Like many community-build projects, it’s hard to say precisely how many people’s hands touched the timbers that were raised last Saturday at the Dartmouth Outdoors Club’s Moosilauke Ravine lodge. Among others, alumni from the class of 1974 came together to build a bunkhouse for future visitors to the mountain. The project was the brain-child of Jim “Pork Roll” Taylor (pictured below, inciting riotous good times where- and when-ever possible) who participated in the Class of ’84 Crew Cabin project, also orchestrated predominantly by Timberhomes partners. Pork Roll speaks glowingly of that experience and was inspired to gather his fellow 1974 grads together to give an equally meaningful gift to their alma mater. The call went out, and volunteers came from far and wide to help slice and dice 402 joints, move these local white pine and oak timbers from storage to worksite to future building site (no small feat, given the mighty heft of these posts and beams who must withstand the wind and snow loads at the base of Moosilauke), fit them together, and raise them into the air.
An (a)typical evening at the lodge…Jim Taylor teaches youngsters what life is all about.
After a Monday morning lesson on timber framing and tool use, the volunteers were split into five crews, each with specific parts of the frame to tackle, and a Timberhomes instructor to teach and assist. After four and a half days of measuring, marking, and cutting, we’d finished nearly all the timbers and made 120 oak pegs. Wall sections and bents went up on Friday afternoon and Saturday. Energy built to a controlled fury throughout the day as crews assembled and disassembled all over the site to accomplish the task of the moment. The raising culminated with the last purlin plate being hoisted into it’s final resting place as the starry night emerged on Saturday evening. A week well spent.
Dartmouth Alumni volunteer and Timberhomes’ Josh Jackson make good use of boring machines.
The building will be finished by volunteers from the Class of 1974, and other alumni and students of the Dartmouth Outing Club. Supervision of this effort will be jointly by TimberHomes and by Beam Construction‘s Tim Miner ’74. The week would certainly not have been the same without the glorious Autumn backdrop, nourishment and spirit from the Ravine Lodge Crew, and the constant influx of recent young grads looking to lend a hand and lift a bent. The Timberhomes instructors are grateful to have been part of such a memorable week.
Timberhomes’ David Hooke, MC and organizer of the week, teaches the square rule layout technique to a young Dartmouth buck.
Frame Raised!
