Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Jiri Petru]

This is a nice thread. Manual labour is actually quite fulfilling and deserves some space here.

I've helped building a simple wooden shelter for our summer camp. We had no plans, just built it on the spot in four people. That was very fulfilling. Here it is.

I quite regularly do some menial labours around the village like digging holes etc. But what I'd really love to learn is to build a complete home. Something like this.

Once you build a simple thing, you want to do more and more. Really makes you think about nature and the weird modern city-life.

[Hyndis]

Agree. Manual labor is actually very, very hard work. But its nice when you build something yourself. An actual physical object, even if its very simple like a fence.

You don't get that kind of satisfaction from doing something electronically, like programming, that you do from working with your hands to build something.

[Sizik]

2-stories-high maple tree

But then it got STUCK in the branches of some other trees, so I climbed on top of it and started jumping.

Sigged!

edit: it doesn't work

Viewing images in signatures is disabled by default.

[Cruxador]

This is a nice thread. Manual labour is actually quite fulfilling and deserves some space here.

I've helped building a simple wooden shelter for our summer camp. We had no plans, just built it on the spot in four people. That was very fulfilling. Here it is.

I quite regularly do some menial labours around the village like digging holes etc. But what I'd really love to learn is to build a complete home. Something like this.

Once you build a simple thing, you want to do more and more. Really makes you think about nature and the weird modern city-life.

I built a house once upon a time. It's taken quite a few weekends. And it's not legally a house, for tax reasons, and because god only knows if it'd be up to code, but it functions as a house.

[Veroule]

You should try stone carving and smoothing.  I am a professional mason that works almost exclusively with stone.  I wouldn't want to give up my power tools and try to do all that a dwarf does.

Of course there are some effects and detail work that can only be done with chisels.  The facing for a fireplace I built required every stone to be carefully chiseled around each joint so no marks from a power tool would show.  Also most of the joints had to be carved so that the stones touched to hold them in place while the mortar behind cured.  The goal of this was to have no mortar showing between the stones.  It took about 6 months to carve and set all the stones, working mostly by myself.

Other textures require the use of fire.  Specifically the very hot and fine kind you get with a welding torch.  It is also useful for smoothing a stone when you want to maintain a natural appearance.  Even with the aid of a torch it can take hours to smooth out a large bad spot in a stone, and only certain kinds of stone respond to that type of treatment.

Anyhow, after such labors it is nice to come home and do computer programming.  Finding and squishing a bug is very satisfying.  Creating a wonderous program that many others enjoy, use, and all can see as a thing of beauty is equally satifying as building a masterpiece fireplace.

[Noble Digger]

I spent a long weekend (3 days) in summer using a mining pick to remove bamboo roots from the front yard of a dilapidated house. This was after using a skillsaw to cut down the stalks themselves, which were often 20 feet tall and nearly 2 inches thick (and needless to say, heavy).

Many spiders have been disturbed! Many rodents have been disturbed!

The roots are like a solid botryoidal mass of wood and thin, wiry root fibers toward the outside. They can absorb a lot of shock, even from a sharpened pick blade, and of course once you start to cut through, the weight and bulk of the root binds down on the pick, making it tough to retrieve. In many sections I simply had to hack my way through by shaving away at the mass by striking it with the pick blade. The point was useless--mostly--except when I was trying to wrench pieces of the root loose from the dirt. A good solid thwack embeds the point and then you use the entire pick as a lever to twist on the roots...

Never plant bamboo!

[breadbocks]

This is a nice thread. Manual labour is actually quite fulfilling and deserves some space here.

I've helped building a simple wooden shelter for our summer camp. We had no plans, just built it on the spot in four people. That was very fulfilling. Here it is.

I quite regularly do some menial labours around the village like digging holes etc. But what I'd really love to learn is to build a complete home. Something like this.

Once you build a simple thing, you want to do more and more. Really makes you think about nature and the weird modern city-life.

I built a house once upon a time. It's taken quite a few a great many weekends weeks. And it's not legally a house, for tax reasons, and because god only knows if it'd be up to code, but it functions as a house.

Fixed.
I can't believe that was built in a few weekends. Some people are just amazing.

[Kay12]

Just about everything the Dwarves do is actually a shit-ton of work. That's why you don't see kids digging fortresses in real life.

I dug an underground fortress when I was ten. Then some armageddon cult took it over from me.

[Urist McCyrilin]

Just about everything the Dwarves do is actually a shit-ton of work. That's why you don't see kids digging fortresses in real life.

I dug an underground fortress when I was ten. Then some armageddon cult took it over from me.

We apologized several times. Just let it go already.

[frightlever]

You should try stone carving and smoothing.  I am a professional mason that works almost exclusively with stone.  I wouldn't want to give up my power tools and try to do all that a dwarf does.

Of course there are some effects and detail work that can only be done with chisels.  The facing for a fireplace I built required every stone to be carefully chiseled around each joint so no marks from a power tool would show.  Also most of the joints had to be carved so that the stones touched to hold them in place while the mortar behind cured.  The goal of this was to have no mortar showing between the stones.  It took about 6 months to carve and set all the stones, working mostly by myself.

Other textures require the use of fire.  Specifically the very hot and fine kind you get with a welding torch.  It is also useful for smoothing a stone when you want to maintain a natural appearance.  Even with the aid of a torch it can take hours to smooth out a large bad spot in a stone, and only certain kinds of stone respond to that type of treatment.

