Porch takes shape

Cutting bricks to fit cones that later receive pillars. Here you see Mile cutting the cherry pillar to length. It had to be lifted off after measuring in place. Every step is new. The danger of making a measuring mistake is always present. It will mean a trip to the woods to find a new tree. The design is such that the pillar rests on a brick fundament that matches the diameter of the pillar.If you cut it to short there is no way back. A step forward to putting the first chestnut horizontal in place. It fit in one go. For a team that has never worked on this kind of project you can imagine we brought out the rakia to celebrate the moment.

Processing the heavy cherry pillars

Ian Rosenberg of Philadelphia found out one can sit on a skateboard and easily skin a tree of this dimension by riding back and forth. You see the faithful traditional tool on the tree. That cleaning prevents bugs and fungi creating a world under the bark. That process will quickly reduce trees to earth. Next we lift the supports in place by our old digging machine. In the background you see the tent under which we did a lot of work. No tent means a lot of stopping. Lengthening an otherwise straightforward project. It was meant to be the last project of 2012. Which it was. It is actually waiting completion because of weather conditions in the meantime were not permitting.

First result of experimenting with splitting wood with a froe. The material you see under the froe is the next project. Making gates of split acacia. For the roof the kind of wood we chose is sweet chestnut. Length is about 30 centimeters per piece. The tool we used is a froe. Wooden handled & the bit is to be slammed into the top of a segment of tree. The result should be a shingle. You can even the rough surface a bit through honing with the cutting device you see in the previous picture. We are showing results not process now. The showing of process will be the next level in showing what can be done with natural materials. For process we will need youtube or so. Anyhow Ian and me were surprised about the speed with which things could be done. While I was welding and grinding away at the froe, Ian was making the frame under the shingles. The frame you can't see. Froe and test set-up were realized within 2 hours. The froe bit is made of an old blade spring of a car. It does not need to be so very sharp. It's just a grinding so the profile of the froe has a splitting effect. It will keep on working for ever probably. We calculate we need to make 1200 of those shingles for the porch roof to be. It started raining in the days after we created this experimental test roof. We put a plastic bucket under the shingles. Not a drop came through. In principle a good result. Except we don't know if sweet chestnut is the advisable kind of wood. There are shingles made of evergreens that are pretty much the best. We will end our experiment with a definite choice of wood for the porch within the next supposedly nice months. Spring and all. No more snow!!! ;)

Natures special effects

Looking west over the Radonya valley towards east side of Gorski Cotar still hidden in mist and clouds. In the morning a splendid view. Especially through the special effects nature daily provides.