Report

It seems we have never been hotter nor higher than here in Eagar, Arizona. The elevation didn't change much during this final week, but the temperatures seemed to be hotter each day. All that stuff they tell you about "dry heat," well, I can agree that it isn't Suriname, or Illinois, or even Ohio (where we go next), but it is absolutely and completely hot here.

Our hosts at Northern Arizona Wood Products Association and the Eagar Fire Department deserve our special gratitude for keeping us relentlessly hydrated and sun-blocked, and for cheerfully and rapidly fulfilling every request for infrastructure, from fire truck to pine (Ponderosa) bought; both of which we needed for the whetting bush ceremony. The landscape here is astonishingly beautiful. The Town of Eagar, represented by Bill Greenwood, took us on a field trip to a 10,000 foot peak, from which we could see for hundreds of empty miles in every direction. This was followed by a fabulous dutch oven dinner served in the pines at about 8,000 feet; last night's feast at the fire house included speeches of gratitude from firemen, timber framers and the mayor.

The frame itself went together pretty well; it is a truncated version of the Ferry Farm Pavilion originally drawn by Dan Fadden, and massaged by Laura Viklund on a daily basis as we needed numbers. Special gratitude is due Jennifer Anthony of Fearless Engineers who took precious time away from gainful and pressing employment to teach us how to resolve the wind and shear loads this poor frame is likely to experience here.

Likewise, we happily thank the nice folks at Timberlinx and Northcott Woodturning, who are, ultimately, holding the whole thing together (with pegs from Northcott) and from blowing away (Timberlinx). I'll bet it's the only English tying joint, principle rafter, common-purlin timber frame for hundreds of miles in any direction.

NAWPA exists to promote the use of small wood in an ongoing effort by the Forest Service and state forestry departments in Arizona and New Mexico to reduce fire damage and create value-added timber products by thinning forests to reduce fuel load. We saw lots of forest landscape that the program has been through; it's almost park-like, in that you can see way back into the formerly impenetrable woods. We spotted elk, mule deer, and antelope and an osprey on one foray. Our frame was built from graded Doug fir that came out of this program, harvested recently and locally. The long tie beams were glu-lams from Ponderosa pine, also made right in town. Nice, strong, beautifully made, but "harder than the Pharaoh's Heart" to chisel. The tie beams were glu-lams because we didn't give ourselves enough lead time to arrange for sawing something longer; the unofficial definition of small wood here is 6x8x16. We now know that other arrangements can be made.

This project was led by Chris Gunn, with a significant assist from Laura Viklund. Al Wallace and family, Vince Leyendecker, and Ged Whelen pulled the whole thing together, for the core of the experienced team, and happily teaching the guys in the orange suits (from the Department of Corrections) and the guys in the blue (Eagar Fire Department) a good deal about timber framing in general, and Guild Culture in particular (and by example).