Busy Summer

[forgeblast]

Busy Summer. This year I was able to get a lot done.
1. Put field stone on our house. I used type S mortar. The joints were pointed and then brushed with a dry paintbrush. The fieldstone was mostly from a sometimes creek(sometimes it runs) that flooded this spring. I picked most of the stone from areas where it deposited from the storm. It involved walking down deer paths and filling two 5 gallon buckets and coming back up filling the small lawn tractor trailer. Then taking the stone, washing it and sorting it. The next morning I would put stone on the house until my knees were done. The stone that didn稚 make it to the house went to the stone wall.

just starting on the one side

I spent 8 hours one day and put 120 lbs of mortar into the joints I had opened to get as much finished as I could.

2. Wired up our barn Ran the wire years ago, finally had it hooked up. This way we can run lights and all of the tools. Also cleaned up the main house panel.

3. Build a hearth and install a lp stove. Started with a cardboard template and built a 2x4 base, lots of support. Put plywood over that and then fieldstone cut to fit. I put cement board over the sides of the 2x4 and put fieldstone on it. I will be putting fieldstone behind it and hanging the mantle. Our local brick place had precast corbels for the mantle with rebar and steel mounting plates installed on them. The will look great with the fieldstone. Went with Lp due to allergies of wife and little one. Also our chimney was not done right so we would get back pressure pushing smoke down it.

the cardboard idea.

the finished product.

The corbels we will use
I was able to get fieldstone and other stone from different parts of our property, I am also thinking of trying to incorporate some fossils into it. (ill post pics once its done.)

 

[forgeblast]

4. Cut a mantle from a hemlock on our property I have a granberg mini mill. I cut a downed hemlock that was perfect, ran the saw through it like butter. After the slab fell I noticed it was 都pongy pushed on it and termites came out of it. So I dropped one that was two close to our path and slabbed it up. I need to find a kiln to dry it. I wasn稚 sure if the 澱oss wanted a live edge, since then I have slabbed all the bark off.

With out bark

5. Replanted 20 trees and 20 shrubs to replace the ones that didn稚 make it in our crep area. Lost a few of the walnut and butternuts. I also lost a lot of the small shagbark hickories and most of our high bush cranberries. So I put in 20 swamp white oaks, and 20 high bush American cranberries (in a different area to see if they would take there.)

Last years black walnut to the top of the tube

 

[forgeblast]

6. Stone wall built over our dry creek. I eventually want to plant some berry bushes that will hang over it. Something like some small bush blueberries. In front of it is will be a wild flower area so that the bees have something to work and I don稚 have to mow it.

working on the wildflowers

pretty wide

pretty long

Finished picture, its 57 feet long, 2 foot high and 4 foot wide.

7. Cleaned up our wood pile area. Took the wood piles around the house so that they were under our deck for the winter so that we could run the wood stove in our basement. (that chimney is run correctly now and the flashing was fixed. The chimney guy we had to do the install on the lp stove was great.)

This is all raked clean now.


8. Cast the pad of our wood fired bread/pizza oven and made the bread oven from firebrick. It is called a barrel style oven vs the pompii style that fornobravo.com has . The book 鍍he bread builders and the website forno bravo was so helpful. This finishes up the grove area structures for now. We are also thinking about a gazebo (eddies is awesome). This area gives us a nice cook out area, along with an area to clean and hang out.

Where the bread oven will go

the floor of the oven herringbone pattern so that your pizza peal will not get hung up

planning the arch for the oven. The oven is 23 wide by 40 long by 17 inner dome height. The opening (inner door) is 1l inches which is 63% of the dome or the golden mean.

day one of putting the arches in.

Mock up of the chimney.
sizing help needed - Forno Bravo Forum: The Wood-Fired Oven Community
is pretty much my build.

 

[forgeblast]

9. Changed out the outside fixtures on our house. They were builders brass, and we went with a darker fixture(easy one day job.)

10. Spray painted the outdoor furniture. Finally got to use my spray set that I bought from Northern tool. Worked well, just need to get the air/water separator.

The funny thing about this table was that at one time it had a glass top, then wind picked up the umbrella and smashed it down through the glass. I cut the metal band off and put wood on top. Still a very usable table. This set is 9 years old.

