Building the Frame

Week two the foundation is down the stem wall is up. Now its time to start the woodwork and build the H frames which will connect together to make the frame to carry the reciprocating roof structure. While I’m a great fan of Tony Wrench and his efforts to enable people to learn simple ways to give themselves shelter, I wanted to make the frame more complex both for aesthetic reasons and to give a greater level of skill to the students. This proved both a success and a failure, the success was the look and feel of the finished frame, the failure was some students found the challenge of the joints too much. Some of the students who really worked at it and rose to the challenge developed new skills and really grew from the opportunity to change their view of themselves, this was a true privilege for me to witness. The photos below will tell the rest of the story.

This was the first part of the build which was more pleasure than work for me, working with wood feeds my soul watching other develop skills also feeds me. The frustration some people exhibited with this technical part of the build also led to frustration in me, but the privileged of watching those who truly engaged with the project and developed their abilities is what stays with me.