way to conclude our public season.

Prognosticators say the coming winter will be snowier and more “winter-like” than last, whose mild temperatures led to dandelions in January. Que sera sera–our off-season checklist is extensive, and includes standing up the Cooke house frame in addition to much-needed maintenance of existing houses. Through it all, we’ll keep you posted.

We haven’t said it in a while: Thanks for your readership and support of The Riven Word! Thanks for subscribing and commenting on our posts and for keeping us honest and on-point. It’s a journey of discovery and we’re tickled to have you along for the ride!

Send us off with a flourish, Keegan!

 

 

To have The Riven Word delivered directly to your email, click on this link.

 

 

 

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Posted in building materials, maintenance, pit-sawing, The Francis Cooke House | 7 Comments

A feat of clay

November 16th, 2012 by Rick McKee

Serendipity, thy name is clay.

It just so happens that our recent daub damage has coincided with a local excavator’s discovery of clay.

Mike Mulligan hello?

Jim Halunen Brush Cutting and Mowing and Cheney Trucking and Materials have been digging a septic pit in the White Horse Beach area of Plymouth, about 10 miles south of Plimoth’s original settlement.  To find the right ”percolation rate” they’ve had to dig deep on this particular lot.  Several feet down, they came upon a nice deposit of clay. We gratefully received a delivery of several yards of this material yesterday:

Gumby Origin Story.

What’s the big dilly you ask?

Well, we love Gumby and Pokey as much as the next guy, but we’re not going to daub our walls with em. For one thing, they’re not found locally.

And their vivid colors might betray their other-worldly origins.

For more than a decade, we’ve been mixing mortar from clay which came from the bottom of Boston Harbor during The Big Dig. It’s called Boston Blue clay, and it’s a medium shade of gray in color, with a slight tinge of blue in places. The mortar made out of this clay seasons to a light gray color. Because the clay is very pure and “plastic”, it needs a fair amount of earth and binder in the mix to be useful as a mortar for our walls and chimneys. Unlike the vivid green and orange of Gumby and Pokey, the overall effect in our houses’ interior is a light gray color. Call it, Pilgrim Humours, if you’re looking for the correct shade at the paint store.

The White Horse Beach clay is much browner in hue, almost ruddy in places, with some flecks of gray.

It's so exfoliating!

It’s also more local and perhaps closer to what might have been used in pilgrim walls as a mortar. The primary sources speak of digging clay out of the side of Town Brook which we think is closer in appearance to the brown and ruddy color than the Boston Blue variety. We also have some anecdotal evidence of deposits of brown-colored clay in earthen basements of houses in downtown Plymouth today.

The overall appearance of the interior of our houses will subtly change over time, as we work more of the new clay into our walls and chimneys. We’ll also need to adapt our mortar recipes to this clay, which feels more silty and “crumbly” than the more dense Boston Harbor clay. We may need more binders like dung and straw, and less earth in the mix.

"Trodding Mortar" anagrams: Grand Dirt Motor and Daring Do Mr Trot!

Come the summer, we’ll be all feet on deck daubing The Francis Cooke House. We’ll use mostly mortar which has been reclaimed from the former house’s walls, but we’ll also be mixing in some of the new clay. It’s an opportunity to experiment with different varieties of clay mortar in the same house. If you’re local, come on in the mortar’s fine!

 

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Co-worker Eva Lipton remains in our hearts and thoughts and prayers as we approach Thanksgiving. Team Eva has set up a wonderful series of events and support pages for Eva and her family on Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Team-EVA/223963567711425?fref=ts

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Posted in building materials, maintenance, mortar, The Francis Cooke House | 18 Comments

Picked up Pieces 2.0

October 27th, 2012 by Rick McKee

Dan Shaughnessy, longtime sportswriter for The Boston Globe, periodically writes a column full of random sports nuggets and observations called, Picked Up Pieces. It’s a series of pithy vignettes which, taken as a whole, present a larger picture of the local sports and cultural scene. In that spirit, The Riven Word presents its own version of random moments and events which have occupied our figurative desktops recently:

Yup–these are our readers…

Remember that tinder box our blacksmith Mark used in the fire-making video? It’s a ridiculously simple and practical way to keep fire-making materials like steel, flint, and char-cloth. The box is based on one of several which came up with The Mary Rose:

from Weapons of Warre: The Armaments of the Mary Rose The Archeology of the Mary Rose Volume 3 2011 edited by Alexzandra Hildred

John Wolf—friend to The Riven Word–made a great reproduction of the box and sent along a few photos. It’s made from a single piece of wood, as in the original. John used ash instead of oak, but we think it’ll be just as functional as the mid-16th century version.

