Dowelled floor

[middi]

Of course you are absolutely correct FF, and it would be an impossibility to revert to " days gone by". Perhaps it also highlights (by default) the problem with world energy consumption.
Immagine, one could keep lots of people empoyed for the rest of time if they had to rely on their wits and skills as opposed to the, shipment, raw material and energy required to manufacture and maintain CAD-CNC complex machines.

The way I figure is that in a few thousand years we may have evolved to run at 100mph
And then realise and conclude that we don't really have a clue as to what we are trying to catch, or as to what to do with it once we have caught whatever it was we were trying to catch.
Basically created a problem which we may spend another few millenia trying to solve.

Why?? . Because we are human.

Middi

 

[Penners]

We are 'spoiled' by industrialisation that tends towards de-skilling and speeding things up. I suppose it all requires a different set of skills these days; a relatively few people to design complex and intricate machinery so that an object can be (mainly) produced automatically and repeatedly to very fine tolerances at a very low cost. The ingenuity, experience and skill now goes into creating the manufacturing process and associated machinery rather than the end product.

That's spot-on, FF. We have a tendency to look back at pre-industrial days with rose-tinted nostalgia and mutter, "they really knew how to make things in those days". And there's no doubt that the admirable manual skills demonstrated by craftsmen of yore are much rarer today.

But I am a big fan of CNC machinery. As you point out, it enables a product to be made to the finest tolerances, with 100% repeatability, at very low cost. So a far greater number of us can afford that product, making our lives more comfortable and enriched.

Whether this makes us happier is, of course, another discussion entirely.

 

[Moo]

it enables a product to be made to the finest tolerances, with 100% repeatability, at very low cost. So a far greater number of us can afford that product, making our lives more comfortable and enriched.

If only Mr W. Morris could join in this discussion!

 

[Penners]

I don't ever remember seeing any posts from him. Pity.

 

[JoceAndChris]

He's really busy steaming off wallpaper.

Just catching up on this thread - great floor Pford! Looks like a top quality job from Mr Newell as usual. :mrgreen:

 

[rogerh]

The original floorboards in my flat were dowelled. The flat is the bottom two floors of a Bath townhouse, built in 1760. Unfortunately the house was 'refurbished' when converted into flats by the council in the 1970s. The lower (basement) floor has a damp-course and six inches of concrete while many of the ground floor boards have either been replaced or hacked through for wiring and pipes then patched up before being covered with hardboard and acres of beige carpet (all now removed). The surviving boards are pine, of various widths and rough underneath, individually cut to fit over the joists. The boards are joined with dowels and fixed with invisible nails along one edge. Some boards are joined end-to-end with almost invisible tongue and groove joints. I'll take some photos tomorrow and post them up.