Craftsmanship in Wood

I don't have any pictures, and in truth it is a little depressing for me to see the grime and rapid weathering - and the zero maintenance by the MFA. If only they had seen the sense in a roofed gate!! I tried so hard to convince them about that, but in the end they fell back to political expediency, along with a move to keeping a portion of the money granted for the project by the funder to themselves (the grant was for a roofed gate). So, I'm unlikely to feel like snapping pics anytime soon.

Completly understandable.
I also wish they would have decided for the roofed version. The gate would definitly deserve that protection.

Nevertheless, I hope it will age with dignity.

I also find it to be a shame that they did not spring for a roof. Short term thinking

I wonder if the original carpenters had wondered the same thing.

Here is this week's round of updates;

https://brianholcombewoodworker.com/201 ... dovetails/

Brian wrote:I also find it to be a shame that they did not spring for a roof. Short term thinking

I wonder if the original carpenters had wondered the same thing.

Uh, in a word, no. The original gate used crappy wood and was put together with lots of metal rods, and the posts stuck in the dirt, and flashing improperly formed and poorly attached. Not a structure meant to last by any stretch of the imagination. And they charged the MFA the same amount of money for that gate as I did, in 1986, in 1986 dollars. Accounting for inflation, they charged nearly double for what amounted to a piece of crap gate.

Trouble is, there's no one at the MFA in any department who could realistically assess the quality of a structure like that, so they got away with it. One of the most surprising things to me in the entire process with the MFA was to discover that issues like sustainability and building to last, really didn't matter much to them at all. I had thought, if anyone could afford to build with the future in mind it would be a museum, especially a famous one like the MFA, however such is not the reality. They're more concerned with internal politics frankly.

I remember seeing photos of the original construction and thinking....wow that's pretty horrific. So much meant to be in the appearance of the actual thing it was made to represent.

In any case, I think you did a very fine job and certainly did right by them.

I'm sure it got to the point where someone needed to really advocate the advantages to their superior....or just give approval for a direct replacement...and so the replacement got approved.

Actually, there's more of a soap opera story to it than that....

Hah, sounds like it. Well, at least they keep you busy from time to time.

My latest post is up, detailing the process of building the base for the tea house table.

https://brianholcombewoodworker.com/201 ... r-to-post/

Thanks Chris for providing such incredible information on the forum here detailing stretcher to post connections.

Joinery looks good, though a slightly better form of watari ago is to house the portion below the cog into the leg. That way, the stretcher's entire section height can bear the load, instead of only the diminished portion. The issue of course, is that tends to call for a thicker post so that there is room for the housing on each side. The housing has a secondary function as well, which is to conceal any shrinkage in width which the leg might undergo. if it does shrink, there will be a gap to the end grain of the notch in the stretcher.

One note: it's sukima nashi

Thanks Chris! I'll make that edit.