MEASURE TWICE SCHOOL

Cutting Bored? Dicing Excitement!

2012-01-06T13:09:00.000-08:00

Just as your eggnog recipe research was starting the participants of our Cutting Board Workshop were getting their hands dirty in the woodshop. They built on their understanding of tools while producing two hand made, pride-soaked beautiful pieces of kitchen equipment.

One board stood out. You're looking at Black Walnut glued up into a book-matched end-grain cutting board and framed with live edge rips of sapwood. The process (see above) required a bakers' dozen clamps and the fabrication of a jig. The final product (below) was worth it.

Many more classes coming down the pike this spring and summer. Come feel the noise.

Cutting Class?

2011-11-22T19:05:00.001-08:00

This December Measure Twice is partnering with Waste Not Products woodshop to host our first class. For $120 you can walk home with not one, but two cutting boards made entirely from clean scrap wood. Rather than a regimented schedule students are welcome to attend as many sessions as they need to complete their projects. Customized design, burned-in inscriptions, and satisfaction will be made available to you. Friends, couples and families are encouraged to come cheek by jowl as discounts are available. Tell your friends, and come feel the noise!

Scratching the Surface

2011-11-08T04:24:00.000-08:00

These posters were hung around town in acknowledgment of the material support from local businesses. What the poster doesn't even attempt to do is thank the hours of work that went into each joint. More to come.

Video complements of Noah Nielsen.

Show & Tell

2011-11-03T06:03:00.000-07:00

We likely had 60 volunteers play a roll in the New Farms for New American's raising last Sunday. The group was a telling cross-section of Burlington's community working together. It's been said that a good raising is equal parts manual labor, team-building, and pot-luck. Ours seemed to hit all the criteria.

Most of the folks who came out had never helped in a frame raising before, but Measure Twice was lucky enough to bring in some ringers. The advice and assistance of those individuals was invaluable to the process. George's chain fall was also hugely helpful.

August First Cafe & Bakery, City Market, and American Flatbread did most of the heavy-lifting in the pot-luck category. August First dropped off a carafe of hot coffee and probably sixty scones (both lemon-ginger and cranberry-pecan). City Market donated to jugs of cider, making it the event three times more "Vermonty" than previously thought possible. And American Flatbread threw down with a dozen hot flatbreads which would have been the be-all end-all in culinary delights.

Unfortunately for all the businesses and individuals who brought food, the New Farms for New Americans turned out heaps of freakin' incredible Bhutanese cuisine that stole the show.

Most of those close to Measure Twice weren't able to snap any photos of the event and we're relying on submissions from participants to flesh out our documentation. If you have photos of the event you believe are worth sharing - even if you don't think they're worth sharing - please send them on to MeasureTwiceSchool@gmail.com.

UP and ATOM!

2011-10-31T16:30:00.001-07:00

End of the day on Sunday. Thanks to Henry for his time-lapse video of the raising, and to everyone who participated.

Thoughts in the Calm Before the Storm

2011-10-28T20:03:00.000-07:00

Assuming everything goes as planned, in the next 48 hours anorganized pile of wood will become the thick lines of a building. In thelast five months trees felled in Calais and East Montpelier were sent limblessto Hardwick where feral geometries were cut way. Most of those incisionsnecessary to turn many individuals into one complex whole have been made and weare ready to make the transition from an idea of a form to a place.

I’ve heard it said that a tree is fifty years growing, fiftyyears living and fifty years dying. I doubt this little building will add another 150 years of constitutionto the wood that composes it, maybe it will. Regardless, they’ll serve a civilpurpose more than thier peers hosting and composting into the earth again.

FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD!

2011-10-25T09:17:00.000-07:00

Pleased to announce that AUGUST FIRST Bakery & Cafe and AMERICAN FLATBREAD will be donating food for the raising! Scones, Coffee, and a dozen flatbreads!

DECK THE HALLS

2011-10-23T18:07:00.000-07:00

Last Friday a group of students enrolled in Yestermorrow's Semester Program assisted in the first big step towards the raising (October 30th).

We had the perfect number of participants to fit the the joists into their respective sill plate mortises.

After a few minutes of coordinated lifting and commanding, we had seven pieces of hemlock fitted to their mates. They describe a beautifully flat building plane for the deck.

See you Sunday.

SEE YOU OCTOBER 30TH

2011-10-12T17:11:00.001-07:00

After much schedule cross-checking and rescheduling, we're throwing down and calling it.

Scarf Joint 101

2011-10-02T08:23:00.000-07:00

Last month we posted about one of the scarf joints which will turn two 14' timbers into a 25' juggernaut. In it there was a reference to the Timber Framer's Guild index of joinery article which you can download for free as a portable digital file. If you have eyes and a brain, these articles are still worth your time.

Before diving into the joint; a 20 second square rule timber framing orientation: the middle-of-the-ground joinery technique was THE method in America until stud framing came to place. It requires a timber is at least some-what straight and has one edge at which two faces intersect at 90 degrees.

