Any carpenters?

I do high end finish work when I'm not working at the shop.

This job is/was for a fancy lady spa.
They want all old reclaimed distressed wood....

They had columns that are way off plumb and wanted them wrapped and made to look in line. This building is one of the oldest buildings in San Francisco, its pre earthquake. So nothing is square or flat.

Made these.



They want to open this monday....
The scope and contract specs out butt joints....
Well turns out they want it to look like a solid beam...

So.... they dont know **** about carpentry..
Butt joints are not on a beam...

Back and forth back and forth and well, hard stop. I'm done, paid and they can sign a new contract....

Here you can see just how far out the brick walls were in the treatment rooms..

They look great. As far as wanting to change them, I work for a GC and I run into changes like this all of the time. Between the architects and the clients, I'm not sure if they play dumb or they're really that stupid. They always want changes for free too.

Commando66 said:

They look great. As far as wanting to change them, I work for a GC and I run into changes like this all of the time. Between the architects and the clients, I'm not sure if they play dumb or they're really that stupid. They always want changes for free too.

Click to expand...

Stupid. I pick stupid.

As someone with a machinist background, that would make me insane. Good work!

That looks great Cope! Some really nice work!

Those posts look great, like old wood. I’m a carpenter by trade and deal with these kinds of trials all the time. I’m working on a 100 year old house right now, they want to keep all of the old stone work and build new around it. I did the house next door 4 years ago, both built by the same person.

that old house is gorgeous. lots of respect to the carpenters out there. Personally I can barely hammer a screw in straight. My uncle is an old school carpenter. Shows up on site, takes felled trees to finish product. It's impressive.

Yeah man.
The designers always want to change it after you build it because their vision was not what they thought.
Just look at it like you’re still gonna get paid and make sure you do get paid for any changes and labor /materials you have to provide.
I know the feeling and it sucks.

I build showrooms with a lot of custom fab laminate, wall units, shelves, floors, walls, you name it.
I look at it this way.
If they want a change of plans they pay for it.
The biggest problem I run into is finding and keeping good men to work.
There are so many primadonnas in this field as well as drunks that attitudes and dependency addictions can turn a good crew into a skeleton crew real quick.
This last market I worked in I started with five guys
, a working foreman and a semi working boss to becoming the foreman and the last man standing while everyone else quit for various childish or dependent reasons and the boss went on vacation leaving me with the finish work and punch list.
Hard to find skilled help these days.....and harder to find skilled help with zero drug problems and mental issues.
There was one guy that came through for me and he was a part time student and 38 y/o that would come help me every day after 2:30 pm.
He was a God send with an attitude to match.
Without that guy the whole operation would have folded.
Still waiting for my raise....lol.
Next market starts this month and I should be working now but the boss asked me to help frantically and wanted me to call him mext day to talk turkey.
I left him a message and he never called me back.
I’m not about to beg him as I have another job/and can do pretty much anything in then building trades so my options are open plus I’m a quick learner and that’s how I went from a nobody helper to a carpenter foreman in one years time.
Just get out there and jump into it boys....learn all you can so you can roll with the punches of life.

Being in the carpentry industry is one of the best challenges for the mind and body that a person could have. My wife always says I’m too analytical, I tell her I have to be to be able to envision people’s dream home standing in a barren field, and putting together the 1000’s of steps it takes to make it happen. Maybe that’s why I like cars too, I like the challenge of disassembling and reassembling something from start to finish!

Distressed wood and grid ceiling go together so well...

I was a concrete Foreman for many years. I had many challenges building massive walls. I'll try and describe a little bit of one of my favorites- it was to be an outdoor changing room for a poolhouse. It was about a 12-foot round circle about 12 foot high. It was 8 inch thick wall, formed. In order to form the curvature we would use one-quarter inch Masonite. We would stagger it and overlap it till we got three quarters of an inch thick. Not a work of rocket science. But still a bit of a challenge making a round room. both sides have to be formed exactly 8 inches away from each other and be able to hold the pressure of tons concrete. The real fun part was making the blackouts for the doorways and the windows. Of course they wanted them arched at the top. so now these 8-inch block outs for the windows and doors need to be arched and radiused. actually now that I remember this was pre-forman days and I was low man on the totem pole at this job and still no one but me would touch the stuff not even the owner. Needless to say after this I did become Foreman for another company. I also masterminded the design of there massive radius wall that went down around the back side of the property and retained the swimming pool. Looking back I was so Gravely underpaid...

The truth about Carpentry - A Carpenter is the person who uses his high school education to fix what the university educated fucked up ! When I meet an engineer I ask " oh yeah custodial or do you actually crash trains ?" because thats all any of them are good for .I have worked on many high prestige projects in my 35 years in the trade , The BC Legislature and the Old School House building at St Michaels University School are 2 high profiles examples of my finishing work doing restorative and repurposing work while also incorporating seismic upgrades because we too are on an active earthquake fault . I too have a 100 old house I am restoring {140 years old actually} and it will stand for another 140 years after I am done and gone , nothing these engineers come up with will last anywhere near that long and they are the last people to take responsibility for their incompetence , just google BC Leaky Condo's if you don't believe me . Home owners are still paying for hundreds of millions of dollars worth of their incompetence not a single penny paid by them .

Betty. Older, very sweet lady. She owns a historic home in Carlisle PA built in the late 1700s.

One of her window treatments rotted away & parts of it fell off.

I measured the remains carefully, removed what was left of it & took photos of the 'survivors' still on the house.

She wanted a replacement that would not rot, so I re-created it in PVC using the correct glue & stainless steel screws to hold the layers together until the glue set.

The Fleur-de-lis was then carved by hand with a Northwest native type carving knife I made in Mr. Hudsons 7th grade class in Alaska a very long time ago.

Betty was ecstatic with the results so it was a proud moment for me.

In this photo, what was left of the old one & the replacement before it was installed & prepped for paint.