Great work and happy fire-making John!

 

They knew they were pilgrims…

Big plug for our fellow bloggers across the lunch table. They’ve been posting some really interesting write-ups on their interpretive exploits. These are the good folks who bring life into the houses we make, and this is an opportunity for you to see just what goes into making a pilgrim in the 21st century.

See what goeth on behind coifs and brimmed hats:

http://blogs.plimoth.org/pilgrim-blog/

 

England, can we put that little war behind us?

image courtesy of ESPN/Boston

Local pigskin favorites The New England Patriots are playing this country’s version of football in London tomorrow. While it’s no Man-U vs Chelsea, we hope that our mutual ties and interests will compel you to root vociferously for The Pats. Click this link for a primer on NFL football rules. But the short of it is, whenever the St.Louis Rams quarterback breaks huddle on a third and long, cheer as though The Armada was just sunk!! PS: Flying Elvis is the vernacular for the Patriots helmet decal.

 

Thanks Irina and Alexey

Look what our friends from Salicicola dropped off yesterday:

Take that, invasives!

Two hornbeam seedlings and a handful of swamp white oak acorns to plant. It’s part of an informal naturalization project at the museum. Little gifts can mean a lot. Thanks I and A!!!

 

Public service announcment:

If you make a rick of wood, be sure to stack the rings either level or leaning a bit inward. Otherwise…

…you may have to pull down part of the rick and re-stack. This message brought to you by, The Woodricke Council.

 

Serendipitous house tour

We stopped in to see old friend Andrew at a restoration project just down the road from Plimoth. This led to a quick but fascinating tour of the original mid-17th century house.

Detail of purlin trench and score marks on oak rafter.

There’s nothing quite like a close inspection of an original frame to fire us up in building our own conjectural reproductions. Seeing tool marks and surveying frames is a direct link to the past for us, and never fails to inspire. Thanks to Elizabeth and John who welcomed us into their house for an impromptu tour yesterday. They have been here for 50 years, and John himself has done some top shelf restoration.

 

Nice to see you again old friend

"What are you doing over there besides looking good?" asked a guest of Justin recently.

So friend Justin is back to work after a fortnight of celebrating the birth of his son. Congrats all! Some of the crew don’t quite understand what parent-hood is all about and why Justin might come to work just a wee bit tired. Here’s the educational video we made for them to watch:

Is this a cottage which i see before me?

Framing timbers having been moved to their lot, Frank and Hester Cooke couldn’t wait to begin setting up house!

 

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

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Posted in building materials, firewood, hewing, oak, The Francis Cooke House, timber frame | 9 Comments

Ash

October 2nd, 2012 by Rick McKee

fraxinus americana L.

From baseball bats to lacrosse sticks, from splint baskets to tool handles, wood from the ash tree has been a staple of woodworkers across the country. Sadly, it’s under attack from the Emerald Ash Borer and millions of trees have already been lost.

Characteristic half-moon exit holes:

Sapwood damage:

Here are a couple of links which speak further of the Emerald Ash Borer, its range, and controls:

http://www.emeraldashborer.info/identifyeab.cfm and http://www.emeraldashborer.info/

Locally, the borer’s damage hasn’t been acutely felt yet. Irina and Alexey from Salicicola have shot some great images of white ash, including the fine specimen below from Lenox, MA:

This truly has become an urgent matter–we may be witnessing the demise of a species–which makes using ash an almost philosophical quandary. Peter Follansbee, joiner here at The Plant, touched on this very subject in his recent post about ash, If it aint oak… Please have a look at Peter’s blog if you haven’t already. It’s an inspiration. The respectful use of this beautiful tree, being made into long-lasting chairs and baskets, is one way to honor it.

