Cuyler,
You are facing the classic conundrum of preservation philosophy. If the mill were in contiguous use and facing periodic repair and maintenance would they not be facing the exact same issue? Is it more important ethically to preserve through exact replication or to preserve the whole? If you are truly concerned, look into securing appropriate materials – in both species and age – from a dismantling and salvage operation. This creates another potential conflict if there is an inconsistency in workmanship and a similarity of material and age which could cause even more confusion down the road. I am of the understanding that white pine can be significantly softer and more open grained than Ponderosa so that might be of some concern. New wood of the same species would most likely show the same pattern of faster growth. If you try to address every aspect of an accurate restoration, you will never actually do any of the work because it becomes an impossible task to “do it right.” In a hundred years they will be looking at your work and doing dendroanalysis on it and will most likely have a record of the environmental challenges of our current era. I have been lucky enough to work internationally and have found that in nationally funded top tier museum restorations, they often face a similar problem. Think of how many species have become extinct in the last 150 years. Try to get large section American Chestnut or Elm for a restoration. If you can’t find salvage, you can’t replicate faithfully. Are we to let a project or a building fail for lack of materials to perfectly match original fabric? It seems to me that you are facing another instance of the same issue. I think they’ll understand the reality of your conundrum – especially if you document. We have all come upon repair work that is inconsistent with the materials or methods of the original fabric. Do we agonize over the motivation of the mechanic who did it? Probably not. Most of us think something like “he didn’t do a very good job of preservation, but at least the building is still here for me to enjoy.” I am often limited in budget and the ability to do invasive repair, as we all are. I think we have to be prepared to do the very best we can within the parameters of the situation and call it a day. I often write a note on a non-show face to let my successors in the field know what I has thinking and when and I have occasionally come across much the same documentation of the work of my ancestors in the trades. My PERSONAL philosophy is to get the very best match in materials and methods that budget will allow and rest easy that you have done what you can to pay it forward to our great-grandchildren. Document. Document. Document.
Give Yourself A Break,
David Dauerty
To The Line Timber Frames
From: Cuyler Page
Sent: Sunday, September 08, 2013 1:20 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [BP] A Material Question
I am currently working at restoration of the machinery in the Grist Mill at Keremeos. http://www.keremeos.com/gristmill/
and http://www.oldgristmill.ca/
During the packhorse era here, except for imported iron items most of it was made of wood, local Ponderoas Pine. I am now filling in the missing parts, mostly carpentry. Since the original was all whipsawn and hand planed, in the past I purchased rough sawn local lumber with real inch dimensions and hand planed it for use to match the original in dimmention and finish.
Due to the massive infestation of BC's pine forests by the Pine Bark Beetle in recent years, no one is cutting pine at this time. Wood from the dead pine trees has a blue tinge due the the beetle chemistry, and it has made local pine lumber unfashionable. The only mills cutting the pine are using young uninfested trees that are still white, but they yield nothing larger than 2x6. I need 2x8 and larger.
At a commercial wood specialist company, I can purchase Eastern White Pine boards brought here for the furniture industry. They are already planed to a fat 7/8" which is close enough to the originals to blend in and I can distress them enough to give the impression of hand planing buy a master.
They are a bit whiter in colour than the yellowish Ponderosa and the grain is slightly different. All wood in the Mill is unfinished. Since 90% of the mill is historic original, I made the decision to allow new wood to be new and old to be old in order to highlight the amazing quantity of original material present and to showcase the use of traditional tools and skills in the restoration and the care applied for preservation of the structure.
Dendro ID and dendrochronology was applied to all the original wood parts, and everything is Ponerosa Pine except for 330 finely carved little paddles (flights) on a 16' long auger. Those are Sycamour and are the only non-local wood bits. The researcher noted that it was a vartiety commonly used back east in the 1800s for packing crates. It carves beautifully, which a skilled builder of that time might well have known or noticed. The Mill's cleaning machine came from Silver Creek, NY near Buffalo.
My question is:
Since the available boards are not local Ponderosa Pin and are truly a modern import, from the perspective of a historic preservationist - restoration/museum/historic site person who either visits now or cares about such things 100 years from now, will the use of the White Pine be acceptable or a disgrace of judgement that will cause desires to replace the stuff to be more authentic and put my name on a black-list?
Cheers,
Cuyler
--
**Please remember to trim posts, as requested in the Terms of Service**
To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the uncoffee-ed, or to change your settings, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html
--
**Please remember to trim posts, as requested in the Terms of Service**
To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the uncoffee-ed, or to change your settings, go to:
<http://listserv.icors.org/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html>