"Hi everybody my name is Chris. I choose my woodworking projects based on whatever happens to inspire me".
In this video, Chris builds a foot powered treadle lathe. Great project, great video.
Via Old Engineering.
"Lumber is usually dried to a specific moisture content prior to further manufacturing or use. While lumber can be air-dried, the humidity in most localities prevents the lumber from reaching the moisture content required for the stability needed for interior use. The kiln discussed is designed to be inexpensive to construct and be simple to operate."
"The solar kiln described was designed, constructed, and tested at
Virginia Tech. This design is based on 25 years of research and
development on the solar drying of lumber in the United States and
foreign countries. Drawings for two versions of this kiln are available;
one for 800-1,000 bd ft and the other for 1,500-2,000 board feet of
lumber. Both kilns will dry a load of lumber in approximately one month
of moderately sunny weather at its location in Blacksburg, VA."
"Drying lumber can be a complex process where accelerating drying without having quality loss often requires extensive knowledge and experience. The design of the Virginia Tech solar kiln is such that extensive knowledge, experience and control are not required. The size of the collector keeps the kiln from over-heating and causing checking and splitting of the wood. The kiln is simple to construct and utilizes a passive solar collector, four insulated walls and an insulated floor. The roof is made of clear, greenhouse rated, corrugated polyethylene."
"They are hard to build with, they require regular maintenance, they are expensive and they flex a lot. However, if you want a traditional looking wheel, avoiding metal altogether is a marvellous move, something that we’re lucky to still be able to do today."
Cerchio Ghisallo has been producing wooden rims since 1946, and in this video father and son show how they do it. Inside Cerchio Ghisallo part 1, part 2, part 3.
More about wood rims: Building with Wooden Rims / Cycling before Lycra / Wheel Fanatyk / Is Wood the Goods? / Wood Sprints /Cerchio Ghisallo / Sacro Bosco Bicycle works / CB Italia.
Picture: d'Annata by Sartoria Cicli.
"The bowls created by Robin Wood’s reconstructed lathe have an
unique finish, which is only found in bowls cut with a traditional pole
lathe. The sharp tools leave a distinctive mark much like the lines
found on thrown earthen ware or glass. The clean cut with the sharpened
tools means that the objects are practical for everyday use. They can
be washed with warm soapy water and will not fuzz up, unlike a bowl cut
on a machine lathe and later sanded smooth. Robin’s bowls and plates
only improve with use and ware."
"Of course making wooden table ware for a living means making thousands of items every year, which seems rather a tall order when you consider the technology being used, but Rob insists that his pole lathe can turn out wooden ware as quickly as the mechanised equivalent. This theory has been put to the test and proven correct. As Robin explains in the film, when he’s powered up, so is his lathe and he can get results quickly. When he stops the lathe turning he can adjust the wood instantaneously, whereas when you power down a mechanical lathe you have to wait for the machine to slow down and stop turning in it’s own time."
"Any fool can make something more complex but it takes real genius to make things simple again". A new video by Artisan Media. Robin Wood's blog.
Via Toolemera. Previously: Make your own treadle lathe.
"In the last twenty years or so since I built this foot-powered
treadle lathe, I have received many requests for drawings or
plans. The lathe has been used as part of our traditional
woodworking demonstrations and it never fails to draw a
crowd. Of course, the reason the lathe exists is because I felt a
need for it as a tool. Some of the main considerations when designing the lathe were:
"The Dugout Canoe Project (.pdf) began as an experiment to use traditional Native American technologies. Archaeologists are reliant on just a few ethnohistoric sources that mention how Native Americans made dugout canoes using stone tools and fire. Numerous contemporary examples of dugouts exist, particularly Plimouth Plantation’s Wampanoag Indian Program, made by burning and scraping out logs. However, to the best of our knowledge, no one has attempted to fell a tree using only stone tools and fire. We wanted to see if we could cut down a live tree using these technologies, something that may not have been done in this area for several hundred years."
"Dugout canoes are probably the first type of boat ever made. People from all over the world made dugouts. They were widely used in North America before the arrival of Europeans. Dugout canoes were made by Native Americans across North and South America for transportation and to hunt fish with a spear, bow and arrows, or with hooks made from antler or bones. In Eastern North America, dugout canoes were typically made from a single log of chestnut or pine. Carefully controlled fires were used to hollow out these logs. The fires were extinguished at intervals to scrape out the burned wood with wood, shell or stone tools, giving the canoes a flat bottom with straight sides."