A local baseball bat-making business, The Barnstable Bat Company, has begun making bats out of yellow birch–who knew? Yellow birch compresses and hardens in the “sweet spot” of the bat through use.  Everyone is affected by the borer and those who have traditionally used ash are adapting. Perhaps the “crack of the bat” will mean a very different thing to the next generation.

The other morning, I came across Mark at our saw-pit. He’d just come out of the woods where he’d been planting native white oak acorns in various locations around our campus. We control what we can, and think about those who will follow us.

The coffee can held the acorns. The pointy-stick was used for a dibble.

Here is the video The Riven Word made of Peter Follansbee pounding a section of ash into basket splints. Even if you will never make a basket from white ash splints, you will appreciate Peter’s admiration for this incredible tree, and his deeply abiding respect for its wonderful qualities. If we are seeing the last days of  fraxinus americana L. , I cannot think of a better appreciation for this tree’s unique gifts to us.

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

 

6 months later, co-worker Eva Lipton is still in our thoughts and prayers:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Team-EVA/223963567711425?fref=ts

There will be a gospel-choir fundraiser on Saturday, November 10th in Marshfield. Gospel in Marsh-Vegas??? It promises to be an amazing event to support Eva and her family. Click the link below for more information:

https://www.facebook.com/events/122152571266813/

 

 

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Posted in building materials, Peter Follansbee, riving, video | 11 Comments

Letting the days go by

September 4th, 2012 by Rick McKee

Housebuilding at Plimoth Plantation

Harry Hornblower and friends groundbreaking, 1958.

Deep down in the annex of Plimoth Plantation’s Visual Arts Department, there’s a small, fluorescent-saturated room, buzzing with climate control and filled with negatives, slides, and prints. The visual archives at Plimoth Plantation reveal a rich history of our 65-yr-old institution. There you will find old friends, legends you have never met, and younger versions of one’s own self. There are slides and negatives recording construction techniques and methods used at the very inception of our museum. It’s humbling, daunting, and energizing–all at once–to have a look through all those folders and file cabinets: Where did we come from? How did we get here? My god, what have I done!

After 65 years it’s acceptable to contemplate one’s own institutional navel. The key is to look at the records without passing judgement and to consider that what may initially seem quaint or inefficient or historically inaccurate, was once a first, and was part of a pioneering way of seeing history. There are many “firsts” recorded on film in our archives, and for that alone we are grateful. Humility goes a long way down here, knowing that one day our work and methods and hairstyles will look just as dated to someone looking back at the records we leave behind in some future annex.

As a primer to our forthcoming posts on house-frame construction,The Riven Word takes a little journey in the way-back machine to better understand our own museum’s history of colonial-house construction, even as we try to rediscover the 17th-century while moving into the 21st.

Well, how did I get here?

Processing timber for a frame has always involved hand-work. Once it was common to surface squared mill-sawn stock, to give it a hand-wrought appearance.

Original construction of Plimoth Plantation’s Colonial English village-1958.

We still work the house timbers, though our methods have changed.

Justin finding the square in that white oak.

Sometimes the work seeems strangely familiar…

"Daubing" a chimney.

…even if the faces are different…

Mark putting finishing touches on his forge chimney, circa 2001.

…and the techniques have changed. Standing on the shoulders of giants, we’d like to think that we are that much closer to discovering historical truths.

Paula Marcoux daubing a hearth wall at Standish House, circa 1994.

We used to do much good work behind the scenes, out of view of our guests…

Rob Tarule and Joel Pontz's excellent adventure, circa 1987.

…and that had a purpose in allowing us the time and concentration necessary to re-discover ancient techniques.

As we laid the groundwork of understanding and appropriate methods, we became more confident in sharing our labors with museum guests.

The Myles Standish house-raising, 1993. All of the house's elements were, for the first time in our museum's history, worked by hand before our guests.

Methods of construction once involved a hybrid of modern materials and historic interpretations.

Cattail heads lopped.

These days, it’s off to the marshes–

Into the blue again.

