Amish Barn Building


TerryMcK

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When I traded my hydroponic grow room lights and gear for a jointer and dust collector, the guy to whom I sold them was telling me he took a week long barn-erecting outing in Amish country. Now...they did use power tools. He mentioned something along the lines of a stationary chainsaw to cut huge mortises in giant pieces of framing lumber.

He had also mentioned interestingly, their use of Japanese framing squares. On day one, everyone got in line with the framing squares that they either recently purchased or had been using for years and presented them to the instructor. He would eyeball them and say either 'this side only,' 'that side only,' or 'throw it away'. Evidently it was the Hitoro Hanzai (kill Bill references for 1000 Alex) of framing squares.

Said he learned a lot, and it was quite cathartic to hump lumber for a few days and see the end result via community teamwork.

I always thought I would much enjoy living in an Amish community as long as I could drink copiously, watch NFL football, skip church, and use a cabinet saw.

I do like the idea of everyone pulling their weight for the community good.

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After long years working with Amish:

"People's people." Equal number of heros and #%^*€<s as in regular society. However, it is very cool to have tight big families, gorgeous countryside unpunctuated by power poles, and a serious work ethic. I would not go that way unless I could keep my deodorant.

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There are a lot of amish around me, one of the last commercial jobs I ran had an Amish crew of carpenters, they were a strange bunch, they had a hired driver who also provided all their power tools, at quitting time the tools were dropped where they stood and that is where they were left, If the van driver picked them up so be it if not that is where they spent the night. They lived in a small community about an hour from me, it was said that a local doctor build a "community center" he rented them freezer space, a laundry mat, a computer lab and a TV room, all of which was okay because it was not on their property and it was Inconvenient. 

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They would talk about us all day long. Between my halting German and my bosses fluent Swebish it got "interesting." At the end of the day he would wink at us a yell "Roll it up and let's go home!" In Dutchy. Shocked looks and a quiet job site until we made friendly the next day. Once they thought the playing field was level then they were fantastic. I still admire 30 mile trips in a buggy in all weather.

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I bent some flashing for them and showed them the proper way to install it alone with the proper way seal it and use of termination bar, nothing like teaching guys with no overhead how to do your job, LOL…   I also let the kid fly one of my micro helicopters, they work hard but know how to enjoy it. It was in January and the weather was terrible, but we got along quite well.

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We have an Amish community near our town. I used to deal with them regularly when I was in the mobile tool business. They DO like QUALITY hand tools but, their not too crazy about paying the prices. :)

In '09 I bought a prefab storage building from one of the Amish company's that build them around here. My son-in-law and I tore down my old building in about three hours the day before the new one was due to arrive.

The morning of the build day, two men with a trailer of parts showed up exactly at 7:00 AM. I intended to hang out and help as a "go fur" or hold the dumb end of a tape measure or be of some assistance. It took me about 15 minutes to realize that I was just in the way and I should just go pound sand or something, so I grabbed my camera and took a picture every hour on the half hour. Four pictures later, they were packed up and gone! 11:00 AM!  

They had four walls and two doors built, they had to assemble the base, add walls,put up the roof, calk and seal all joints, touch up paint, paint the trim,and shingle the roof and they DIDN'T spare any nails!

I was so happy with my new barn that I drove 15 miles just to tell their boss how happy I was with the job they did and the speed in which they did it.

 

Rog

 

PS. They trimmed a few limbs off of the tree behind the barn while they were putting the roof on too! :)

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