Why do I even bother

 For any of you considering the joys of being self employed, or what you end up spending so much time on? Consider this from this mornings e-mail dump:

On 30/10/12 2:12 AM, Cam L wrote:

Am I missing something or am I supposed to be an idiot for ordering from you?  I am not trying to be rude but I really do not understand!!!!

You keep talking on your site on how this is made in Canada and is made to be affordable......  Then when I go to order the price is 47.46 including HST (I am in alberta  and do not pay HST!).  And then the price is $36.00 for Americans!!!!!

Should you not  be saying that it is made in The USA as it certainly seems you are trying to KISS American ass and screw over your countrymen!

What am I missing?

Cam

You are in fact being amazingly rude.

I take it from your references you are referring to Viking Game?
Normally I would just blow this kind of comment off - but you should understand  a few things:

Made in Canada?
- The piece of canvas is likely woven off shore some place. I do purchase the boards, which are cut and the edges bound, by a small company in Kitchener Ontario.
- The board printing is done by a local business near my home in Dundalk Ontario
- The glass counters are likely made off shore (Europe I think). I do purchase these in bulk from a supplier in Georgetown Ontario.
- The king piece is made here in my own workshop.
- I have the rule sheets printed at a different local business in Dundalk.
- The main offshore component is the bag. Sorry, I just can not even get the bags even made locally, much less made, printed both sides. Ordered from a US company, work done in India. The bags account for about 15 % of the cost of production.
- The pieces are all assembled into the finished games by myself.

The government requirement for 'Made in Canada' is that at least 50% of the wholesale value needs to be applied in this country. My estimate is that a minimum of 75 % of the wholesale value is from Canadian sources.

Made to be affordable:

Reality check please.
- All the other commercially available versions of Nefatafal retail for *over $50*. My version retails at almost *half* that amount - at $28.
- As the primary sales of Viking Game are not retail, but are in fact wholesale to museum gift shops, consider that normally I only get $14.50 for each game produced. Do the math. Dealing with all those other small local suppliers, how much do you think * I * get to keep?


Unless its produced in *China* and sold via *Wallmart*, I absolutely defy you to find another game of this type in the same price range.



But I see your REAL problem is not with the cost of the game itself?

Shipping cost of $14

Blame Canada Post - not me!
- I set the shipping cost  based on what I actually get charged by Canada Post to send one game, in a padded envelope (which also needs to be paid for). Since I have to cover all of our country, I use the raw cost (rounded up to the closest dollar) I get charged to send something from central Ontario to Vancouver.
- I do not include anything for the time to pack the order.
- I do not charge anything for the time and gas cost to drive the 20 + km and back into the closest Post Office. 
I freely admit the cost of shipping is horrible - but *I do not control this*

HST of $5.46

Blame Revenue Canada - not me!
My *legal instructions from Revenue Canada* are:
-  As a business in Ontario grossing over $30 K per year, I am *forced* to collect HST.
-  All products or services originating in *Ontario*, then delivered within *Canada* must have HST applied.
I do *not* determine this.
(I absolutely HATE the HST system. Did you know I am forced to spend hours keeping accounting records on the sole behalf of Revenue Canada - for which I get *absolutely no* bennifit of any kind?)

'Suck up to Americans"

????

1) HST is not applied to any product shipped outside of Canada (Revenue Canada)

2) It costs LESS to ship one game to CALIFORNIA than it does to ALBERTA (Canada Post)


Now, you are bitching to me about all the aspects of fixed costs over which I have absolutely NO CONTROL WHATSOEVER - which are in fact IMPOSED on me by the GOVERNMENT OF CANADA

 If you are feeling 'screwed over' - you had better direct your displeasure at those responsible.

To make yourself feel better, go to Walmart (and American Multi-national company well known for screwing local businesses) and purchase something made in China.
Or better, try to order something from the USA and see what happens to your shipping costs.

with no respect at all
Darrell

Review - 2012 Re-Arc Conference

'Students Make the Future'

The third annual Reconstructive & Experimental Archaeology Conference was hosted by the Schiele Museum of Natural History at Gastonia North Carolina, USA, over October 20 - 22.

