Making the Arch for the Stone Chimney & Woodworking Tools of the 1800's LOG CABIN BLACKSMITH SHOP

Pleased to meet you. I have a special guest here at the Peter Hall tavern His name is John Gregory, and he's let me use the family heirloom here And I went off in the bush and gave it a try see how that works, so John's great-grandfather immigrated from Scotland 1825 to Montreal It's time for grass the family moved to Alberta and John was born in Calgary Yes, that is true as you can tell by the hat the hat right and you notice also the attire here So what John is portraying would be a worker in the late 1800s maybe even early 1900s as opposed to But we you know we get on our channel get a lot of accolades about how we're keeping the old skills alive And a lot of people say you know it's good. We're doing that because it's a dying thing My generation's gone, so will all those old skills. Well this young fella. He's here to prove. That's a total total myth Right so you took a furniture building course yes I was I went out to the BC and I learned how to make furniture all by hand so for example this two blocks at the bottom here is 100% by hand and Since then I have expanded my repertoire in my tool library and have upgraded my toolbox to something big like that Before we get into this fine furniture where you've changed fields yes I went from furniture making so so currently you're enrolled in In Algonquin school in timber framing yeah, right so timber framing log building wooden doors and windows pretty much anything You need to build a house there you go That doesn't dispel the myth that the old skills are dying and how old are you John I'm 21 this year we're turning 22 Don't remember 22 And another benefit we're gonna get today John's gonna stick around after we do our little talk about tools and some of his fine Where's he's gonna help me with some concrete? Left and rock yeah, so let's get this talk over in a hurry. I got a lot of rocks to put down anyway Let's start with this bus John. I'll just move back If you forget that axe here, that'd be okay I'll just move to the side here a little bit, so what do we have here? Well? This is a Dutch style tool chest and I'm uncertain on when the bouts they started getting built, but I believe they were present in the 18th century and this one I Built a couple years ago, and it took me a few months because I was figuring out all the intricacies of it But it's a very curious construction to it you can see I have historically authentic lock here That does lock it probably could pick it with a screwdriver Keeps it closed so if we lift up the lid We will reveal the treasures inside So the way that this box is designed is to have your most used tools easily accessible on the top shelf here So up here within arm's reach are my cross cut and rip saw for bringing boards down to size And then I have my three main hand planes. I will use for dimensioning stock starting with my Fore plane to my jointer and then my smoothing plane So when did when did steel planes sort of replace Well Bailey's patented this form of hand plane in the 1860s But unfortunately they were a little bit expensive at the time, so they didn't really kick off until the 1910s 1920s Yes, and That was because there was a bit of a reluctance to change wooden planes produce a better surface than metal So a lot of skilled craftsmen preferred the wooden planes It's when the new generation came they bought the new generation of tool. You should buffer that within the right hands I'm not I'm not a finished woodworker by any means, but yeah, this is impressive. So what else are we got in here? Well, we have our joinery saws here this is my What I use is a dovetail saw, but it's probably more of a tenon saw. So it's in a rip cut orientation and used for cutting all manner of fine joints Yes, it's all a hundred percent by hand dovetails at the bottom nailed together fronts and Those are held together with traditional square cut nails So the advantage to a square cut nail is it actually wedges itself in the wood making it nearly impossible to pull out Yeah, we only switch because the wires were cheaper Then I have my chisels with an arm's reach and My tape measure Is a traditional folding rule Yes Now you might notice that you're only seeing half of the box here. There's a Hard-floor under there, but there's a whole bottom part to it. So this box actually has a secret compartment and when you pull that up forward flops the front And out will fall your tools so whereas the top part is a Sorted masterpiece. The bottom part is a jumble pile of whatever you can fit in there So you've got some wooden planes here, yeah, those are my molding planes that one in particular is a What's called a filister plane? so it has a movable fence at the bottom and a depth stop and you can use it to cut rabbits and Tenon shoulders and all that stuff And have you done restoration on some of these pieces or yes, well you can actually see on that one you just picked up Right at the mouthpiece right here. I have to glue that piece in and do it at a compound angle To get that in there That's just a typical molding plane you can actually see the molding it produces around the edges of the lid here so So this is a breadboard top So I came in with the filister plane put a shoulder on this big board and then these latch on and you peg them in with a Slotted hole in underneath them. So then the wood can expand and contract. So how many hours to build? For this one depends on Your skill level, of course, but this is quicker to build than an English box So this one would take you know, 15 hours give or take whereas an English box would take you Yeah, it's a dovetail you can see the The dovetails hiding there So that's a more English style is square. The Dutch style is to have