Anyhow, after such labors it is nice to come home and do computer programming.  Finding and squishing a bug is very satisfying.  Creating a wonderous program that many others enjoy, use, and all can see as a thing of beauty is equally satifying as building a masterpiece fireplace.

Any pics of the fireplace?

[Cruxador]

This is a nice thread. Manual labour is actually quite fulfilling and deserves some space here.

I've helped building a simple wooden shelter for our summer camp. We had no plans, just built it on the spot in four people. That was very fulfilling. Here it is.

I quite regularly do some menial labours around the village like digging holes etc. But what I'd really love to learn is to build a complete home. Something like this.

Once you build a simple thing, you want to do more and more. Really makes you think about nature and the weird modern city-life.

I built a house once upon a time. It's taken quite a few a great many weekends weeks. And it's not legally a house, for tax reasons, and because god only knows if it'd be up to code, but it functions as a house.

Fixed.
I can't believe that was built in a few weekends. Some people are just amazing.

Well, I've lost track of the time by now, but it wasn't really that much work, once we got the foundation in. The foundation was a hassle. Spent maybe four or five days' work on that. We dug out trenches, and got some concrete in there, with beams coming up out. But we had to get everything level, which was tough because the ground wasn't really level, and we struck bedrock in one corner. (the pad was there when we bought the land, but it had lost its flatness due to weather and time). But then we had a frame of 4x6s and we laid some 2x6 joists down on it, then slapped some plywood on there. That was done in a weekend, but it wasn't a hard-working weekend.
Walls are easy, just 2x4s of the appropriate lengths nailed together in big squares, then nailed to the floor and each other to stay up. We did that on maybe a three-day weekend, I think.We added the solid siding later; that's just a type of plywood that's designed to look fancy. It's not as strong as normal plywood, and it's a bit more expensive, but that's okay for these purposes. The siding was more trouble than the walls, that may have been more than one weekend's work there. The front bit of roof has some fancy triangular things to hold it up, which are way over-engineered, because some day or other we're going to put solar panels on them. We made those shapes when we were back in town, so I don't have as good an idea of how long they took, but it wasn't too much work. The vertical bit where the two roofs meet is just a squarish thing like a wall, though it's supported by 4x4 pillars below. That took an afternoon building, and all morning figuring out how we were gonna haul it up there.
There's a loft there on the higher side, which rests on those pillars and the edges of the side walls and has supports to the back walls. That took a week, but it was just one person (not me), the rest it was all two or three.
The back roof is just a bunch of 16' 2x6s. Roofing itself was easy. Just toss plywood on, then this black tarry stuff, the name of which I don't recall, then flashing 'round the edges, then corrugated sheet metal screwed onto the top. Hot work, but not complicated, and not that physically tough as long as you use a power drill. Another weekend.

So yeah, a fair few weekends putting the structure together, and a bit of heavy lifting here and there. but it wasn't really that big a deal.

Since then, I've fixed up the floors a bit, added insulation, carpeting, and lua (sp?) boards as internal walling. I also added a stove and metal chimney, which was easy enough the first time, but I didn't do a good enough job the first time, so the snows came and tore it off during the winter. Getting it back together after it got banged up falling was a real hassle, I had to take pliers and a screwdriver and bend the metal so the sections would slide into each other, and then put screws in so it wouldn't slide right apart again. Here's to hoping it's strapped tight enough not to fall again this winter.

[TheyTarget]

Example.
Urist McMason "Well we've just arrived"
Urist McMiner "Heres some rock, you should start working"
Urist McMason "Yes, but I cant work stone without a proper workshop, I know I'll just work this stone without a proper workshop, to make a proper workshop to work this stone, there all done"


I could never live like a dwarf, he fact most things they can build out of just stone, or metal, or wood, with no tools is beyond imagination. Kitchen, just need a rock, loom, just need a rock, masons shop to work stone, just need a rock.

[Rasta69]

The humble hauler. Anyone who has had to  move a significant amount of their belongings can tell you how crappy that can be. I've moved house about 5 times now. Moving a medium sized house's worth of furniture, storing it, organizing it, packing into truck, unpacking truck, staring depressed at the huge mess you have now made, collecting rope, pills and finding bridge! This is also of course discounting the fact that the dwarves carry all of this by hand.

[Lightning4]

Example.
Urist McMason "Well we've just arrived"
Urist McMiner "Heres some rock, you should start working"
Urist McMason "Yes, but I cant work stone without a proper workshop, I know I'll just work this stone without a proper workshop, to make a proper workshop to work this stone, there all done"


I could never live like a dwarf, he fact most things they can build out of just stone, or metal, or wood, with no tools is beyond imagination. Kitchen, just need a rock, loom, just need a rock, masons shop to work stone, just need a rock.

I like to think that workshops (or the dwarves themselves) come with whatever tools are necessary. Granted, the former doesn't explain how you can chip stone in a talc workshop.

I think this might be an abstraction that's going away soon, since adventure mode is gaining some small tools of trade. They might find their way into dwarf mode at some point or another, or at least some mods. Probably not impossible to do in mods now though.

[Kittah_Khan]

Dwarven masons have only one set of tools, their teeth.