Although the cost of the conference itself was minimal ($35 pre-registered, $20 for students) the large travel distances within North America always become a major consideration for participation in any such event. (We certainly came the furthest, a 1400 km distance from Central Ontario, Canada.) This may have effected the overall attendance, with about 60 total, about a third of these students. In reality, the smaller size of the gathering proved one its most positive qualities. You could easily find any individual and engage them in conversation, which is exactly what happened.

A total of 8 formal presentations were given, along with 6 hands on workshops, poster based presentations, and a keynote lecture. This programming pretty much packed the available time. The presenters were drawn from professional academics, independent researchers and senior students. Topics ranged from the highly technical ('A Study of the Effects of Weathering on the Geochemical Signature of Southeaster US. Rhylites Using PXRF Analysis') to overviews and the more experiential. All approached their topics with enthusiasm and obvious passion, which in turn made all the presentations engaging and thus capturing the interest of the participants. If there was any weakness in the programming it was that everyone was trying to pack so much information into the short time frames! With so much of North American archaeology focused on Pre-Columbian cultures, the two researchers working with European Early Medieval technologies was a great addition.
(Unfortunately, both of us had to miss the keynote lecture by Dr Bill Marquardt, as we needed time to prepare for our afternoon demonstrations.)

The hands on workshops were an obvious draw for the participants. Two of these definitely stood out. Neil Peterson's demonstration of a possible Viking Age glass bead furnace allowed individuals to make their own glass bead. Almost everyone at the conference tried their hand at doing so.

Brave Squirrel Hunters - Early Sunday morning.

Doug Meyer lead a session that demonstrated the construction and use of a simple bamboo tube blowgun. The student participants especially participated in this - the result being the only thing saving the local squirrel population was poor aim.
The general opinion of all attending was that the hands on opportunities added considerably to not only illustrating ongoing experiments, but also directly improving personal understanding with specific materials and methods. At one point Steve Watts said : 'Today Museums are collecting objects, but tomorrow they will be collecting technology'.  An insightful comment.

Coming in from outside the normal academic community, as a serious but still 'amateur' researcher, you are always uncertain just what kind of reception you might receive. What was wonderful about Re-Arc 2012 was the way everyone was so enthusiastic about not only their own work, but how easily parallels were being drawn into other experiments. Everyone was genuinely interested in hearing about each others trials, successes (and failures!)

The presence of so many undergraduate and graduate students most certainly contributed to the overall energy of the gathering. With some humour one instructor quipped 'If you want students to come, make it a course requirement'. The general feeling for all was that the participation of what will become the next generation of experimenters and researchers was one of the most positive aspects of the conference. 'Students make the future'.

The open discussion on the possible future of Re-Arc brought forth many good, positive suggestions for both developing the conferences and the organization itself. Some of the best observations came from the participating students, ideas that hopefully will be implemented for the 2013 conference:
- One significant element is that the Schiele Museum has committed to hosting future conferences.
- Considerable discussion was made about expanding the use of the internet, both for communications but more importantly for information sharing / publication.
- Consideration was given to how to better recruit and involve students.
- A discussion was made about forming closer ties to the existing ExArc organization in Europe.
- Ensuring solid programming for future conferences through an earlier call for papers, plus expanding the physical demonstration / hands on component.

Although a smaller conference, there is no doubt the generally informal atmosphere at Re-Arc 2012 was one of its greatest strengths. The enthusiasm of the participants was certainly addictive. Being able to share common problems and discuss similar approaches with others transcended individual topic areas. It left you feeling that you are not alone in your personal passion for ancient technologies.

My own contribution - Demonstrating the Aristotle Furnace. (Image Neil Peterson)

'Secret of the Viking Sword' - Reviewed

As promised in an earlier posting, these are some comments on the recent NOVA feature 'Secrets of the Viking Sword', which aired on October 10.

Ric Furrer is a skilled smith, we have corresponded a bit. He is active on Don Fogg's Forum.
Note that I think Ric came off as a serious working professional, with good knowledge and skills.

The concept for this program was shopped around a couple of years back. I was approached myself in the early part of sourcing craftsmen. I knew it was beyond my specialties, and had referred the producers to Jeff Pringle and Jake Powning. 'Do it for the promotion' was mentioned at the time.  There is a good chance Ric will benefit hugely from being the featured smith - at least in terms of reputation. (If you were wondering, as I was, Ric said he was paid 'at least something' and he did get to keep the sword that was produced. His intent is to see that blade at auction. His web site suggests to commission a similar blade would run in the range of $7500.)