11. Built two solar heaters. 2x6 on the sides and top, silicon sealed, then put in polyisocyanurate insulation on the back and sides. Sealed again with silicon and used high temp spraypaint to paint the whole thing black. (use polyisocyanurate or you will melt the insulation). Then two fans were placed in the top corners, and brought into the house. Two holes were cut into the bottom and the back draft preventers were put in. Wooden grill covers hide the ducts.
(I will start a whole thread about this once I get them installed. I don稚 have much left with them, I just really need my friend up to help me move the boxes they are pretty heavy.)

The start of the build.
12. Stained the barn, fencing, and chicken coop used a titan spayer, loved it. Worked like a dream with latex.

our coop

our girls

 

[forgeblast]

13. Moved the wood stove to the basement and replaced the firebrick it was getting old and cracked.

14. Sealed the old wood stove chimney with insulation and a paint can lid. There are two plugs one at the top, then I will have fiberglass bat insulation and then another plug of rigid insulation. The top plug has a long bolt and rope tied to it so that I can pull it out if needed. The paint can lid fit perfectly in the 6鋳 pipe hole, and the paint color was a perfect match. We will hang something on there to make it look better. It looks a lot different in the picture do to the flash, where its at is in shadow so the color blends perfectly.

15. Trying to finish up my daughters castle it's—´ a fieldstone garden shed, I would like to frame it out and put in a warre bee house type hive. Its popular with Swiss and Slovak bee keepers. Since I run a Warre Hive(one of the spring projects we got in) Having a bee house would make working the hive system a breeze.

16. Warre style type bee hive in our garden pre fixing the fencing.

(for more info natural beekeeping using low-cost, low impact top bar hives they also have the free plans for a warre hive. I must say easy is the name of the game. From when I put them in I have done nothing to them, which is the aim of the hive. Let the bees do what bees do)


17. With the slab wood from the mantle I made a bench. I took a 1鋳 wood bit and bored holes into the slab. Then I cut some branches off the same tree and used them for the legs. I shaped them using a bruks hatchet, I then used wood glue to hold them in place. As you can see with the paint its my daughters favorite.
I found it easier to cut the tenon with a hatchet then to use my old tenon cutter.

18. Metal chickens. I cut the shapes out(didn稚 want to pay 45.00 a piece from a mail order catalog), using air shears. I then welded a leg on to it and painted them. The small ones have landscape fabric staples for legs. I would put two legs on the bigger ones otherwise you have a very good weather vane. The metal was cut from the side of an old washing machine I was scrapping. I cut out 4 of the big ones and 4 of the little ones. I just made a cardboard template.

 

[forgeblast]

19. Cleaned up the hemlock branches so that we could make a path to our Newt Hollow. It痴 a place that we can find 5-10 orange newts on a good day. It痴 a favorite place of mine to go with my daughter. I also put in signs so that she can find it, and if she gets lost she can find her way home. The metal is from an old washer we had, I cut the template out of cardboard and sprayed them. Then I drilled two holes and used wire to hang them so I didn稚 have to nail anything.

20. Cast a new base for my anvil. The anvil hasn稚 been used as much since I have been busy but I really want to get back into forging.

I didn稚 take the form off yet I may leave it on since I have the tool holders on it.

21. Working on a spring pole lathe, run off bungee cords. Check out Bodger's Ask & Answer • Index page for plans. I want to get it done for winter time since I am not using wood as my primary heat source I figure I will have some extra time.

22. Redid the fence posts in the garden, making them parallel, deeper and the same size as the other size. Also put in some better trellis for our blackberries.

blackberries (from nourse farms) pulling down the fence

working on the fencing

23. Will Spray foam the sile plates. There will be some left over so we are also planning to do the attic and then will move that insulation to the basement.

 

[JB4310]

Wow! You've done more around your home this year than I have in five years.

Good job, especially the stone work.

JB.

 

[flusher]

Very impressive. Congrats. Sit back, have a brew and enjoy.

 

[joemd11]

Wow, you do nice work....and lots of it too! Makes me want to start some projects around my place. Well, maybe after another cup of coffee.
Very nice work!

 

[MotorSeven]

Nice job FB. Where are you getting all that stone?

