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Re: historic hewing questionnaire [Re: northern hewer] #32602 10/01/14 01:56 AM
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northern hewer Offline OP
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hello everyone tonight

well here I am again for a time, mother nature threw me a little curve, but it glanced

The guild is sure a leader in the timber framing world, I am trying to catch up on events, I hope that it continues its steady course forward

I am getting ready to show a young lad the basics of hewing as I see it, really excited about that

It is funny what you might find in walls, I just happened to explore the space between two brick walls and felt something there it was a wooden ruler which no doubt fell there many years ago when the construction was going on

That brings to mind a few unusual things that happened to me, finding a large penny in a wall dated 1899 the year my father was born

A while ago remodelling my home I found in the bathroom wall a chisel left there by the original contractor, I knew him and one day took the chisel back and gave it to him, he was astounded

It would be nice to hear some unusual happenings in your lifetime

Richard
The Northern Hewer

Re: historic hewing questionnaire [Re: northern hewer] #32603 10/01/14 05:41 PM
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Hi Richard, welcome back!

Lots of unusual things in my life, for sure.
But my favorite?

When I was part of a studio exchange program in NYC (I came to timber framing by way of sculpture and architecture) I had to take the GRE tests to get into grad school. I had stayed up way too late the night before, and actually, for the first time in my life had too much to drink...

So, I awoke with a headache really early on a Saturday, hailed a cab in the pouring rain, and gave the cabbie the address of the high school I needed to get to.

He got me close, but couldn't really find the school. I told him I would walk and find it. I paid him, and jumped out of the cab.

A couple of blocks later after walking around I reached down to my front pocket to see if I had my wallet...

And it wasn't there. I freaked out - you needed 2 forms of ID to sit for the test. I searched my bag, my pockets, my jacket. PO'd I ended up smashing my umbrella in anger.

Just then a cab pulls up, I run over to it, open the door and start blabbing... 'can you get on the radio and see if...' when I see my wallet sitting on the seat.

The cabbie told me he circled back around because he didn't want to leave me off in the neighborhood where I was.

I eventually found the school and filled in bubbles with a #2 pencil for several hours. I was soaking wet and had a hang over.

The results were sent to my NY apartment and to the school I was applying to. I never did see the results as my mail forwarding got messed up when I moved back to the midwest.

But, I did get into grad school, even got a partial scholarship. So I never really wanted to know how I did on that test... I just accept that it was 'good enough'.


Mike Beganyi Design and Consulting, LLC.
www.mikebeganyi.com
Re: historic hewing questionnaire [Re: northern hewer] #32604 10/01/14 06:13 PM
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Good stories! Reminds me of something I haven't thought of in years.

When I was a young trim carpenter I was fitting the top tread on a closed in staircase when I bumped my chisel off the stringer where I had foolishly set it down. It dropped into the staircase and I heard it bump and slide it's way all the way to the bottom.

I suppose I could have pulled up the first tread and retrieved it but it was late and I was tired so I left it as a present to the next guy working on those stairs.

Re: historic hewing questionnaire [Re: northern hewer] #32607 10/02/14 01:39 AM
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hello everyone

great stories especially the one about the wallet, it brings to mind and experience my friend had in Acapulco mexico.

Well we had hired a taxi to go down town and my friend paid on the return trip, well when we entered in the hotel he discovered that he had left his wallet in the taxi-you can imagine how he reacted all his money, identification, passport, gold master card etc--didn't know what to do most all taxis look alike, but the one we had was different, so we hired another taxi and went back to the spot where we had hired the taxi, and lo and behold there it was just returning and parked, he got out and started walking --my friend went over to him and said , "I believe you have my wallet"--The cabbie reached in his pocket and handed him his wallet without a question--You know he could have just disappeared up a side street and been well fixed for some time--this is something that happened that sure was a long shot and all we could think of doing, but paid off big time.

We now watch very carefully our wallets

Richard

Re: historic hewing questionnaire [Re: northern hewer] #32609 10/02/14 01:54 AM
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hello everyone tonight

I strongly believe in listening to that little voice in your head that tries to steer one in the right direction, but sometimes I believe destiny will not change

A few years ago I was operating the water powered Mulley mill at UCV and a young friend of mine, a real down to earth fellow came by to visit and talk about times gone by --his cup of tea so to speak- well he eventually said he had to go and left, he seemed in a hurry--left in the middle of a real great chat-well later that day, in fact only a short time later he was killed instantly on a dangerous corner on a main highway.

I always said if I could have even kept him a few seconds longer, he would have missed his rendezvous with destiny

It really bothers me to this day

What do you think?

