a new bridge and working with a journeyman

I seem to have had quite a run of bridge building recently, I don’t think I ever posted finished pictures of the last one so let’s start with that. It has apparently become the place in Bradfield for wedding photos which I find rather flattering. Someone mentioned that a previous bridge at Goldenclough in Edale appeared in a [photography competition in Sheffield.

So when building these bridges I start with a tree, sometimes it takes a long time to find the right tree but in this case the National Trust had just the right tree growing a few hundred yards down the road., they felled it for me in February before the sap rose. And this is Dietrich a German journeyman who spent a few days working with me.

and cutting along the line freehand with a very big chainsaw.

And the fist slab comes off.

 Cutting the curved profile, the slab from the top will make the matching handrails.

 The idea of being a journeyman is that you travel and expand your skills (Dietrich was a full trained time served cabinetmaker before he started his journeyman time nearly 3 years ago) So as well as playing with some big timber we spent some time in the turning workshop and Dietrich made a couple of nice bowls.

The journeyman structure is very interesting so I shall make another post about that soon.