Hey Eggar, I magnified your map on the back wall and I can see Saboomook from here :cool:

Kurt, the sugar house is a true post & beam 12x16. I used to do post & beam but all those mortise joints took out my shoulder. I cheated and used 1" oak dowels for my pegs.
My arch is the same as yours but 4 years ago I bought a new set of stainless pans, drop flue.
The radio is a spare ART-13. I have one upstairs in the sugar house, with an SX28A receiver. I don't do AM anymore, it's just collecting dust. My other "shack" is all Collins, in the house.(an S-line, and a KWM380) I have a late KWM2-A up in Maine.

Glad to see your eyes haven't failed you, even if your mind has.

Kiddin' me? Eyesight is about the third or fourth thing tp go.

My sympathies to Kathy on the loss of the first three.
Kurt, here's a shot when I was building the frame for the sugar house. It took 30 days from when the timbers were dropped off till the last door was hung.
The drawoff controller is my own design. I use a Marcland valve, but that's where the similarity ends. It's much more versatile than the Marcland, and uses an Omega microprocessor. I've made a half dozen for the guys around here.

Hey spence...tell em the one about when you used to tap those trees down at the whore house.

I always meant to ask you; how did you know it was a whore house?

You said that doing your own mortices and joints wrecked your shoulder... did you order the posts and beams pre-mortised? And how did you "cheat" by using oak dowels? Most morticed post & beam structures used oak dowels didn't they?

No pre-cut stuff here. I cut the hemlock and pine on my land, took it to the sawmill at the end of the road and picked it up when he finally got to sawing them for me. The storm braces and rafters are hemlock, and the posts and beams are white pine. The design and measurements were all in my head. The mortises are 2 1/2" So all the pockets were roughed first with a 2" Forstner bit, then 2" slick and 1x1" corner chisel. Pegs are supposed to be tapered, so that they can be driven as they shrink, Pins through the mortises are supposed to be about 1/4" in of the holes through the tenons so the joints are pulled tight as they pegs are driven in. I cheated there too; boring straight thru and pegging. Nothing has moved a fraction, as the linear shrinkages keeps it all tight.

You are a rare breed Mr. Spencer and from what I know about your family history, you come from a long line of Connecticut Yankee "rare breeds".

My hat's off to you sir!!