NH

Last edited by northern hewer; 10/02/14 02:01 AM.
Re: historic hewing questionnaire [Re: northern hewer] #32618 10/04/14 06:45 PM
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hello everyone tonight

I have been catching up on various threads and one that caught my attention was the merger of the Guild's various components

I will always be a real supporter of the TTRAG as it now functions as a separate part and deals with historic information, it is one place where I and many others feel real comfortable

I guess I am a little behind the times though and should know that things need change from time to time to be competitive and interesting

I have seen many mergers over the years, and really and truly it makes me shake my head and wonder why it happened, it sometimes makes no sense

NH

Re: historic hewing questionnaire [Re: northern hewer] #32622 10/06/14 04:53 PM
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NH,

As a board member I feel like I can hopefully shed some more light on the goings on with the Guild and its various groups like TTRAG and the Engineering council, the ATP and likely if the merger goes forward, the TFBC.

As we envision this, the TFG will act as the umbrella group for TTRAG, TFEC, the Apprenticeship Program and the TFBC. This will be no change in status for the first three groups who now operate under the TFG's legal and tax status and have their own initiatives, leadership structure, and budgets. The TFBC will likely operate under the same or a similar arrangement, maintaining its own leadership structure, programming and operating budget.

What is exciting to me and may be of interest to you is that we are also trying to give these acteive and vibrant groups more voice at the TFG board level by alloting director seats to each group. This will give TTRAG, TFEC, and the ATP a direct hand in the directing and overseeing of the TFG, which is appropriate since the work they are doing is a significant part of what the TFG on the whole is doing. The business council will likely have the same arrangement. And there will continue to be directors elected by the entire TFG membership the same or very similar to the current process.

So to your specific area of interest - I think that with TTRAG having a voice on the board of directors of the Guild, I would expect them to become even more active and vibrant and hopefully even more involved in the TFG as a whole and its various programs, like the conference and our community building projects. I like that idea because it will create more opportunities for that group to share their knowledge of the craft's history and traditional practice with young framers and others who are interested.

I hope this is helpful - let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Gabel Holder

Re: historic hewing questionnaire [Re: northern hewer] #32624 10/08/14 02:10 AM
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northern hewer Offline OP
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hello everyone tonight

Thanks Gabel I hope the best for everyone, it sounds like everything is under control

NH

Re: historic hewing questionnaire [Re: northern hewer] #32633 10/09/14 01:33 AM
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well hello everyone tonight

seasons are changing, there is restless/anxious movement all around--

the corn fields are full of migratory birds moving south--they are the smart ones--

Well today I was back on the back forty trying to gather some special curved wood for a hand sleigh order, when I nearly fell into a hidden dug well--it was covered up by vegetation and old branches

I never knew it was there, but it must have been dug by a former owner, that lived on this property before our family came 5 generations ago, sometime before 1850 I put it--It was common for farmers to dig a well at the furthest end of the cleared land to water their stock without moving them very far, and then for no apparent reason they went into disuse, or forgot about

Just as a matter of interest these wells were sometimes 30 to 40 feet deep, stoned up leaving a central opening about 3 feet in diameter, the stoning up procedure somewhat of a mystery.

The locations were usually divined by someone in the area that could do that thing, and these diviners using many different methods would pinpoint underground streams/watersources and give an estimate of the depth--usually pretty accurate--

I have been down in a few wells to help clean them out and the strangest one that I ran across had 6 feet of 2" oak cribbing at the bottom with holes in the sides that allowed the water to come through from the vein in the ground--the well I was in had so much sediment in it that the cribbing was not in sight--as we cleaned it out the cribbing came in sight and as we continued further the holes to admit the water came into view and spurted like from a tap--never forget that one--

Another well I helped my father clean out it had gone dry and the people were in bad straights, well we cleaned it out to no avail, no water--what my father did was to jab a long bar down as far as he could in the bottom, and inserted a stick of dynamite-he told me to get back and then he discharged it- well in no time the well was full, he said that all that was needed was to shake up the earth--it reminded me of today's fracking for natural gas

well have to go now, but I wonder if anyone has anything to add to hand dug wells in other parts of the world, and maybe that stoning up method, never could quite figure out how that was done without someone getting killed and quickly enough to escape the incoming water-

NH

Re: historic hewing questionnaire [Re: northern hewer] #32634 10/09/14 03:59 PM
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Diving, that's a hot point of debate among my people. The old guard all did it, that's how you found water back then. Two methods that were used were, you'd hold a forked stick with one fork in each hand and the other end pointed out. The other way was to hold the ends of a bent wire. You walk around, and the end of the stick or the middle of the wire would fall down. So there you dig.

Today, there is a lot of opposition to it. A lot of our people will have nothing to do with it. They can find no scientific reason why it should work (but it does work) so the conclusion they have come to is that it must be demonic some how.
I told this to some of my friends in the Berner Oberland (where our people come from, and where just about all of our culture comes from as well) and they thought that was nonsense. It's still how they find wells and springs up in the mountains today. It's interesting to note that there is a great deal of witchcraft and superstition in those mountains too, all dating back to before the Romans.


Was de eine ilüchtet isch für angeri villech nid so klar.
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