I have been on hiatus for the past few weeks as I decided to get away from the snow and put my feet in the sands of Cuba.
I have always watched in fascination as Cuban woodworkers make due with limited tools and supplies to create projects you and I take for granted in their ease of construction.
I watched the construction of a large covered gazebo area (probably covered over 1000 square feet), that took the workers less than a week to build. If I had to give it a name, we would call it "timber frame construction", using long sections of straight trees to form the framework for palm branch coverings and lumber sheathing. The long sections are connected with bolts or long nails, and secured to each other (at the key stress points) by fabricated steel plate connectors and splines. The design incorporates as strong sense of architectural design which I am sure come from decades of building "hurricane-proof" structures.
I will post photos later once I go through the 100s of photos I took of this wrongly maligned Caribbean paradise.
I have been on hiatus for the past few weeks as I decided to get away from the snow and put my feet in the sands of Cuba.
I have always watched in fascination as Cuban woodworkers make due with limited tools and supplies to create projects you and I take for granted in their ease of construction.
I watched the construction of a large covered gazebo area (probably covered over 1000 square feet), that took the workers less than a week to build. If I had to give it a name, we would call it "timber frame construction", using long sections of straight trees to form the framework for palm branch coverings and lumber sheathing. The long sections are connected with bolts or long nails, and secured to each other (at the key stress points) by fabricated steel plate connectors and splines. The design incorporates as strong sense of architectural design which I am sure come from decades of building "hurricane-proof" structures.
I will post photos later once I go through the 100s of photos I took of this wrongly maligned Caribbean paradise.