Much of the error in the program is by omission, and obviously at the hands of the producers.
The things they *left out* were more important than all those stupid live steel melee sequences they kept inserting. (Which were typical melee overview shots, hardly accurate or informative.) The narration was vague in many places, but at least the interviews carried many of the missing details. Paying attention to the visuals supplied information the narration completely missed:

- Ric was shown using fair approximations of VA equipment.
- He forged it all in charcoal, thought that was not mentioned. He did not appear to be sizing his charcoal, which we have learned from Mark Pilgrim at L'Anse aux Meadows NHSC greatly improves the performance of the forge fire.
- He was using a Japanese style hammer - which I did wonder about. (Completely unknown in VA Europe!)
- Not sure about the anvils he was using. For the initial compaction of the billet, it looked to be a Norse style (small block). You might have noticed that it was hardly bigger than the billet - which certainly suggests one reason that the time required was given as so long. Historically I suspect such rough and heavy work would have been undertaken using a more massive stone block. At one point it looked like he was finishing the forging using a Chinese style, small arched block (made from a small piece of rail track from the looks of it). Hard to be certain?

Notice that the bellows used was too small for our style high air volume smelts. Too large (really) for duplicate of the known smithing bellows. (Ric did tell me that his bellows re-construction was largely based on the information I had researched here.) The narration also did not comment on VA blacksmithing tools at all - which I would suggest are critical to the experiment.
(I did wonder if off camera, an electric blower was in place for the furnace. Our team certainly knows first hand how much labour is required for continuous bellows operation!)

Not so sure about the statement 'a sealed furnace equalling vastly higher temperatures' (??).
I did have problems with the way temperatures were so loosely shot around. Steel does not melt at 3000 F, closer to 2600 F. And any number of experimenters have demonstrated that our smelting furnaces can produce temperatures as high as 2800 F. So the narration here was just wrong. We have certainly produced liquid cast iron (melting at roughly 2300 F) any number of times.(Some furnace temperature data)
No doubt he achieved plus 2400 F - but I think the sealed crucible was so much more important. Note there was no mention of the material or building of the crucible itself! Likely the most critical component here, and not described.

Related to this, they were using some kind of special filters on the cameras. This washed down the colours. This most obvious when Ric did the forge weld at the end to set the inlay. That should have been a bright yellow, almost a white. This shift effected all the colours seen during the working process. Add at least two colour / temperature shifts up in truth from what you saw recorded (my guess).

They also did not even mention that the inlay was forge welded into place (only one mention of 'weld' - that only in passing too.)

One big absence - Ric is seen loading bloom iron for the material in the crucible:
- Where did that come from? And they didn't even mention it!
- I know Ric has done some iron smelts himself. This should have been mentioned, as it represents considerably more work for Ric.
- If you check Ric's web site, you will find a film clip of his normal smelting method, which is based on the Japanese tatara method. This does produce a quite different result that actual Viking Age bloomery furnaces.
- The source ore might be critical to the overall production method, and the quality of the resulting metal.
- Ric may have carefully selected specific quality fragments from his source bloom. The varying colour and texture of the pieces he is shown loading suggest this. Again no comment is made.

They obviously short cut in the whole polishing effort. If you watched close, you could see parallel grind lines on the surface (90 degrees to edge). This suggests the possible use of power equipment? Note that I understand this - and it really does not add that much difference to the result - just a massive time increase if using hand stones. Nice to see the use of large block stones too.
I thought the insert of the wheel grind stone intrusive - and completely wrong to the historic period.

Was not entirely sure about the illustrated technique with the hardening quench. The blade was held still, no spreading of the quench line on the tang. This would result in a shock line and likely a break there. He pulled the blade out of the quench while the tang was till orange - this would cause variation in hardness at the base of the blade. The 'flaming blade' was so obviously done entirely for the camera - and is NOT the correct method. I suspect that Ric re-did the whole hardening sequence a second time to get this done correctly.

The tempering process would have been more critical than the hardening. Yet that was pretty much glossed over. How? What temper colours? Where placed? Would have liked to have had both seen that illustrated and a commentary as well.

It is mentioned that acid is used to bring up the contrast between the inlay and the blade. What acids? Note that 'modern' chemical acids were not known in the Viking Age.

