ORRINGTON, Maine — The aroma of fresh lumber and the sound of a wooden mallet pounding rough cut pine and hemlock timbers into place permeated the air at the Curran Homestead over the weekend.
Notably absent, however, was the sound of most of the power tools that normally would be used in building construction in 2016.
That’s because a group of volunteers has been hard at work assembling a wood frame mortise and tenon structure at Curran Homestead on Fields Pond Road, located a stone’s throw from the Fields Pond Audubon Center.
Used for thousands of years by woodworkers around the world, mortise and tenon joinery essentially involves inserting tenons, or tongues, cut into the ends of timbers into mortises, or holes, cut into the ends of timbers so that the pieces connect at 90 degree angles.
“This was the standard of construction 100 years or more ago, particularly rural construction,” Project Director Richard Stockford said Saturday, as volunteers worked on floor decking and frame assembly in anticipation of Sunday’s frame-raising.
Stockford pointed out that the oldest buildings at Curran Homestead, the Peter Field house and the barn next to it, were “pegged together.”
“There are a great many houses in Bangor [built in the style],” he said. “You don’t know when you drive by but if you could see inside, same thing.
“It’s amazing how tight these things fit together, having been built separately and relying on the measurements to make them work,” Stockford said of the building style.
Once completed, the new 18- by 20-foot building will house an impressive collection of 19th century hand tools and belt-driven equipment recently given to the Curran Homestead by 19th Century Willowbrook Village.
Willowbrook permanently closed this season and contributed its Newfield campus, 1894 Herschell-Armitage horse carousel and much of its collection to the Curran Homestead at Fields Pond.
The Curran Homestead plans to create a “museum village” and eventually house the Willowbrook collection in Orrington.
Robert Schmick, Willowbrook’s director, will lead the project as Curran’s new executive director in 2017. Stockford noted that Schmick will be the museum’s first full-time paid director.
The new wood shop will provide a realistic setting for teaching the carpentry skills and techniques used before the advent of electric and battery-powered tools, Stockton said.
The groundwork for the project began last July, when board member and Bangor engineer Brian Ames and volunteer Chris Samaroo of Eddington were among six people who took a timber-framing class taught at Willowbrook by Ed Somers of Bridgeton.
Somers specializes in restoring historic houses and barns and builds new wood frame projects. He has been helping to oversee the Curran Homestead construction project being built according to a design by Ames.
Ames drew up the plans for the woodshop and some of the early wood work was done by him and other members of Somers’ class. The lumber and completed parts of the building were transported to the Curran Homestead, where the rest of the work is underway.
The roofing and siding work and the installation of doors and windows are planned for next weekend, with the goal of finishing the project by Thanksgiving.
This woodworking shop is the first of several improvements planned in the coming years. Next up likely will be the addition of a 36- by 72-foot museum display building, Stockford said.