Well, now, don't I find myself in an awkward position, being both a timberwright and a CNC operator.
So here's my place in it all:
I grew up on a farm where my swedish mother raised sheep and taught weaving courses, and my scottish/native father hand crafted the looms for the courses. He had a swedish loom shipped to Canada for my mother which he used as a prototype for his own creations. The swedish one had metal hooks and gears, parts which he was unable to get at the time. So instead he built the parts out of wood. The result was a most amazing tool, hand crafted for hand crafting! My older sister loved the weaving part, but I loved the wood, the joinery, the smell of my fathers workshop, and spent as much time in there helping him as I could.
Our farm became known as a great hang out for the many artists and craft people travelling through the area at the time, and turned into a sort of hippie commune (we're talking early 70's, here), so people would trade their craft and experience in exchange for a place to sleep and a share in the garden.
So the beauty that I saw every day wasn't a proffessionaly drawn landscape; it was a stained glass window made from marbles and yesterdays broken plate, family portraits painted on scrap cedar planks, my own personal mug made from clay from our own river, and an old Dhukabor house with the craziest additions and funky trim! Nothing was 'perfect', but it was.
When I moved back to the area a few years ago, I learned there was a timberframing shop here. I promptly got a job there and started on my path to learning the most rewarding of trades. Dwight Smith, my employer, was and is an incredibly encouraging guy, and the level of talent and skill in that shop was amazing. And not one of the more than 15 men that I worked with had any issue with the fact that the only tool I couldn't supply was a penis! It wasn't needed! Go figure...
Anyways, after I had proved that I could leave, split or take the line while ripping a 10"x12"x24' with a 16" makita, and was well into learning layout, we all found out that the rumour was true: we were getting THE MACHINE!
At this point many of the highly skilled guys, some of whom had been with Dwight for many years, bailed immediately. Only one guy was willing to run the Hundegger - no-one else stepped up, and for obvious reasons; if any one of you were propositioned to give up hand cutting to run a CNC, what would your reaction be? Thought so.
But these guys had the years behind them. They were known in the timberframing and building community and have gone on to some great frames -sigh-. I had a pretty good job and wonderful co-workers, and three kids relying on me. I only had the 2 years as a timberwright under my belt, and could not and still cannot forsee going on my own.
So I stepped up.
I run the day shift. What I do have left of the old way is control over the assignment of pieces, and I can see the cut block from the shop from where the wood was selected. I can tell if a larch was cut down in the spring or fall, and cull it accordingly. And I can still go out in the yard before each project and select the perfect timbers for the 'perfect' bent. Some of them are clean and clear, but the real ones have little knots that look like eyes, that some small child will look at every night as she falls asleep, imagining.
So there. Somewhere rooted in this, be it in the blood or the memories or the encouragement, lies my philosophy on timberframing. I will always have it just as deep as many of you, a machine will not change that, but right now I gotta do it.
(And hand cut my own frame on the sly...
)
*Kristina*