Let's say you're framing with 8" x 8" timbers (in profile or section, not length for any lay-peoples). It may be rough-sawn or hand hewn, but in either case it will not be exactly 8" x 8", and it doesn't need to be. Just as Michelangelo looked at a marble block but saw David within, so does a framer imagine a perfect 7 1/2" x 7 1/2" timber within the rough 8" x 8". That 90 degree edge is shared by the perfect timber and the actual timber and is known as the Reference Edge which is the intersection of two Reference Faces.

SO that's that. Now to the scarf: First we laid-out the cut, all of the dimensions are taken from a Reference Face. Below the female side of the joint is laid down with a razor-sharp pencil and to a tolerance of 1/32nd of an inch.

Once the cut was checked by a "sober adult who looks like they know what they're doing", we started cutting by hand sawing the shoulder.

That's the easiest cut in the whole enchilada. Things got very real with the "table" cut which is a three-foot-long "rip" (parallel to the grain as opposed to "cross" cuts which are perpendicular) which runs through all eight inches of the timber. We started by employing a circular saw which was certainly faster but still requires the operator to cut away exactly half of a slender pencil line - something that 5,000 revolutions per minute can foul up unapologetically.

A second rip cut was made on the same plane on the opposite face. A circular saws' teeth will cut less than three inches when at full depth so we still had over two and half inches of a three-foot table to cut. The longest hand-held rip saw we had was about ten inches which wasn't the right answer to our needs. After some noodle scratching we found the solution in combining the old with the new.

First we "kerfed" the waste wood (a kerf is the void left in a saws' path - it is described by the width of the blade and the depth of the cut). Wood breaks away easily when approached from the end-grain (image wood as a handful of straws, we're looking through them like telescopes when we're talking about end grain) but only when its a short length. Kerfing gave us the break-away-ability...but how to break it?

Our answer came in the form of history. A Gransfors Bruks axe and sweat produced airborne chunks of hemlock the size of your forearm and the desired effect.

After a bit of hewing (still with a double-bevel axe for those who know) the scarfs' "table" was sufficiently mellowed for more refinement.

That refinement came in paring with chisels and some plane work.

Now - after the shoulder was cut, the rip was made, the kerfing was run, the axes thrown and chisels driven - we are at end of step two: the table has been established.

After the sweat and noise associated with the last images, a simple tenon was cut swiftly.

Assuming the lines were cut in half, we should be recreating this image soon enough.

Green Mountian College

2011-09-28T08:55:00.000-07:00

A group of students from Green Mountain College recently visited the shop. They came to learn about our project, the history of timber framing, and for a ride on the boring machine.

Hopefully some of the students will come help in the raising this October. More on that as the date approaches...

The First of the Addititve.

2011-09-21T09:24:00.000-07:00

Nearly all documentation of the New Farms project is reductive: sawing and chiseling, digging and sifting. Yesterday the first additive process took place.

Squat Sono Tubes, purchased as pennies on the dollar from ReBuild, were filled with five bags of Sakrete (turns out contractor product names are pawned by 14-year-old dyslexics) by some of our volunteer partners from Transitional Services for Youth and Families. The work was done in an hour and the rest of the piers should be in the ground by Friday.

Chuck + Bit

2011-09-15T17:26:00.000-07:00

ReBuild, YouthBuild, and the Pile of Hemlock

2011-09-13T14:51:00.000-07:00

After Irene's wrench was removed from the works at Dave's Sawmill, he finished cutting our order and delivered a staggeringly heavy load of wood. Rather than relatively light weight White Pine, this load is entirely Hemlock, which is denser, harder, and more brittle - all steps in the "ah shucks" directions.

With Hemlock in the hopper cutting is now half the battle. Moving a 12' piece of pine alone is a hassle, but not out of the question. Moving a 12' piece of Hemlock is about the same for each of the three people needed to move it.

Enter: YouthBuild. This morning eight stalwart youths and two instructors assisted in organizing the above lumber in the wall of wood pictured below.

They were thanked appropriately.

A huge aspect of this project which has had little press is our host. ReBuild - formerly the Building Materials Center - at 339 Pine street has made this project possible. More valuable than the wood and all the sweat put into joining it, their gracious acceptance of our partnership is the only reason this project was able to get off the ground.

The staff - Janet, Jeremy, Eric and Dave - has been supportive and always ready to assist with a fork lift or extra set of hands.

675 LOAD LIMIT

2011-09-12T12:59:00.000-07:00

Today we moved the last of the cut wood out to the site in anticipation of the new arrivals - 18 12' 5x7', and a mess of 8x8' at 12', 14' and another 16'. I figure the two posts in the photo are around 100lbs a piece and the braces are about 30lbs. That's 410lbs plus a driver and Oscar the Dog - not including the 200lbs of tools.

And poof, it was gone.

2011-09-11T06:40:00.001-07:00

Brace Yourself

2011-09-03T14:00:00.001-07:00

We're hotly anticipating the second load of lumber. The first round (posts, sill plates, braces) are cut and weathering in at the site and once we have the second round, we can pin down a raising date.

