This past Friday, my (2nd year) class at Willowbank along with the 3rd year class, erected the majority of the substantial timber frame that will become Willowbank’s new blacksmith shop (which they’re calling the ‘Forge Studio’). The 3rd year class have actually been working on this frame off and on for the past three years, including solidly for the past two weeks.
As mentioned in my previous posts this shop consists of a sizeable timber frame which is mostly heavy white oak, with lighter spruce for the rafters and sill plates; combined with a dry stone wall. It will eventually have a slate roof too.
This building has taken a tremendous amount of work to get it to its current point – but is now on hold for a while. As Willowbank is a school, the primary purpose for its construction is the educational experience of building it for us students. And while we could bring in a paid crew to just push to get it finished at this point – that would sort of defeat the purpose. And so the dry stone walls will wait to be completed during next years Stone Festival and dry stone waling classes, and the remainder of the timber frame will likewise wait until next years timber framing classes.
Its a little hard for me to wait that long, as I’m just itching to get into this building, get it set up and equipped as a blacksmith’s shop, and get hammering on some hot iron in there. But I wouldn’t have a lot of time to do that until I’m in my 3rd year at school anyways. So for now, I just have to be patient.
Here are a bunch of photos of the construction process, which I’ll let speak for themselves:
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