And into the sawpit–

This is not my beautiful house...

…to gather and to make our building materials.

Specific details come and go–water dissolving and water removing…

Thatching pre-Peter Slevin--a brave new world.

…but from space, or from the bottom of the ocean, it all looks about the same.

Working Winslow's cap, 2012.

Through the decades, work here has always been done in earnest, taking advantage of the latest research and understanding.

Nails, saw, square, hammer--it all looks familiar. Where's the drill though?

Tweaking the methods, though, will sometimes turn things on their head. This is to be expected.

Stuart Bolton riving clapboards for forge walls and roof--2000.The forge was the first large-scale "cratchet" frame attempted.

Time isn’t holding us, time isn’t after us.

Fashion is a fickle mistress.

Francis Eaton House, 1970--Nashoba Project school collaboration.

But work and discovery remain a constant–water flowing underground…

Winslow House parlor addition, 2001

…same as it ever was.

 

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

 

Acknowledgements

Où peut-on acheter chaudrée?

 

This post is made possible by the institutional memories and sublime photographry of  great people like:

 

Marie “pour les oiseaux” Pelletier

Al “fantasy baseball” Solomon

Dickson Studios

Ted “beret-wearin” Avery

Ted “where’s my hammer” Curtin

Gary “Indiana Jones”Andrasko

&

Jerel “size 13″ Dye

 

Thanks for your part in keeping history alive and relevant.

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Posted in building materials, The Francis Cooke House | 10 Comments

august

August 22nd, 2012 by Rick McKee

Ag Hall at The Fair-every August, keeping time.

 

Summer?

Where did you go, with all your carefree, coppertoned ways? We’re already on “Isaac” in tropical storm names? They’ve weighed the giant pumpkins at The Fair? When did the aggregating male cicadas begin vibrating their thorax plates in unison?

We were in the marsh longer than we thought…

I've got a bus to thatch and it's going to downtown Frame-ville!

933 bundles later, we’re about ready to stow these brackish boys of summer away in a dry place and stand them upright to “sweat”. Sweating cattails will help to dry off most of any remaining moisture.

Last of the timber processing

Now we turn our attention back to cutting a house frame. We dust off our cut-list to see what’s been checked off…

We made the list. We're checking it twice.

…and find that we’ll need 3 more logs to hew and to saw into the last of the principal elements of The Francis Cooke House frame.

It’s the home stretch for Frankie & The Cookes and their frame:

Hew large-saw small, which is an anagram for "Gala Mars Hew Swell" & "Legal Whale Swarms"

3 logs to hew:

Hewster Brewster: Forgotten son of The Elder.

6 kerfs to saw:

Whither art thou, ayre compressore?

…and that’ll be plenty to get us started on layout and cutting joints. It’ll feel good to put that frame in the ground.

Some pieces, however, don’t make the grade:

We can always split this into pale.

Though I’m sure the carpenter ants within the pith of this red oak find their lodging quite ax-ceptable. Rive your little hearts out in there, fellas! grrrrr…

 

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

 

And this public service reminder:

 

Whatever your ride happens to be…

Buckle up out there, kids.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Posted in building materials, hewing, thatch, The Francis Cooke House | 4 Comments

6-foot, 7-foot, 8-foot thatch!

August 11th, 2012 by Rick McKee

…high tide come and we wanna go home…

Out this way, creek rhymes with freak, not frick.

It’s a long day in the marsh. The air is as thick as tomato soup, the sun relentless, and any fickle breeze which occasionally stirs is rebuffed by a wall of 7-foot cattails. Above us, higher than the swaying inflorescence of the cattail heads, a chatty raptor has been working the marsh all week. His call, to our ears, is half-complaint, half-whine: Where are you rodentia? Who are these foreign beings invading my kingdom? We personify this hawk because it is we who are tired and our bones and backs whine and chirp at us. In our time–sampling the world with the click of a mouse in the comfort of an artificial environment–strenuous and repetitive outdoor labor has a way of bringing about musings of things greater than ourselves, of rhythms and cycles and the very tide coming in at our feet.

hello?