Order Made

2011-08-29T05:41:00.000-07:00

The last round of lumber should be arriving on Sunday morning at 6:00 AM coming from Dave's Saw Mill in Hardwick - and you thought farmers start their days early.

Liz is flexing her lay-out muscles.

Like the Forearm Handshake

2011-08-24T09:50:00.000-07:00

We've just finished the digital lay-out of our scarf joints. A scarf is the wooden stitching-together of two separate pieces. In this case we're using two fourteen-foot long pieces to make a single twenty-two foot long rafter plate.

The Timber Framers' Guild website has an invaluable series of high quailty articles which you can download for free. They have been a constant source of guidance.

The above joinery is a shameless copy of that which was designed by Josh Jackson of Timber Homes LLC,

It's Business, It's Business Time

2011-08-24T09:27:00.000-07:00

First round of business cards are out and around.

Round Three!

2011-08-05T06:52:00.000-07:00

The last volunteer Timber Framing Demonstration happened last weekend and it was a great success. We had visitors fluttering the entire day and a few folks who'd never seen a timber before received a crash-course in Square-Rule framing that culminated with a ride on Ye Olde Boring Machine.

The heat was again stifling and it felt drier underwater. We went to shirts and skins and forged ahead none the less. Brianna received some seasoned guidance from Ithamar who has been a familiar face to the project.

Newbee Harrison arrived at 10 AM and by noon was paring with a hundred-year-old chisel and throwing his considerable weight behind the gears of the Exhilaration Apparatus.

Round Two!

2011-08-05T06:43:00.000-07:00

A handful of stalwart aspiring framers came out last Saturday for out second Timber Framing Demonstration.

Above George is polishing a mortise with elbow grease.

The Beamery at 339 Pine Street (Home of Waste Not Products) was humming.

Young Liz squeezing her mind grapes.

Cutting, Cutting, Cutting

2011-08-05T06:35:00.000-07:00

We've been grinding gears on Ye Olde Boring Machine and sharpening chisels like it's going out of style.

The project has gained momentum and has been powered by the tattooed, determined grit of Canadians arriving en-mass.

More to come with next weekend's framing affair.

YELLOW MEANS GO!

2011-07-08T12:33:00.001-07:00

Knock on Hemlock

2011-07-08T11:49:00.000-07:00

Meet Dave.

This is where Dave works, and has been working for a long time.

He, like many Vermont saw mills, is only busy in the summer, hasn't raised his prices in ten years, and worries deeply about future of his profession.

We just spent two hours chatting in Hardwick where he and his son operate Dave's Saw Mill.

Despite a tight budget he donated the two largest, single pieces of wood. They are eight inches square on the ends and sixteen feet long. If we can find no other lumber donations, it would be great to buy the rest of out material from DSM. He's been keeping it local before you were born.

Many Hands

2011-07-01T09:32:00.000-07:00

Last week a group of teenagers from the Burlington area started their summer vacation by getting dirty. The church-organized peace collective Ripple officially started the pre-building stage of our project. We not only laid out the building's foot print with lines and stakes, but saw to one of the most important responsibilities of the project.

The Ethan Allen Homestead and much of the Intervale was once the site of a Native American community where, not surprisingly, they were farming and building. Because the land is protected by the Historic Conservation Act we needed to find a consultant who could provide evidence that the project would not be in violation of the recommendations made in the HCA.

Vermont State Archeologist Scott Dillon volunteered his time and expertise to our undertaking. He screened and cataloged two test pits - each hand dug with a square shovel twenty-centimeters deep, and concluded that we would not disturb any historically-significant previously occupied lands.

His time and sweat was a significant gift - a service which would have doubled the cost of our project had a consultant been compensated for the same analysis.

Why haven't you helped?

Extra Extra!

2011-06-29T09:08:00.000-07:00

If you're reading this post, you have likely already heard of the demonstration events coming up next month (9th, 16th, 23rd @ 339 Pine, 1 & 3pm).

We're listed in 7Days and the posters will wrap this town gray soon!

From Scratch

2011-06-27T13:03:00.000-07:00

Measure Twice's first big task of 2011 is cutting a timber frame for one of Burlington's farm education programs.

We'll be honest, it's proved to be as big a bite as we thought, and at times, our metaphorical jaw has ached. Glad to say we've more or less finished the design, smile intact.

Above is the frame for a Rinse Station to be built on the Ethan Allen Homestead in Burlington, VT.

The Association of Africans Living in Vermont serves as a conduit by which recently arrived refugees can connect with the resources and community they need. One of the ways they do this is by the New Farms for New Americans program.

NFNA has grown steadily since its inception until this summer when the three acres on the Ethan Allen Homestead doubled to six. That spurt reinforced the fact that the programs production had outgrown its facilities.

That's where MTCS came into play. And you can too.

Any time you volunteer with us - digging our foundation pits, installing the roofing, cutting a tenon - can count as Worker Member Hours with City Market. So come feel the noise.

We're on the road to raising day - scheduled for late July/early August.