Monthly Archives

September 2011

Sep 27
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How To Install Terracotta Tile Floor in Cob House (with Pictures)

By Photos, Design, Earthen Floor
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The newly tiled (and styled) cob house

We’re finally back in Gobcobatron! The tile floor is done…. for now. (Yea, we still have to seal it with linseed oil, but April and I are waiting until next spring to be 100% certain the floor is dry… we’re not taking any chances.) The difference in the house is dramatic, especially when you combine the look of the terracotta tile with the newly lime plastered walls. I am really liking it.

In this post I’ll provide a simple explanation of how we laid the tile using clay and sand grout and clay adhesive. Read More

Sep 20
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The Beast That is Laying Floor Tile

By Earthen Floor
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Laying floor tile in Gobcobatron

I’m never doing this again, I swear.

That was all I could tell myself during the first two days of laying floor tile in Gobcobatron. (Except with a few more expletives thrown in.) What a project! Thankfully, whereas the first two days of laying tile were absolute hell, it did get better over the next three days. It was an utter job, though.

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Sep 15
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See My Cob House at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage Open House

By Uncategorized

gobcobatron-wsDancing Rabbit Ecovillage‘s annual Open House is coming soon, and on that date you’ll be able to tour Gobcobatron, my cob house.

Saturday, September 24, 2011
1:00- 4:00 p.m.

Location: Rutledge, Missouri
Directions: Call or email us at (660) 883-5511 or dancingrabbit@ic.org
This is your chance to enjoy free tours,  get a peek inside several natural beetsbuildings, and learn about life off the grid, renewable energy, organic gardening, and building with alternative and sustainable materials. During Open House, there will also be a village fair with homemade wares and treats, live music, and much more!
Hope to see you there!
Sep 12
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All About Hand Hewing Beams

By Timber Framing, Resources, Video, Hand Tools

I read a great post last night on the Holder Bros. industry blog about hand hewing beams with broad axes. It’s worth a mention here!

Beams that are hand hewn get a flat face treatment with nothing more than a felling axe and a broad axe. This is how beams were converted from round logs before the age of cheap fuel and portable mills and all that jazz.

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Sep 12
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A Felling and Moving Logs By Hand Quandary

By Timber Framing, Hand Tools

This weekend, I attended an excellent firewood workshop at the Clark Conservation Area here in northeast Missouri. My primary motivator was the promised access to timber that would be granted by simply attending the workshop. I came away from the workshop quite excited by the possibility of obtaining free white and black oak logs perfect for timber framing, but very stuck as to how in the heck I could pull off getting the material actually out of the woods.

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Sep 10
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Inspiring Video about Gränsfors Bruks Axe Company

By Timber Framing, Resources, Video, Hand Tools



Lately, I have been doing a lot of reading online about hand tools, especially those for timber framing. A couple of websites have caught my eye recently (which I’ll mention soon elsewhere), and during one of those late night reading ventures I stumbled upon this excellent video about the history and transformation of the Gränsfors Bruks axe company of Sweden, one of the top hand-forged tool manufacturers around.

I’ve been reading snippets about the company and its products elsewhere (mostly in catalogs), but this video gave me a much broader knowledge of the company than before, and I must say, it was very satisfying. Inspiring.

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Sep 08
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Our Second BIG Timber Frame Bent Raising (With Video)

By Video, Hand Tools, Wabi-sabi Kitchen, Timber Framing, Bent Raising
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The mighty central bent in the Wabi-sabi kitchen

A bit over a week ago, we raised our mighty giant of a bent for the kitchen. It’s the bent we’ve been working on for weeks and weeks – an assembly of three posts, and a beam with a scarf joint. The beam in question is a gigantic, curving sycamore joined to a cannon of an oak, supported on the south side by a stout poplar, in the middle an oak with a coped shoulder and through tenon (that runs through the scarf), and on the south another oak post. Put together, we guessed that the bent weighed in around 1800 pounds. No joke!

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Sep 04
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Our New Timber Framing Tool: Millers Falls Boring Machine

By Hand Tools, Wabi-sabi Kitchen, Timber Framing
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Our new Millers Falls boring machine

We’ve been looking for a boring machine for a year or more. Last  fall, we saw two at the local flea market on the same day, but for some reason we decided to pass on both at the time. I can’t remember why.

This year, in May during our timber frame workshop weekend, we had a chance to use Tom Cundiff’s Millers Falls machine. Wow! It was a workout, but made boring holes for mortises much more practical with human power. Since then, we’ve been looking pretty steadily.

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