I had wrote Ric personally after the program was shown. He told me he was considering putting together his own 'Making of the Ulfberht Sword' video documentary. In this he intends to cover much that was missing in the finished NOVA program, with content with better information for other blacksmiths.
 

If you think I may be over critical here, I will say that overall, NOVA's 'Secrets of the Viking Sword' is significantly *better* than many other history based documentaries seen in past years. The trend has increasingly been to dumb down the content, often to the point that the base science presented is questionable. Happily, at least in terms of the observation of a general audience, this program is set to a higher standard. Although the narration itself is often simplistic and lacking in detail, a keen eye can learn much from the sequences of Ric actually working 'live' on the creation of the sword. To Ric's credit, he remains a knowledgeable and credible, obviously skilled professional throughout.


Bottom line - well worth watching!
Good work Ric.



Someone has posted the entire NOVA program on YouTube. This should allow all of us outside the USA to also view the program - if you missed it first time around!

NOVA - ULFBERHT Sword

The introduction below is by Richard Furrer, the initial notice he placed on Don Fogg's Bladesmith Forum - Posted 17 May 2012 - 01:13 PM

October 10th 2012
NOVA
"Secrets of the the Viking Sword" Documentary
9PM/8Central

some photos here:
http://www.doorcount...s.com/NOVA.html

In the Summer and Fall of last year I had the pleasure to be involved in the production of a TV documentary program focussed on the Viking Sword.
The program was produced for NOVA (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/) though the work of National Geographic and Pangloss Films (http://www.panglossfilms.com/). In October of 2011 Pangloss Films came to my shop and documented the making of a special sword based on the research of Dr. Alan William's of "The Wallace Collection" in London (http://www.wallacecollection.org/). Several years ago Dr. William's began a study of Ulfberht inlayed sword blades and discovered that the blade which carried a signature of a certain type appeared to have no slag. His work can be seen in several articles and his new book "The Sword and the Crucible" ISBN 9789004227835. I had the pleasure of spending a few weeks with Dr. Alan Williams in North India back in 2007 and can tell you he is an extremely insightful archeo-metallurgist.

The program will discuss the importance of Dr. Williams' find, a particular blade housed at the National Museum of Denmark (http://natmus.dk/) as well as illustrate the manufacture and larger context of these cultural artifacts (My bit).
We did the work in a charcoal forge with leather bellows on a stake anvil....more or less. Some of the smelting processes of manufacture are based on the research of Dr. Ann Feuerbach , currently at Hofstra University, and I await her book on the subject which she is currently authoring.
For my part I enlisted a bellows and hammer man in the form of Kevin Cashen of Matherton Forge in Michigan (http://www.cashenblades.com/). Kevin and I have been friends for many years and in addition to being a deep well regarding European blades and a talented craftsman...I simply enjoy him being around.
Kevin was a huge help to me for the film shoot as it is always a good thing to have someone around with his skills and depth of knowledge, but he preferred to be a bit more off camera than on. Thank you Kevin!
Following the filming Kevin and I went to Arms and Armor in Minneapolis (http://www.armor.com/ ) and saw Chris Poor and Craig Jonson and were given a very good tour and handling session of the Oakeshott Collection. http://www.oakeshott.org/

In this project I was part of a greater whole and I believe this may be a defining watershed for the public to see what is possible by modern smiths.
Peter Yost of Pangloss Films has produced may award winning features for TV and I look forward to seeing this program he has crafted.
...

Yours,
Richard Furrer
www.doorcountyforgeworks.com

PRICING:

A similar sword made by the same methods is $7,500 for the blade.

Fittings are in addition to that cost.

The show can be viewed online (in the US) at this address:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/secrets-viking-sword.html

There are some still images from the creation process of Ric's ULFBERHT reproduction from the documentary at : http://www.doorcountyforgeworks.com/Available_Work.html

I'm going to let readers soak in the available materials first. I do have a commentary on the documentary, but will leave that a couple of days to let you all sort out the information. 

Remember those Labels!

- So I says to meself, ya have that ReArc conference coming up in less than a week. Ya got a course this weekend, so actually its only all of two full and two half days for shop work remaining. Since yer gonna be demonstrating the Aristotle Furnace, it might be nice to have at least one working bar forged out from one of that pile of Aristotle 'pucks' ya got layin' about.
And being so lazy, I don't want to change back out of boots to head back into the house (again) to grab the camera. Best not to use one of the carefully recorded and documented test samples.
Here, see that one? Nothing noted on the bag. Use that one.

