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Dec 26
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John Neeman: Birth of a Tool Part III: Making Damascus Knives

By Video, Hand Tools
John Neeman Tools

Hand forging a damascus knife blade

John Neeman and company have done it again, and produced a stunning mini-documentary video about the production of a damascus knife blade, in Birth of a Tool: Part III. Damascus knives are extremely labor-intense, as they require multiple layers of different types of steel to be forged and folded repeatedly, with a minimum of at least 300 layers. The resulting blade is intensely strong, and intensely beautiful, too.

Check out the folks at John Neeman Tools hand forging these knives, and creating the leather sheath in their latest video below! Beautiful work, and excellent filmmaking, too.

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May 04
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Precut: Mechanized Timber Frame Construction in Japan

By Timber Framing, Video

Leave it to Japan. Seriously. I recently stumbled upon this video, which demonstrates the mechanized timber frame building technology that is being employed in Japan to build homes quickly, with little human labor involved.

Japan has one of the richest timber framing traditions, with centuries of experience and a host of complicated styles and techniques that have developed over that time — take a look at The Complete Japanese Joinery book for some intense examples of the work of traditional carpenters.

Well, some of that same timber joinery is now being completely created through the use of highly precise machines. As this video explains, a single factory with less than half a dozen human employees makes all of the timber for 800-1000 homes in a single year using this “precut” method. Gulp.

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Mar 07
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Short Film Shot in Cob House: DOG SHAMAN’s JOURNEY

By Video

I had a whole lot of fun a few weeks ago making this short film with April and our dog, Pug (the pug). It’s called DOG SHAMAN’s JOURNEY and features a character we made up over a year ago, Dog Shaman, the small dog whisperer. Err. Maybe you should just watch it, and then you’ll understand.

Anyway, parts of this short film were shot in my cob house, which despite its small size, actually worked out pretty well for a set.

Check it out below.

p.s. Watch in high quality!

Sep 12
Love2

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 10
Love2

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
Love2

Our Second BIG Timber Frame Bent Raising (With Video)

By Hand Tools, Wabi-sabi Kitchen, Timber Framing, Bent Raising, Video
bigbent-standing01

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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Aug 10
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Earthen Floor Demolition Video

By Video, Earthen Floor, Resources

Here’s yet another video of me destroying something in or around my cob house. This time, I take a pickaxe to the earthen floor inside Gobcobatron. Breaking it up was fairly tough work, but worse is trying to cleanly scoop up the material and carry it out of the house in buckets. Yuck. Well, I’m glad that’s over with, at least! It took a bit more than a day to complete, not without the help of a few hands throughout the process.

Jun 06
Love0

Video: Two Beautiful Low Impact Roundhouses in Wales

By Resources, Video

I was very happy to discover this video on Tony Wrench’s website the other day. It provides a little tour of Wrench’s low impact roundhouse, and Simon Dale’s new house at Lammas, in Wales.

If you’ve done any searching for beautiful natural buildings online, it’s likely you have seen Simon Dale’s original low impact woodland home. But Simon’s got limited images of his new house up, so this video gives a better impression of the design. Check out that killer big greenhouse!

Definitely very exciting to see a bit more of Tony Wrench’s and Simon Dale’s work here. These two have provided me with a lot of inspiration for my own home, and they’ve also consulted me with on some things, too. Can’t thank them enough.

Gorgeous!