Past Projects

Finally we have run out of days, and we are about to run out of sunlight. Work continues apace on all fronts, with most of the activity concentrated high above the ground landing the giant windshaft, fitting the compound rafters and all the rest.

There is a full-blown fair swirling around us on the grounds. Progress is slow, though sure and steady, providing little amusement for the crowd, mesmerized by the steam-powered sawmill a few yards away. All TFG hands are sequestered behind the safety tape provided by our museum hosts.

The windshaft raising unfolds according to plan; it rises up on the Guelph tackle without much resistance, and the shear legs are canted over (once it is high enough to clear the structure) to gently lower the object of so much obsession into its wooden bearing block.

Windshaft raising.

We are unfazed and un-amazed at how easily the shaft turns once in place. Our real astonishment will come at dusk when we learn how easy it is to turn the entire, multi-ton structure on its wooden bearing surfaces. But other stuff has to happen, and quickly before we can get to the whetting bush.

Midwestern folks have a gift for conversation and hospitality, and that includes our charming site supervisor, 89-year-old Al Fordeck, pictured here with project leader Nancy Bernstein and TFG rep Joel McCarty. Al is good company, and gives us encouragement and, more importantly, perspective.

After much pushing and pulling and fussing and fitting, the final rafter pair slides home, followed almost immediately by the whetting bush.

While we were distracted fitting the high stuff, the fair wound down without us, and we find it strangely quiet as we finish up with the tree. Normally at this point we would head for the refreshments, but for us there remains the large and intractable problem of the shear legs, which need to be lowered to the ground without incident.

This is eventually accomplished after much discussion and rigging and re-rigging; and re-re-rigging; a protracted exercise at the end of two hot weeks, performed by conservative and weary framers, suspicious of their own remaining intellectual capacity.

Photo of the group emailed to us by Doug Olsen.

Several folks take the bait and climb a tall tower on the site for that perfect picture.

At long last, sweaty and dirty, and elated, we collect our tools and coil our ropes in the Indiana twilight, turning rapidly to welcome cool, windy darkness. Then it's back to the farmhouse for a final raucous evening of reminiscence and fabrication. Firefly constellations form at the perimeter of the campfire. Some framers are out of the shower and onto the interstate before the moon is up -- Al Wallace heading west to Colorado, and Mike Spear beating feet for Virginia. The rest of us lounge around, or prep for an early departure, as suits our natures.