We consider ourselves fortunate to go to work amidst such an unspoiled environment and to harvest thatch in this traditional manner. Our experiences here along the river are themselves bundled and carried back alongside the cattail to be opened and shared with our museum guests. It’s a unique opportunity to be able to directly translate our labor and its fruits into an historical interpretation.

Mornin Sam. Mornin Ralph.

It’s liberating to be tied to seasonal and tidal pulls. These larger cycles have the knack of freeing us from our personal vicissitudes. When the cattail is ready and the tide is right, we head to the marsh; when our museum opens up for another season, we don our doublets and dialects and interpret our labors to our guests. Visitors and rivers ebb and flow and our labors follow along. No use swimming against the current.

Dingo!

 

We’ll get back to house-frame construction soon enough. We haven’t forgotten the oak which awaits us back at our site, some to hew, “some to saw, some to rive...”. For now, the 596 bundles drying at the end of Plimoth Plantation’s main parking lot would cover only about half of Francis Cooke’s new house. The cattail is ripe for the reaping and we are making thatch, as it were, while the sun shines.

 

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

 

Salicicola

Atlantic White Cedar. Clapboards were riven from this species in 17th-century New England.

 

 

From cattails to oak, plants are at the center of our work. If you have even the slightest interest in things botanical, The Riven Word strongly suggests you check out Irina Kadis & Alexey Zinovjev’s amazing and informative site, http://www.salicicola.com/ It’s a gallery of local flora, beautifully and thoroughly illustrated with native plants and lists of invasives. Even if you are from away, Salicicola will give you a sense of the natural world which the Wampanoags inhabited at the time of English settlement. The science and observations behind Salicicola are presented in a user-friendly form, both entertaining and educational. There is even an annual plant quiz which is guaranteed to inform and delight. Simply put, this is a superlative resource which we will draw from again and again. The Riven Word expresses great thanks and sincere appreciation to Irina and Alexey for their generosity and willingness to advise and share information.

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.salicicola.com/

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Posted in building materials, thatch, The Francis Cooke House | 2 Comments

The tide is good this week…

August 7th, 2012 by Rick McKee

…and the cattail is ready.

Good things come in threes.

With visions of typha angustifolia and typha latifolia dancing in our heads, we fueled up and headed to the marsh for a few weeks of cattail harvesting for our thatched roofs.

A few tentative steps through the muck…

This is what we call in the vernacular, suck mud.

…and we’re in like Flynn.

It’s pretty simple, actually. With sharp sickles, we cut paths into the marsh, laying down the material in an orderly fashion. Later on, it’ll be easier to bundle. Grab high, cut low, shake out the dead stuff, lay it down.

Cutting by hand makes it easier to lay the cattail down just so.

After bundling, carrying follows. It’s the home stretch.

Michael getting bundles in before the tide.

Maybe carrying thatch looked like this in 1627:

Sometimes our younger guests think we literally use cat tails when we thatch.

And resting, like this:

Tom nearing REM (brandt) stage sleep. Didn't Bruegel paint this?

Disapprove if you must, Goodman, but it was a LONG day of cutting…

Looks like I'll be carrying him out too...

 

 

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

 

 

Plimoth Plantation has two great new blogs:

 

So Dramatic a Blog chronicles the research and preparations for the performance and filming of the museum’s interactive theater drama, So Dreadful a Judgement, which takes places just days before the start of the King Philip’s War in 1675. This is a powerful play about a pivotal moment in history.

 

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What’s it like to be a 21st-century interpreter at a non-profit museum fleshing out the life and times of a long dead 17th-century character?  They Knew They Were Pilgrims is your VIP ticket to the behind-the-scenes workings of Plimoth Plantation’s pilgrim staff. They are as diverse, creative, and funny a group of people as you will ever meet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Posted in building materials, thatch, The Francis Cooke House | 5 Comments

Cursed Old Scratcher-Return of the Prodigal Sawyer: The Video

August 5th, 2012 by Rick McKee

7 minutes and 15 seconds of real-time sawing. 331 strokes. Lots of bad jokes. Welcome to The Pit.

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Posted in building materials, oak, pit-sawing, The Francis Cooke House, video | 2 Comments

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