This, that, and the other

[rox]

I don't even see enough pictures of the house (mainly we are seeing stairs pics) to tell the design nor floor plan so I cna't comment. You guys must have taken a closer look than me. One thing Harv I saw on Holmes on Homes, a tv show where Mike Holmes goes in after contractors botch a job and he fixes it, anyway there was a really difficult kitchen countertop that needed to be cut. It has a post on one end that was at a wierd angle, Mike brought in a countertop sub and the sub used this machine which was amazing Blick Industries - Proliner 8.0 Overview When Mike saw the machine in use he even thought it was totally cool. Check out the videos, I especially like the video of the machine measuring contours. I kind of thought of you Harv because you are always doing such unique work, that you would be interested to see the machine. Course you are probably so good you don't need the machine but it was pretty cool.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Rox I've got a friend in the granite business that's told me about that set up. It works pretty slick.

There's also a laser level kit that works off of a Blue Tooth system. Insurance adjusters and remodeling sales people use it. You set up your laptop and then calibrate in the laser tool. You aim it at the corners and it does all the math calculating height and length of walls etc.

Most of what I do is seat of the pants hold on tight stuff. I suspect that all goes back to the thrill I get out of the doing. The other day I was cleaning out some post holes with a pair of post hole diggers. I'd dug the holes with the tractor but I always clean out all the loose stuff with post hole diggers.

Anyway, as I was digging I thought to myself, "harvey, you're fifty nine years old and there's no reason on gawd's green earth you should be doing this at your age. You should have young bucks doing it. Then I had to smile. You see the sad thing is, I like digging with the posthole diggers. I'm doing what I like to be doing, doing it for the doing.

It isn't just about the physical high one gets from exercising either. It's about working with the diggers and getting the most dirt out each time and knowing that a lot of people have issues with them because it isn't near as easy as it looks. I don't care how many times you've done it. If you take the time to look and think about what you're doing as you're digging a post hole with post hole diggers you can do the most important thing a human being can do for themselves. You can learn to do it better. And you can enjoy the feel goods you get when you do it better.

It's a two fer. Two fers are addicting. Once you learn to appreciate them you can find them everywhere for the picking.

BTW, if the weather allows it next week I'm starting a new project that has me really really really excited. The client it totally on board and it's going to be a real one of a kind done in a way like I don't know of anyone doing before.

If I get lucky it will be one of the better flights I've taken by the seat of my pants.

 

[rtdiggr]

Don't forget to post pics of next weeks project. it sounds interesting.

Shane

 

[Defective]

Every time I read through one of Harvs projects the same thought pops into my head...

Harvey,

When "someday" finally arrives & I get to build my final home... What would it take to talk you into a 2500+ mile road trip?

 

[weldingisfun]

Rox I've got a friend in the granite business that's told me about that set up. It works pretty slick.

There's also a laser level kit that works off of a Blue Tooth system. Insurance adjusters and remodeling sales people use it. You set up your laptop and then calibrate in the laser tool. You aim it at the corners and it does all the math calculating height and length of walls etc.

Most of what I do is seat of the pants hold on tight stuff. I suspect that all goes back to the thrill I get out of the doing. The other day I was cleaning out some post holes with a pair of post hole diggers. I'd dug the holes with the tractor but I always clean out all the loose stuff with post hole diggers.

Anyway, as I was digging I thought to myself, "harvey, you're fifty nine years old and there's no reason on gawd's green earth you should be doing this at your age. You should have young bucks doing it. Then I had to smile. You see the sad thing is, I like digging with the posthole diggers. I'm doing what I like to be doing, doing it for the doing.

It isn't just about the physical high one gets from exercising either. It's about working with the diggers and getting the most dirt out each time and knowing that a lot of people have issues with them because it isn't near as easy as it looks. I don't care how many times you've done it. If you take the time to look and think about what you're doing as you're digging a post hole with post hole diggers you can do the most important thing a human being can do for themselves. You can learn to do it better. And you can enjoy the feel goods you get when you do it better.

It's a two fer. Two fers are addicting. Once you learn to appreciate them you can find them everywhere for the picking.

BTW, if the weather allows it next week I'm starting a new project that has me really really really excited. The client it totally on board and it's going to be a real one of a kind done in a way like I don't know of anyone doing before.

If I get lucky it will be one of the better flights I've taken by the seat of my pants.

Harv, I'm 62 and feel the same as you do when doing the very same thing.

 

[3RRL]

Harv,
I think your craftsmanship is outstanding your attention to details shows in your meticulous work.
However, I have to agree with Jim and Bird about the rest of the house. It just does not seem to be of the same "theme" or whatever. Something turns me off to the rest of it even where it appears to be finished or existing. I dunno, but to me it's like it's not deserving of what you are doing.
Of course, that is neither here nor there.