But what the heck *is* that piece anyway?

Two fairly crumbly looking fragments (sorry, no starting image, see above)
One at 223 gm, other at 75 gm.
These kind of fitted together, so stack, bring up close to welding in the coal forge, attempt to 'press weld' in the hydraulic press.
Ok, not really welded. So heat again, hand hammer weld. Try to press the edges in (again at welding heat), which does not work so well.
Cut in half and stack. Press weld. Repeat weld with the hand hammer, working the edges in (another couple of weld sequences)
Cut in half at 90 degrees to last cut line. Stack and press weld. Repeat weld with hand hammer, again working over the edges in another couple of weld sequences.
Draw to a rectangular bar on the air hammer, starting each sequence at welding heat.

Ok, that is a lot of welding heats taken.

Grind flat one face (angle grinder), polish to 80, cross direction at 120.

Total elapsed time : 2 hours at the forge

 (Images expand to considerably larger than life size - same surface in both)

Size : 3/4 x 1/4 x 6 1/4 inches 

Weight : 157 gms

Polished surface etched in Ferric Chloride.

A couple of things:

1) I'm not entirely happy about the 'yield' - at roughly 50% from bloom to bar.
This is primarily due to the source material, which I expect had considerable slag contained in the mass. There may certainly be a certain 'lack of skill' involved. I will note that only a couple of quite small fragments broke off the piece during the welding processes described.

2) What are those bright lines?
Given the position, I would think these are boundary lines between actual welding steps. However, Ferric Chloride normally etches carbon content, and bright areas like that are seen in billets where nickle is present. All the carbon leached out from a weld boundary? You can see the texture of the metal in the expanded views.

3) Source material?
During the polishing, few sparks were visible. Those that were had the 'dull red ball' effect normally associated with a low carbon 'wrought' iron. The normal product of this particular Aristotle furnace is a *medium* carbon.

Overall conclusion:

I think what I started with here was actually small bloom fragments instead of material from the Aristotle furnace.
The material did weld relatively easy, although there was some trouble blending in the fragmented edges.
The low yield is balanced by recovering metal from fragments around the outside of the sold bloom.

Although the carbon content shows as low, there is enough material to make two standard sized (3 - 4 inch) Norse styled belt knives. My intent is to do this, making one male (seax) and one female (long point) blades.

BIG LESSON?

Remember to label those pieces!

'Bottle' Bead Furnace

For a number of reasons, Neil Peterson and I decided not to mount an iron smelt over Thanksgiving weekend, but concentrated on the VA glass bead making furnace research instead.

The initial experiments in this area were framed by the existing clay 'based plates' found at Ribe Denmark. It should be noted that although there is evidence of glass bead production at a couple of Norse trade / urban sites, there has not been a single complete furnace found. Experimental furnaces we have constructed using these artifact footprints have never been truly effective for actually making beads. There may be some other purpose for the clay slabs (?)

There were a number of continuing problems with the large oval furnaces, as suggested by the artifact bases :

1) Very short effective temperature cycles - in the range of 10 minutes
2) Side ports proved very difficult to work inside - limited space and heat onto hands
3) Top ports proved less than ideal - too large an area for effective control of glass
4) Continuing problems with ash coating surface of beads
5) Large internal volume required considerable charcoal expenditures to operate
6) The top ports were quite effected by any cross winds (operated outside)

Taking my experience with charcoal forge fires, and what we have learned from the much larger charcoal fired iron smelting furnaces, I had suggested this as a possible effective layout:

We tried out a couple of early versions of this system, back in 2009. These were abandoned, mainly because they do not conform to the known artifact 'bases'.
The concept here is that all the exhaust gasses are bottled up and forced out of a top vent hole, which in effect creates a working space much like a more modern torch flame.

Returning to this operating system, Neil constructed a new prototype, based some new observations and suggestions from me, back in mid September. This furnace had been air drying for several weeks. Sunday's workshop saw it fired and operated through several charging cycles:
(images below by Neil Peterson)

Layout of the Furnace : about 30 cm OD. Annealing pot to left.

Lid removed, filling with charcoal. Electric blower used for this test series.

Fresh charcoal vents off combustible gasses for about 5 minutes.