 

[PapaPerk]

Whew i'm tired just reading it all! Lol!

Good job and nice work!

 

[forgeblast]

M7 we have two sometimes creeks that run through our property. Sometimes they run sometimes they are dry. This year we had two flash floods in the creek bed, and stone/gravel were pushed all over. To make sure our driveway would not flood out I had to clear out the bank, and I would shovel gravel and pick stone. I would shovel it into 5 gallon pails and haul it out. Some of the areas were just deer paths and they were a bit sketchy walking up. I also saved a lot of the stone from when we would try to put in fenceposts or do gardening. I grow stones better then any other crop. I still have piles of stone that I need to start stacking but thats for next year.
Thank you all for the replies, If you have any questions about a project let me know. Ill be doing a full write up with suppliers on the solar heaters as soon as I get them installed. I am going to wait until it cools down a bit before I put them in.

 

[MotorSeven]

Nice to have abundant stone. The solar heaters, do they go on the South wall? If so you don't need fans, just an opening on the bottom and on top, and convection takes care of the rest.

 

[tcreeley]

That's wonderful stone work. I like your anvil base. Is that just poured cement? Does it crack ever? When my stump rots out, it is always a pain to find another big enough to put under the anvil. I like the cement idea. Did you make your forge as well or use a firepot- seeing as you use fire brick. cement, and stone so easily!
Goodluck!

 

[forgeblast]

tcreely:
The anvil base is just sack concrete that I had left over from the bread oven. Before that I had sand in the base, but the sand would work its way out. So i reinforced the base with rebar and fencing and I will let it cure a while before I go pounding on it.
The forge is made from an old wheelbarrow, mounted on an old gas grill base. I put fireclay in the bottom to sheild the barrow from the heat. A squirrl cage blower is mounted under it to provide air. (If you do a search you will see pics of it and my aluminum casting gear). I wanted a movable forge so that I can get space in the barn if needed.
M7:
The solar heaters will be on a true south facing wall. I could have gone without fans like garygarys build it solar.com build on his barn, but I wanted the fans due to the fact that I will be trying to heat a great room during the day, with the fans I will have more airflow and more heat being pushed into the room.
The fans (I hooked one up yesterday) are so quiet but push out a lot of air. I am happy with them.

 

[MotorSeven]

"The solar heaters will be on a true south facing wall. I could have gone without fans like garygarys build it solar.com build on his barn, but I wanted the fans due to the fact that I will be trying to heat a great room during the day, with the fans I will have more airflow and more heat being pushed into the room.
The fans (I hooked one up yesterday) are so quiet but push out a lot of air. I am happy with them."

Sounds good, I would like to see them, maybe another thread is in order? My log home design with a covered South front porch knocked out any passive solar...for now. I am thinking about adding a flat doormer later and making it passive solar for winter, and fitting a window for summer.

 

[forgeblast]

I have all the parts now for the solar heaters, I have to stain the wooden grills to match the knotty pine inthe house and then I will install them. Ill post another thread about the solar air heater once im all done.

 

[Lloyd_E]

I was young once!

Man you got a lot done. If you ever get bored I could use you help for about a month.

Beautiful work - love when a plan comes together.

Lloyd

 

[forgeblast]

Thanks Lloyd!!
It was a productive year my winter will be a bit slower.
I want to teach myself how to carve wooden spoons and turn bowls on my springpole lathe. Just something that I have always been interested in.
Next summer my little one will be 3 1/2 and I want to work with her making a treehouse/fort.
My plan is to get her a tool box and when she uses the tool right to give it to her. That way she has tools, knows how to use them and doesnt have to use "dads" tools. She already has her own garden tools.

 

[Lloyd_E]

I just chunked some clear poplar and beech. I will slap with a fro later. I bought some carving tools in the spring...

Good plan for the daughter... as I was cleaning up my shop(with my daughter) the other
day I mused over the fact that my son and daughter will be inheriting a lot of tools some day!

My daughter has been helping me for the past 3 days - we chunked, split moved and stacked 3+ cords of wood. We have a little clean up to do today... She rides the mower pretending to mow - gets great joy out of it. Yesterday I let her mow a bit in the back field. No worries of hitting anything. She did a great job. I can see my self retiring from lawn mowing in the next few years!!!