CP,
It sure sounds like it would be fun to be on one of your projects. "Art of
intuition", "a knack", as the Huron scouts joke, "He is lost because he
didn't listen to the trees."  One of the greatest losses in the trades is
that so few are properly apprenticed.  Ten years of no talking and just
working, 2500 hours a year, watching and imitating a craftsman is not
replaced with a few hours in a classroom, a seminar or a one week "training"
session. I feel guilty when anyone calls me a master carpenter because I can
make a good joint or have sharp,old tools.  In reality, I haven't done a
full weeks carpentry for almost ten years and my apprenticeship amounts to a
mere three years with a traditional carpenter and two years with a stair
builder.  I wish I had been documenting all the wonderful notes and drawings
I have seen while pulling apart old buildings.  What a great book it would
be.
Best,
Leland

Leland R. S. Torrence
Leland Torrence Enterprises and the Guild
17 Vernon Court, Woodbridge, CT  06525
Office:  203-397-8505
Fax:  203-389-7516
Pager:  860-340-2174
Mobile:  203-981-4004
E-mail:  [log in to unmask]
www.LelandTorrenceEnterprises.com
 
-----Original Message-----
From: This conversation may be monitored for quality control.
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Cuyler Page
Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2007 12:06 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [BP] What? Thinking?

> So, I think it interesting that whereas one would say narrow the date of a
> structure by the nails, that one can also kind-of interpolate the date of
> interventions by the evidence of "What were they thinking?"
>
> ][<en


The subject of "What were they thinking?!" is approached in a very
interesting 1985 book by the British academic, David Lowenthal.   "The Past
is a Foreign Country" makes the point that the paradigms and mental
appreciations of any era are as basically foreign to anyone from another era
as a foreign language is to someone with another "mother tongue".   He
critiques museums and living history sites with a wicked eye that also
applies to any attempt to speak with credibility about understanding
thoughts from another age.

However, personally, I found that getting into the mind of the 1800's
woodworker and designer who built the grist mill I was restoring often paid
off with amazing discoveries of faint but discernable pencil marks and notes
made on logs and boards during the original layout and construction.
Dozens of serious researchers had made a go at understanding the place
before I came along, all dealing with it through rational academic methods.
All missed the significant points that proved how it was a thoroughly modern
mill for its era, applying the newest technology of flour milling just being
invented then.   By applying intuitive archaeology and construction
re-enactment, I found wonderfully clear clues they had all missed during
the previous 10 years of the other style of research.   By sharing tools
across the century between us, the historic wood worker and I seemed to
begin to think alike, he leading the way through his ancient patina-ed 
layout notes
and delicate penciled mistakes marked with scrub-lines.   Happily, we each 
seemed to
be perfectionists, and that made it easier to speak a common trade language.

Unfortunately there seem to be few or no classes offered concerning the art
of intuition in the trades such as HP, but bringing in the techniques from
the realm of the hip sixties really worked in documentable ways in my
experience.   I love those moments when you need to nail up something and
grab exactly the right number of nails from the pouch!

"t-i / t-o / d-o"
works every time (at the best of times, the memorable ones)

cp in bc
(over the hill but still sharpening the plane blade and fitting square pegs
into round holes)

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