Stable working flame, working a simple glass bead in the 'stack'

End of a working cycle, charcoal has burned away from centre to base.

 There was no doubt that this new furnace was a massive improvement:
1) Effective operating cycle in the range of 75 minutes (!)
2) Higher working temperatures at the upper port
3) Narrow flame created more effective control of the glass itself
4) Ash greatly reduced (mostly absent)
5) Significantly lower charcoal consumption
6) 'Time per bead' rate greatly reduced


This all creates one of the classic problems in experimental archaeology : 'If you can't get the same results, you can't be doing the same thing they did' vs 'That certainly works - but it does not match the available artifact evidence'.

In the actual absence of any complete furnaces (or even upper fragments) from VA sites, my gut feeling is that the few surviving 'bases' may be from some other process entirely. Annealing pans is one possibility.

Our research and experimentation continues...

Spinning at Summerfolk

For a good number of years now, I have had my booth at Summerfolk  beside, often integrated with, Jim Macnamara.

Jim and his wife Erika started as jewellers, creating a line of work using natural beach pebbles inlaid with hammered silver wire. In recent years, Jim has been creating an ever changing series of whimsical garden pieces. The influence of Jim's solid advice - and personal crazy - on my own work has been clear. (It is under his suggestions that I have delved ever deeper into purely sculptural pieces.)

2011 = Small wind turbines

Another view

The pieces above are also notable for the background sky. That is the northern edge of the tornado that ripped apart Goderich in 2011. 

Whirligig - 2012

The inspirations also kick backwards. Jim's 2011 pieces may have been suggested by the much larger 'windbile' pieces I typically exhibit at Summerfolk :

'La Tene Rotar' - 2009

Bead Furnace at Bonfield

These images are all by Vandy Simpson, taken at the Bonfield Battle event run each Labour Day by my old friend Steve Muhlberger.

As a continuation of the ongoing experimental research under Neil Peterson, DARC mounted a combination demonstration and hands on session with a possible Viking Age bead working furnace. The furnaces are clay & horse manure construction, fire charcoal, and are based on 'possible' footprints suggested by the archaeology primarily from Ribe Denmark. For a more complete background, see Neil's published research.

Overall view of the set up - inside the 'forge' duggout area

Working in the stack, heating new rod to apply decoration

Streaks are small pieces of burning charcoal in the vent

Two primary problems are plaguing us with this specific design, which is based on the size of one of the uncovered 'base plates' :
1) Although high enough temperatures can be produced to effectively work the glass, the actual effective time is quite short. Our skill levels are mid level at best, and typically only one semi complex (base plus two colour patterning) can be created in one charcoal fill cycle.
2) Marred surfaces, from flying ash and small particles of burning charcoal are common, almost universal. Artifact beads do not show these effects as common. This strongly suggests we are doing something 'wrong'.

Our next prototype furnace is abandoning the profiles suggested by the artifact bases. Instead I have suggested a design based more on the dynamics of burning charcoal, gathered from experience working with charcoal forges. The concept is to contain the hot gasses to produce an effect more like a torch - then work inside that blast. (An earlier post describes this system.)

There will be a workshop this weekend at Wareham where a few of us will be working with a new prototype. Hopefully there will be a field report with some images later in the week describing the results...

'Two Hour Gate' ??

- at Quad State 2012

Friday Evening Demonstrator's Collaborative Project
The goal will be to produce a "Two Hour Gate" that incorporates a segment made by each Demonstrator exhibiting their individual style blended with that of each other demonstrator' rather than having each just fill a specific area.
The plan is for each Demonstrator to forge uninterrupted for about 1 1/2 hours, then allow about 1/2 hour for assembly.

Joe Bonifas - (overall co-ordination and assembly)

Christopher Thompson -  (upper frame element)

Susan Hutchinson - (central element)

David Robertson - (lower curves)

Jonathan Nedbor - (latch)

the finished gate, on display mount (the next day)

A couple of things:

Amazing!
So much in such a short time.
A large air hammer and small mechanical, three gas forges, three anvils.
The majority of the work was actually completed inside the required 1 1/2 hours.
Despite the tight quarters, everyone worked efficiently and co-opperatively.

I was extremely impressed by how the finished gate was so consistent in style and approach. It almost looks to be the work of a single hand.

Well done all!