TRC Timberworks is now officially a Licensed Residential Builder with BC Housing (formerly Homeowner Protection Office – “HPO”). This means that we can now make it easy for you to build your dream home. On top of the services of…
In my last blog post I talked about my kids carving this spoon for their mom. Here is the finished project. The wood is pine and was an easy wood for the kids to learn how to carve with. The…
I got inspired last winter to carve some spoons for gifts for the holiday season. My kids loved hanging out in the wood shop with me, and they decided that they wanted to help carve a wooden soup spoon for…
This deck was a joy to design and build. The customers wanted to expand their outdoor living space, and they already had the deck there but wanted a covered area where they could bbq and hang out. Since the deck is…
Working with rounds is a lot different than working with square timbers. Layout is completely different: working off of chalk lines and carving the rounds down to square posts at the joinery took a lot longer than just working with square…
It was my special honour, and one I didn’t take lightly, to craft a memorial urn for a dear friend after her passing. I suggested that a carving on the top of the box would add a personalized touch, and after scrapping several design ideas and one false start on a carving, I came up with this design.
My friend loved dragonflies and lotus flowers, and I wanted to incorporate both. The wood for the carving is cedar, because I liked the colouring of the cedar contrasted with the red colour of the African padauk wood lid.
The urn is finished with natural wood finishes (tung & linseed oils and beeswax), and it is appropriate for an eco-friendly burial of a loved one’s ashes, especially if the loved one was not embalmed or was embalmed with non-toxic chemicals.
This is the hewing axe head that was used by an older gentleman to hand hew timbers for houses 30 years ago. My passion for hand tools got me excited about seeing if I could remediate this axe head, and the two day vinegar bath plus a wire brush did such an amazing job at taking off the rust.
Here is the old hewing axe head that I found, getting a bath in regular vinegar to remove the rust. I was super surprised with the results!
I’ve been looking around for older hand tools at antique stores and personal sales, hoping I’ll find some gems that I can use for planing or timber framing. I have some of my grandpa’s hand tools that are still in excellent condition; these older tools were made to last.
I found this head for a log hewing axe in the summer. An older gentleman was selling some of his tools, and this was from an axe that he used for timber framing homes 30 years ago. For the price tag of $10, I couldn’t resist (these axes usually run about $350 to $400 new), and I have an idea about how I can bring it back to life.
These beautiful veggies came from a farm close to us that is set up as a CSA, which stands for Community Supported Agriculture. You buy a share in the CSA at the beginning of the season, and you enjoy a box of local, organic, seasonal vegetables each week. The first time I had garden-fresh broccoli (so sweet!), I was completely sold.
In a time where we get apples shipped from New Zealand, broccoli shipped from California, and zucchini shipped from Mexico, we have become disconnected from our food sources and the people who grow it. These are all foods that grow in Canada, and if we are able to find local produce and shift our diet to be more seasonal, we can enjoy fresh delicious food that was ripened by the sun in the fields rather than by chemicals en route.