the slanted roof in a hidden part So then down here we have another wooden plane in front of you there so this you were saying that was for windows, right? Yes, this is a traditional stick and a rabbit plane for building windows you can see that molding on the edge here is The glass rebate for the putting the glass in the window and then the fancy molding that goes on the inside and you can adjust the width of your window rails and styles and This is an American style tool Because it combines the British style British used two planes for making a window the Americans and only used one Well, they're hard to find a good quality planes like that or are there still? Well, you find with the the wooden ones. They're less desirable than the metal ones The Stanley stuff can go pretty high. But if you if someone doesn't know what this is, you could get it for 40 bucks So this is a this is an interesting curiosity of the turn of the century It's uh, well, you can see it's your brace for your drill But it's designed to drill into corners So with that gear ratio, you can butt it up against the surface and you can I've seen them before Exactly why I kind of thought something like that, but yeah, they're crazy contraption So, how's the college course going on? Well, we're yet to get to the meat and potatoes we're we're doing the review right now We're doing the joinery and we're doing the simple stuff But come next year, we'll be able to start throwing up log houses like you've been here and timber frame construction eventually That'll be the most exciting part of it. Do they get into hewing log? Yes So so you are is that something that you as a class you'll be actually constructing like a square structure a small smaller than this blacksmith shop here about a human log structure that we put together on campus and then I Believe it either gets donated or bought and someone goes and uses it as a shed A lot of work for a small shed Fascinating trade So there you go folks if you think that you think the old skills are dying Well at 20, he's got a lot of years left to keep them going and I think there'll be generations after you Johnny So what would the demographics of the class that you're in? What's the age group? Well, there's a couple of retired people but there's a lot of younger people I think there's more of a push these days to learn the old ways and kind of preserve the old buildings that we still have What was your? Well, it was after I did this furniture building course I Wanted to also learn how to build a house and so I can build a house and the doors and windows and all the furniture Yeah, that's gonna be your home, yeah, I'm hoping to man in my own heart Yeah, that's great. Wow. That's really interesting stuff. I we've built a lot of stuff in our cabin Of course the cabin stuff, but it's I think it's authentic like square nails and stuff, but not the fine joinery Yes Anyway, do you feel like pouring some cement? Let's get to it. All right, let's see if we're gonna work it this morning we're going to try to to build the arch for the forge fire that'll be the sort of it's the days if you were to start our rather complicated chimney construction You haven't done masonry yet, or do you do any in this course? Nope. That's unfortunate Always time to learn it'd be darn handy this afternoon. Anyway, we'll learn together. What do you think? Yep All right, let's get these tools put away and we'll see what we can kind of a mess we can make. All right So, what do you what do you think John are we up to this task One rock at a time so what we've done here is we've built a form Firebox sits here. This is going to be the arch For the entry point for the exhaust into the chimney which in itself is a bit complex So we built this form and you'll notice that it's wider It's 16 inches wide at the bottom here and it's 11 and a half inches wide at the back So essentially from the front to the back It's coming in like this, which is going to create a bit of a Ventura and that's going to create Better quicker draw from the fire that essentially sits out in the room. So and while we're bringing it up We're gonna take those rocks and we're gonna I think the term I'm probably gonna get this wrong My friend Luke Soames will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's called corbeling where as we come up We're gonna start to subtly bring them out. So we're gonna get a little bit More of a protrusion at the top than the bottom and that may aid It's sort of a semi hood if you would. Yeah, so that's where we're at. So yeah, I think we should go mix some concrete I'll show you over here in the sketch. I've made of the chimney. We're gonna build What we're gonna build John so what we're hoping to do here is that there's the arch and that's called the keystone All right, and we've got to fit them up there and then find that perfect rock that kind of locks them all in Structurally, it's like they build bridges right still build bridges that way today. So Yes, it's gonna be 16 inches high at its highest point 14 inches at the front and on the inside We taper it into 11 11 and a half And then that becomes the main part of the chimney up to this smoke show which will be four inches Tapers up to a 12 by 12 fluid. It goes out to three You can get her done today. We can try. Yeah. Yeah. You know what? I'd be happy to get the arch done Yes, but yeah, we can get her done. That's fine. All right, let's mix some water My friend, let's see If we did it the hard part This is it the magic So fragile Now we dry fit everything before I lay it So I'm trying to find rocks that are reasonably level and we want to get right around the perimeter here And then we can start building up to support or support our arch Yeah, so I'm gonna use that height here As a starting point You