Biddle

We are ramping up to thatch the new frame in the village, and to prepare I have been diligently researching the period tools necessary for traditional thatching. We will be thatching in the public eye, so authenticity is an absolute must. So first on the docket is the precursor (at least in my humble opinion) to the modern hook ladder used for slate roofing, the biddle.

Basically, a biddle is a short ladder with some iron hooks that pierce through the thatch and hook onto the lath on the roof. This gives a nice versatile working platform that you can move around at your leisure. I started with a bow of Sassafrass and hewed it on four sides. Working such a small piece of wood was a nice change of pace. I didn't even score to my line, just started hewing with a hatchet, and within the hour I had a relatively squarish timber.

I love the sweet smell of Sassafras while it is being worked

Next, I bored holes through the piece. I think I did every 12", but it is more important to be consistent than to hit an exact number. These holes will accommodate the rungs of the biddle, and are about 7/8" diameter. It is best to auger the holes before ripping the stiles apart, that way you don't have to bother with that shop math that always seems to go wrong to line up all the holes.

Two squares keep me boring plumb

Before the comments start flowing in, I know a screw auger is not 17th century accurate, but unlike the Brewster Chair, no one will know I used it because these are through holes. Sometimes efficiency trumps authenticity, especially when no one is the wiser (I think I just blew my cover).

Next was ripping the small timber into stiles. Luckily I learned the Tao of Saw Sharpening from the always helpful Saw Wright, Matt Cianci, so I had a newly sharpened rip saw waiting in the wings.

Using a wedge keeps the piece from pinching

This biddle will be used on roofs up to 30 ft in the air, so I wanted it to be as robust as possible. This lead me to put mortised rails on the top and bottom to hold the whole thing together. I chiseled the mortises with a 3/4" chisel, and cut the tenons to fit.

It is easier to fit the tenon to the chisel, than fit the chisel to the tenon

Keeping with the "I don't want to fall off the roof and die" mentality I also draw bored the mortise and tenons for a nice tight assembly. For the pegs I used bone dry riven white oak and noisily banged it through a dowel plate.

Dog holes in the bench are perfect places for the pins to be blasted through the plate

Remember my note on screw augers above? Yeah...refer to that in regards to dowel plates.

In addition to the draw bores, I also made all of the rungs with stopped shoulders and tiny little wedges to secure them into the stiles. Note to self, there is a reason they didn't wedge ladder rungs...it makes construction about twice as long. Now all I needed was a mallet and earplugs to knock this bad boy together.

Tap, Tap, Tap

I got a little carried away knocking the whole assembly together and it fell right off the bench, but it didn't self destruct, so that is reason to be happy.

It is easy to get giddy when approaching the end of a new, exciting project

The last piece to be dealt with was making the tiniest stupidest through tenons I will probably cut in my life. These were for the iron hooks that our blacksmith made for me. The mortises were 3/16" x 3/4" and went through the whole 3-1/2" piece of Sassafrass, and they had a stepped shoulder to boot.

A tight fit now ensures a tight fit later

Clenching the biddle hooks is pretty much the same as clenching nails...except you use a sledge hammer and swing as hard as you can.

There is a fine line between clenching and splitting with these bad Larrys

Finally, I step back and admire my hard work, not bad if I do say so myself. Total hand tool construction, all the way from felling the tree with an axe. Next on the list of thatching tools is a biddle (that is not a typo...but it IS a story for another time).

I need to get The Boss to take better pictures for me...

Coarse, Medium, and Fine

While hewing some perlins, I noticed the (or at least my) three stages of hewing; coarse, medium, and fine. Pretty cool.

On second thought, maybe I'll move to Finland

In a previous post I said that if my current job didn't work out I was going to move to Germany and become a Bavarian logger. But after perusing the internet I came up with another great video. (Link for phone and tablet users)

I want to join this crew of Finnish carpenters so bad it hurts.I could go on and on about the things I found fantastic about this video, but I will stick to the high notes.

1. Hewing an entire gable end wall before I die MUST happen.
2. I need to start cutting joints with nothing but a hatchet.
3. How cool are pegged floating floors?
4. I am going to Finland to get me one of those sweet axes!

P.S. Seeing as I have crazy O.C.D., I couldn't stop thinking about those great Finnish axes. So I did some research and found that there are pretty much two ways to get your hands on one. The first way - find a friend in Finland and have them go to any flea market and pick up a great vintage Billnas for almost nothing...and then pay a fortune in shipping costs to send it over state-side. The second way is to figure out a way to buy one from John Neeman Tools (see blog post here). It might be easier finding a friend in Finland, and I have a feeling that it would be a lot cheaper too.

P.P.S. I think it is poor blogging etiquette to have the P.S. longer than the blog.

P.P.P.S. Or having three post scripts.

P.P.P.P.S The End

The Dregs of Society

A lot of change is happening at work recently and as a result we are cleaning out spaces and finding fun toys...I mean tools...to play...I mean work...with. On top of that, our tractor is currently out of service, but work must go on. Luckily we found (what we thought was) a Dreg in one of the storage sheds.

A modern Dreg with spindly wheels.

Flash forward a week and we needed to move a log from the hewing bocking to the saw pit. The log was a wet piece of white oak 10"x10" 13 feet long, so it was waaaaay heavier than four men wanted to lift, what a great time to try out our new set of wheels.

Rope makes pulling and steering a lot easier.

What an easy job it was! If it wasn't for pulling the log up an icy hill we could have easily handled this thing with two men. Looks like a 17th century Dreg just topped the project list. It will make timber handling a fantastic exhibit rather than a dirty little secret we do before visitors arrive.

I get the easy job of taking pictures.

My Fallback Plan

Just in case my life as a 17th century carpenter philosopher doesn't work out, I will definitely try out being a Bavarian woodsman. I found these two short videos during some inter-web wanderings. The first one is just the most ridiculous logging operation I have ever seen, I was slack jawed watching these crazy Germans tossing around their giant logs with nothing more than some elbow grease. Also, the man taking down the log's dimensions wins the best dressed award. (Link for tablet and phone users)

The second video is equally as interesting (same group of woodsman?). There are so many awesome things going on in such a short stretch of time. Flitching with wedges, long mortising axes used for....well everything, the hewing trestles that you can roll logs right onto from the hill, a sweet chalk line/plunger/chalk cup combo, the strange yet awesome scrub plane for the inside of the water trough, and finally the sweet Hersey kiss-esque finial on top of the fountain. (Link for tablet and phone users)