Just Another Teak House

[friscofrankie]

I drive by this project almost every day. Hadn't noticed until last week it's hidden behind a few buildings on small plot of land.

The house is being built in place. The home is being built from mostly recycled old home parts and I was lucky enough to catch the the master builder, a guy of about 55 - 60 years old working up a simple finger joint on the the girt (?) joining the purlins on the sala out front.



As I said the house is mainly old teak home parts and pieces being combined to build a beautiful new structure. here you can see the fit-up is done in a workman like manner.

here you have a dutchman fitted up and the resultant column rabbited out to fit one of the roof supports. Not real sure why the fella pt the dutchman in crosss-grain like this usually put 'em in so the grain runs parallel. the notch the dutchman fills is deeper than the thickness of the diagonal support and I imagine the downward force potentially could have split the dutchman out if it was set in vertically. The fit-up here is typical of the quality of work, if anything it is one of the cruder fit ups I saw n the site.

here the master builder is picking up the measurements for a mortise where the upper beam will punch through the "girt" (not real sure this is the proper term but I've heard it used this way before).

The guy worked unhurried, but quickly he knew his shit and the fit up of all his joints were good enough for any fine wood project. Simply put; after a few minutes watching him I knew; he is damn good at what he does.

[friscofrankie]

AS oyu may have noticed there were scaffolds all around the front of the house and sala. No fuckin Bamboo here but real steal scaffolds, these guys had a table saw and well maintained tools. I tried to work around the scaffolds to give you an idea of what the place is gonna look like. The guys were busy working and had no time for chit-chat but they made me feel welcome
here's a closer shot of the stairs leading up to the front sitting/greeting area.


The doors up there appear to have been whitwashed at one time and snaded down, I've seen this effect on several pieces being build or in place around here not sure if it's from manufactured effect or part of the piece of wood's history.
Sneak shot of under the house:


up on the porch/sitting/greeting area:


I plan to stop in on 'em again maybe in a couple of weeks (or days) and see how they're progressing. They appeared to be a team of Master Journeyman and apprentice They worked without much discussion everyone knew what was to be doen what part they played in the next task and they went about it as if they wired together. Beautiful to see this kind of work being done rare in any locale.
The workmanship was excellent on some of the raised panels, the beading onthe panel had little three inch long dutchmen fitted in almost imperceptible to the eye. These guys are damn good.

[king of uranus]

I don't know what a dutchman joint is, but looks like very good artisan grade work. Searching for a pic of a dutchman joint I found this joinery site;

Examples of Wood Joinery

Looks like they learned from previous failures/splitting to avoid downward pressure on exposed vertical grain. Nothing beats experience.

[friscofrankie]

dutchman is a term applied by carpenters to a patch or an insert in woodwork. Sometimes it's used to hide a bad joint in this case it was used to fill in a notch from it's last use

[El Gibbon]

FF
If the dutchman is fixed on one side (glued/nailed) it probably provides more support horizontally grained than vertically grained. Think these new wooden support trusses made with grain aligned laminates.

E. G.

[friscofrankie]

I see the reasoning behind it, small piece like that under compression at that angle. Looks like shit though

I've not met many workers in this country I'd let try 'n teach me anything. This guy, I'd listen to. I highly doubt he does anything with out a damn good reason.

[friscofrankie]

Walked by again today snapped a quick pick of the finished piece mortised and wedged in place. Couple folks expressed an interest in this type of thing, the work of a skilled artisan is always a joy to behold:

Actually looking closer and giving myt feeble brain time to think I would call the pieces fascia they bear little if any structural load and are primarily there to smooth the look and cover the mechanics of the structure. Purlins and girts are structural members, bearing a load or stress.
Even thse apparently new pieces are old wood taken from houses and planed to new thickness. Close examination show them to be hand planed.

The hardware used on this project is heavy stuff, made up of stainless and brass to look traditional. Smooth motion and of tough construction, I'll try and get some shots of the stuff next time. Ones I got today are shit