On the other hand, I would love to have those stairs you made in my log home. They are exquisite and would be the "show case" in it for sure.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Welding is fun, I see guys in their late forties and early fifties focusing on retirement and I sometimes wonder if there's something wrong with me. My only real concern is there is so much I want to do and so little time......

I've went back through this thread and I can't see where there is a problem with flow in either house I'm showing pictures. Unless of course, you're looking at two the two houses and thinking they're one.

What they have in common is young men with large families that for whatever reason have me in the middle of their home construction. The families and the homes are completely different.

Yesterday I went into the woods with a rented compact track loader, Deere CT322, with eight hours on the meter and pulled eleven more trees. I'll be going back today and tomorrow for more.

This gave me a chance to get some pictures of both homes last night. Here's home number one where I started by helping with the piers and beams and ended up helping make the eastern red cedar lumber for the wainscoating and ceilings.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

I got to home number two after dark. My Sony I carry for work pictures doesn't like working in low light and the pictures don't do justice to the work the client has done since I was there and took pictures the other day.

The hand rail and most of the posts were made by laminating small pieces to make big pieces. This was because of the time constraints and not having more lumber available. We'll have more available next week but he did with what he had and kept right on trucking.

His plan is to finish the wood work on the stairs and then install the pickets in the grooves that are visible in the top and bottom rails. He'll cut and place spacers to hole them in place and then sand and finish the spacers last.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Earlier this week I had an interesting project. The client/friend has been after me to help him out with a situation. He has a utility easement/green belt at the rear of his home. His home has a front entry rear garage set up. As everyone on the street has fenced off the easement his home has become the preferred access to it by all of his neighbors in the interior of his subdivision.

He wanted to fence off the easement but he needed to have access for backing his work pickup out into the easement to allow them to get the other two vehicles in and out of the garage.

This is what we did.

The reason I build my gates like this is when it comes to nailing up the pickets we do it with the nail gun and keep right on nailing. I don't use the big rubber/plastic rollers you see everyone else using either. I don't see where I need it. This gate could be opened and closed by a large child or small adult but the client likes having control from inside his truck.

 

[rtdiggr]

The houses look great, i think i missing something about the flow of the house it looks good to me.
The gate is awesome, it looks like that must have been planned out pretty good.

Shane

 

[wroughtn_harv]

They aren't my first gates. I've been making them like this for ten years or more. I don't do many because they are expensive compared to having a crew of laborers mob a job with someone yelling "get'r done!"

I don't work that way. If I'm going to do the job them I'm doing to do it my way and at my pace. If I can't have fun I don't want to play.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Yesterday we went to the woods and pulled the two biggest cedars left. We also grabbed the two best big cedars with decent crotches. We only found two and they were only eleven feet off of the ground.

Eastern Red Cedars have lousy branch geometry. They're usually too vertical and they're prone to splitting. We found two with a large crotches like that of large oaks and felt like we'd hit the lotto.

Today I've got to unload the big logs and then go back for saplings. There are probably thousands of cedar saplings four to six inches in diameter thirty plus feet high in these woods. I need at least one good trailer load of them.

What I've got is two timber entryways. One of them will be more along the line of the big timber gates you see in the mountains out west, three big logs on each side of the gate with an arched log overhead. The other will be rock columns with the crotch logs coming out of the columns with an arched log overhead head.

Both of them will have wood/steel gates on operators. Both them will also have wood steel rail fencing.

Six or seven years ago I was approached about the insanity of building a rail fence at the Texas Wild Exhibit at the Ft Worth Zoo. The architect had designed large western cedar posts and pipe rails. The contractor thought it was impossible and insane. We did it. We also got lucky. It came out really pretty.

When I got the final go ahead on these two jobs I went to my powder coater to look at a relatively new and expensive process where they coat metal with a wood grain UV protected finish. It is really nice, expensive, but nice.

The problem is it's almost impossible to use this process on a finished product. That's because of the way the process works. A base coat is put on the piece. Then the piece has a tube of what looks like expensive inside out Xmas paper put over it. The ends are sealed and a vacuum is pulled. As the vacuum sucks out the air the coating material is worked against the metal removing all the wrinkles and slack. Under vacuum the piece goes into the powder coating oven. When it's done the piece is brought out and the coating material is clear and the pattern is on the metal piece.

The problem here in the south with wood posts is they rot if they're not eaten by our bugs. My posts will be pipe with mortises made with smaller pipe. They will be powdercoated a knotty pine wood grain. The gates will be made the same way except I'm going to have to design a fastening system where they will be able to be reconstructed into a gate.

The finished products will have the appearance of all wood but all the advantages of metal and powdercoating for longevity. Metal posts with cedar rails and a metal gate where it counts.

This is my kind of project, lots of challenges and many opportunities to get lucky. After all, as Texas Don says, "I'd rather be lucky than good. Anyone can be good. That only takes effort."

