Tuesday 31 May 2022

Life's a beech, then you fall over.

I don't normally use much beech, but when I saw this tree fallen over, I had to offer to clear it up. Shame to see it go just for firewood.

The corner of a Devon field; my office for a day or three. Drop the root ball back in the hole; so the cows don't fall in.

This tortured soul was screaming, "let me out", "I want to be furniture".


Some straight sections to be milled.

And some lovely curves; someday benches or maybe internal framing braces.

 It's not oak, but that's ok.




Thursday 26 May 2022

Oakum and lime mortar, gap-filling the breathable way.

This new accoya window with heritage double glazing going into Ian's new bathroom. Bought a new 4kg bale of oakum today, so soaked it in Natural Hydraulic Lime 3.5 slurry, bedded the window and packed it into the gaps, topping off with NHL3.5 mortar pointing with the tuck trowel. Wet hessian to cover; lime mortar needs to dry slowly. Proper job!





Monday 9 May 2022

Ass installed

 So, the first of May was celebrated by a trip to Norwich, to install the heraldic ass. 

It will be painted later, but it's great to see it in it's place. It looks suitably otherworldly, to fit in with the Tudor knot garden theme, a la Hampton Court.