Courtesy of the Fruitlands Museum. More posts on primitive technology.
"This manual is intended to provide comprehensive support to those involved with maintaining, assessing, strengthening, or rehabilitating covered bridges, especially heavy timber truss bridges. At one time, the United States reportedly had 14,000 of these unique bridges dotting the countryside over a surprisingly large area. Now, fewer than 900 of the historic structures survive.
Timber bridges initially were built without coverings and failed in just a few years because of rot and deterioration, because chemical wood preservatives were not available or used. Builders familiar with the construction of houses, barns, and large community structures naturally added siding and roofs to help protect the bridge. They understood that the covering would soon pay for itself. They believed that regular maintenance and occasional replacement of the light covering was far easier and cheaper than building an entirely new bridge. North American covered bridges still serve after nearly 200 years, due in part to the continued soundness of the trusses, which was possible only with these protective coverings."
"Covered Bridge Manual", 327 pages, US Department of Transportation, 2005. Via Arquitectura y madera. Previously: wooden bridges / wooden pipelines. Picture by Rainer Ebert.
"A reciprocal roof is a beautiful and simple self-supporting structure that can be composed of as few as three rafters, and up to any imaginable quantity (within reason, of course). Reciprocal roofs require no center support, they are quick to construct, and they can be built using round poles or dimensional lumber (perhaps with some creative notching). They are extremely strong, perfect for round buildings, and very appropriate for living roofs, as well."
How to build a reciprocal roof frame. Practice with matches first. Related: How to build an earthbag dome. Via Judit Bellostes.
"This book is intended to furnish general information regarding the construction, the advantages and the use of our wooden stave pipe". "Wooden stave pipes", Redwood Manufacturers Company, 1911. Via Arquitectura y Madera. Wooden pipes were (and occasionally still are) used for domestic water supply, irrigation, sewer systems and hydraulic power stations. Summary below the fold.
Birch bark has been used in Finland for centuries as a construction
material and as material for making small objects like baskets and
shoes. One of birch bark's features is good thermal insulation. The surface is water repellent and it
can be gently washed with water. Some components of birch bark also
protect it from decomposing.
Finnish architects Teija Losoi, Anne Varsamäki and Ilari Pirttilahti used the technique to build a lightweight sauna - basically a huge traditional birch bark basket turned upside down. The light walls are supported by a wooden structure that is hidden inside two layers of braided birch bark. More pictures: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4. Thank you, Zeltia !
"Sometimes, if a pen stutters, you can get it going again by shaking it. But
sometimes it seems to take a lot of shaking.
So I figured, what if I could shake it really really hard?
What if I built a centrifuge to get the ink flowing again? And so this project came about!"
Hand tool overkill. Don't miss the video (and the other projects by Matthias Wandel).
Via Make Magazine.
A hand powered sawing machine to harvest trees. Click on the illustration to see the full plans. Source: Bulletin de la Société d'Encouragement pour l'Industrie Nationale, june 1822.
Our article on industrial windmills appeared on The Oil Drum and, as could be expected, this generated many interesting comments. One in particular was made by a reader named "anyone", who sent in a link about a high-tech wind turbine placed on a tower made entirely of wood.
So while we suggested to redesign traditional windmills by using modern, high-tech materials, the German company TimberTower proposes the opposite: redesign modern wind turbines by using traditional, low-tech materials.
Large wind turbines are usually made of steel, and while they definitely deliver more energy over their lifetime than it takes to produce them (contrary to small wind turbines), using no energy at all would of course be even better - and cheaper.
Wood is easier to transport (the TimberTower is manufactured out of glued laminated timber panels which are assembled on-site), doesn't need to be mined, has no corrosion issues (think of offshore turbines), and it captures carbon. And while trees bend in strong winds, they usually don't break.
Using a timber tower for a 100 metre high wind turbine can save approximately 300 tons of sheet steel, writes the company at their website. One "TimberTower" also ties up approximately 400 tons of CO2. They say they can build them as high as 200 metres. Serial production should start in 2010. More: TimberTower. Related: wooden pipelines, wooden bridges.
