Five Grains of Sand

I wrote this epic kung-fu fantasy called The Story of Five Grains of Sand

that I perform it occasionally in Finnish.

First the story took three hours to tell, but happily last time showed it can be told in just one.

It is Kalevala type fantasy of meeting dragons and encountering the Tao..

I encountered a suprice in a local craftsman shop, a one hour timeglass (in the cardboard)!

I  said to my self, that if I find some inspiring parts to build a frame with I'll come back to get it..

And truly there was something.. These are parts of maybe a centenarian tripod, 

that has possibly passed some Finnish wars. It is tough oak, but the glue was so old

I could separate the pieces with a butter knife.

 Everything was set. I also found these beautiful brass pieces from the storage. They happened to fit together perfectly, letting me install rubber suspencions between them!

 First I rounded the corners with a miller.

 Then used this old special drill bit to make a casing for the brass..

 And used another type of drill to make the pieces equal from the other side..

 Lo and behold, a match :)

 Then I checked out the curves from the glass an drew figures upon them..

Cutted the shapes and grinded them..

 And fixed these tiny knobs in their place, after drilling a lot of little holes.

I found those from a local knob store.

 Then piled it up putting all the pieces in their rightfull places.

Put it in a light press and got help with oiling..

 And ready for action!

This timeless timeglass will help me creating more magical moments of fantasy.

I'm practicing the story every now and then and the best way to do it is to tell it to someone.

If you are interested in hearing the story privately in Finnish and by so helping out,

feel free to contact me.

The next scheduled story session would be Fri 12.02.2016  6 pm at

Arkadia International Bookstore, Nervanderinkatu 11, Helsinki

 Welcome!

Treasure Hunt

How to find lifes treasures?

This post is a follow up from an earlier story about fixing a log house..

Once we found ourselves with this beautiful piece of wood 

and we got insipred to do something with it.

 After few cuts and minor adjustements the pieces fit together quite nice.

 We found the right screws for hinges..

 Made side walls and adjusted some straps..

 Added the birth-day-present branch as a handle 

and made a secure lock to stop any baby-aged littlesister.. =)

 And found the perfect hiding place for the chest!

 But what is in it??

 Well all the things a real treasure chest could dream off of course!

Precious stones, fine jewelry, rare artifacts and some secrets. :)

Those things adventures are made of.

Cross Laminated Timber

I had a rare opportunity to participate to setting up a Cross Laminated Timber house.
In Finland it is not that common. CLTs are wooden elements that can be cut to any shape in factories.
This gives unique freedom with strange shaped houses.

First we made the footing for the foundations.

Pumping is a nice way to deal with concrete.

Filling in the hillside preasurewalls.

Stones stones..

Then we got the foundation ready for the house..

Filled some more pillars..

Build the wooden base according to the design.

Finally the Cross Laminated Timber came with trucks from europe.

First corner getting fastened!

 

A doorframe :)

Some of the pieces were huge!

Moving to install the roof..

And here it is! It took just two days to get it up.
What a nice modern design for a house.

Bedtime Story

I got a nice task to build a loft bed for two children in to a block house apartment in Helsinki.

The family happened to be on holidays, so after receiving keys from the janitor I made some room to begin.

I set up a level laser among the toys..

And after carefully measuring the spot..

Went outside and cut the necessary pieces.

I attached the first parts firmy to the walls with screw anchors.

Then made the stairways and the middle pole ready

Tried on the pole, fixing the frame for the middle wall..

 Set the partition up to it's grooves.

 Attached the safety rails..

And after fixing all the shelves and filling all the screwholes with chemical wood,  I protected everything for painting.

And after few layers of paint..

Life found its way :)