 

[jinman]

They aren't my first gates. I've been making them like this for ten years or more. I don't do many because they are expensive compared to having a crew of laborers mob a job with someone yelling "get'r done!"

I don't work that way. If I'm going to do the job them I'm doing to do it my way and at my pace. If I can't have fun I don't want to play.

No matter what that gate costs, the owner will be paid back over the years with perfect operation and the "oohs" and "aahs" of everyone who sees it. I'm guilty of looking at a finished product and visualizing all the steps that went into the process of building it (a curse, really). I love the way you attached the square tubing to the big gate and the walk-thru gate.

I think your client's easement access problem is over...but now everyone will want to see his new gate.

 

[EddieWalker]

Harvey,

I really like the stairs and from what I can tell in the pictures, think they work great in that house. Everything depends on the finish, but the bulk and shape of the stairs really are what it's all about in my opinion.

The woodwork in the other house is just awesome. I love everything about that house except the kitchen. If there is something that doesn't belong, it's those cabinets. They look like sombody saw something they liked in another house and wanted that in the new house without regard to how it would fit with they style of the new house.

I've fought with clients on this fairly often. For whatever reason, they get it in their head that a feature in a house that they saw is something that they really liked. So when they start to build or remodel, they want that feature in their home. Sometimes it works, but sometimes it jumps out as a mistake.

If the client really wants it, then that's what they get. Their opinion is the only one that matters. LOL But if it was my kitchen to have designed, I think hickory cabinets would have really complimented that home with dark counters.

The gate is REALLY NICE!!!

I'm looking forward to seeing how you put the entrance logs together with the metal. I have an idea in my brain, but I've leaned over the years that you'll suprise me!!

Thanks for posting all those great pics.

Eddie

 

[rtdiggr]

They aren't my first gates. I've been making them like this for ten years or more. I don't do many because they are expensive compared to having a crew of laborers mob a job with someone yelling "get'r done!"

I don't work that way. If I'm going to do the job them I'm doing to do it my way and at my pace. If I can't have fun I don't want to play.

I have alot of respect for they way you work, to bad we live in a society that wants everything done yesterday OR you want "how much to do that job"
Shane

 

[patrick_g]

Harv, As always, you are having fun and getting to do some NEAT STUFF. I too have been out in the woods collecting Eastern Red Cedar (Juniperus Virginiana) off and on for a few years. Starting to run out of BIG stuff. I haven't seen one over 2 ft in diameter 10 ft above the ground in a while. Didn't see many to start with. I have maybe a thousand board feet left stickered and waiting on me to do something.

I'm curious... The tall fence... are they keeping things (people or other animals) out or in? I haven't seen fence like that since I was looking at a buffalo pasture. A fence like that and you wonder if they were going to bid on a DOC contract.

Pat

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Eddie, here in the DFW area we're plagued with that magazine pictures designing process. The best example of that is all of our McMansions. They're everywhere and define what a client on mine once explained as, "people whose only taste is in their mouths."

Jim, one of the first walk gates I did like that was in 86 or 87. A couple of months ago I did a drive gate for that family. When I explained how well the gate would work (they didn't have an operator in mind) she told me to hush up. They only thing that had worked as advertised for twenty years was the walk gate.

Shane, the problem is very few people today have learned to appreciate the work. The only way we can change that is to demand respect for our work. We do that by educating the consumer and not succumbing to the "get'r done" mindset.

Most of my clients at least know me by reputation. So I go in with them expecting a cranky old man with an attitude. That helps. And it gives them a story to tell about the product later on.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Harv, As always, you are having fun and getting to do some NEAT STUFF. I too have been out in the woods collecting Eastern Red Cedar (Juniperus Virginiana) off and on for a few years. Starting to run out of BIG stuff. I haven't seen one over 2 ft in diameter 10 ft above the ground in a while. Didn't see many to start with. I have maybe a thousand board feet left stickered and waiting on me to do something.

I'm curious... The tall fence... are they keeping things (people or other animals) out or in? I haven't seen fence like that since I was looking at a buffalo pasture. A fence like that and you wonder if they were going to bid on a DOC contract.

Pat

That's standard eight foot board on board cedar privacy fence here in North Texas. Well, except the posts are pipe and not tubing, the post holes are three feet deep and twelve inches across instead of two by eight, etc and so on.

Our trees aren't that big. I'd guess eighteen to twenty inches at ten feet at best. I'll post some pictures tonight.

 

[rtdiggr]

Shane, the problem is very few people today have learned to appreciate the work. The only way we can change that is to demand respect for our work. We do that by educating the consumer and not succumbing to the "get'r done" mindset.


Amen to that.

Shane

 

[EddieWalker]

Eddie, here in the DFW area we're plagued with that magazine pictures designing process. The best example of that is all of our McMansions. They're everywhere and define what a client on mine once explained as, "people whose only taste is in their mouths."

Sad, but true.

Eddie