This blog follows the reconstruction of the Revolutionary War Public Armoury on the James Anderson site
Reconstruction of the Blacksmith's & Public Armoury
February 11, 2013
Revisiting the Kitchen Floor.
The kitchen’s clay floor soon after installation.
There is some activity in the Armoury kitchen this week that may attract viewer attention. The clay floor is being pulled up, and a new clay floor is being applied. In this blog post Matt Webster explains the process, why we’ve had to undertake this step, and what we’re learning about 18th-century construction methods.
The Armoury is one of those unique projects that you wait and hope for; it combines research, traditional materials, and construction techniques all in an effort to reconstruct a historically accurate site. It is an opportunity to apply years of research and see how these buildings come together, and how the materials function. Sometimes it works perfectly, but sometimes we have more to learn and need to adjust our approach. The Armoury kitchen floor is such a case.
As discussed in an earlier blog post (“Installing the Kitchen Floor or ‘How Do We Know?’” -March 31st 2011), portions of the Armoury kitchen floor were uncovered by archaeologists in 2010, allowing architectural historians to take and analyze samples. From this we learned that t the mixture for the floor was 4 parts clay, 2 parts sand, ¾ parts quick lime, and 1/10 part brick dust. What we do not know is how the material was applied or if there was an additional finish application to the surface. There simply was not enough evidence to help us answer these questions.
Now, two years after the floor was placed, we have seen how it has worn which has helped answer some of our questions. When we first installed the clay floor, it was done in several sections. This allowed us to make smaller batches of material and made finishing the surface easier. Observing the wear on the floor, the junctions between the sections have deteriorated quickly. The floor is deteriorating much faster in these areas, indicating that when the original floor was placed (sometime around 1760), it was done in one large application. The large batch of material was dumped onto the floor and troweled as one uniform surface, not several independent sections. We will be removing approximately three to four inches of the current floor and replace it using this technique.
The second problem we have seen is the floors inability to withstand hundreds of shuffling feet. Granted, one year of visitation likely equals the amount of traffic the original floor saw in its entire lifetime, but we still need to solve the problem. The floor samples collected by archaeologists are likely not the finished surface, but close to the bottom of the original floor, so we would not see evidence of a finish. It is also unlikely that traces of any finish materials would have survived even if we had the upper layers. Period recipes list primarily organic materials such as egg whites, blood, and linseed oil applications for finishing floors. All of these materials would have deteriorated and any trace would have been lost long ago, even if the upper layers had survived. We have decided to apply linseed oil as our finish surface, and are currently testing a panel to see how it will work.
It is simple to look at the written recipe or the results of the analysis and say we know how a period appropriate floor was made. It is not until we actually try to replicate the process that we truly understand how it was done. That is what makes this process so fascinating and a learning experience for all of us.
Contributed by Matt Webster, Director of Historic Architectural Resources
Update: February 25, 2013
Jason, Josh, and Kenneth are making rapid progress on the kitchen floor. The old floor has been removed, new clay has been added, leveled, and smoothed, and soon it will be sealed with linseed oil finish. What follows is a long period of drying…not the stuff of exciting webcam coverage. The images below should help you to visualize the progress so far.
Kenneth and Josh applying clay to the floor.
Josh smoothing the clay.
The new surface.
Funded by a generous gift from Forrest E. Mars Jr., of Big Horn, Wyoming.
iCitizenForum
Christine Hansley says:
Hi Floor Crew,
Good luck with this ever learning project. A few questions. If you only take out 3 to 4 inches, that I assume is only a partial removal of the “new” floor, will the “new #2″ floor crack at those section breaks in the future? Also, how long will this project take? How long for the new floor to cure, before it can be walked on?
As you learn, we learn. Thanks for all the good information.
Again, good luck,
Chris
Meredith Poole says:
Matt posts the following:
“Chris, Good questions. We will wet the area below the new floor so it will not cause cracking. The joints that we had problems with were vertical and weak because we were not getting good bonding between the sections and they dried too quickly. We should not have the same problem with the horizontal joint. We anticipate the floor taking approximately one month before it can be walked on. It will take one day to dig out the floor, one day to place the new material, and the rest of the time is drying, with a few days used to apply the linseed oil at the end.
Hope this answers your question.”
storrey long says:
Prior to pouring the new floor and in addtition to wetting the lower level, will you score or etch to create a good bond with the new section?
Meredith Poole says:
Hi Storrey. Matt passes along the following in response to your question:
The bond with the the lower layer is not so important in this type of application. Instead of thinking of the mixture functioning like plaster where the material is hanging, think of it more as a concrete floor. The primary force we will be dealing with is compression. The reason we want to wet the lower layer is so it does not pull moisture out of the upper layer causing it to cure too quickly and crack. This is where the bonding will be impacted the most.
Thanks for the question.
Christine Hansley says:
Hi Meredith and Matt,
Thanks as always for the sharing of great information.
Chris
Christine Hansley says:
Hi Meredith,
Any chance of the roving cam being moved to watch the new floor installation? Or a video to see in a week or so after?
Have a godd day,
Chris
Meredith Poole says:
Chris~
Let me investigate and see what I can do…
Kerry says:
Garland
I have a few questions about framing.
How to you keep the siding from spliting when using using
the tapered nails?
Most studs look About 24″ on center. Was that standard in the 18th century? Now studs are 16″. Do you know about when that changed? Last, were the sills fastened down to the brick or just the weight of the building enough? I have some questions about wood flooring but I will wait.The progress is looking real good. Thanks
Garland Wood says:
Kerry – We bore a hole with a brace and bit for every nail that we use. In the case of siding, we have to bore through the board we are installing and the one underneath, so we essentially bore every nail hole in place.
As for stud placement, there was no standard in the colonial period but it was common to frame on two-foot centers. In the north storehouse frame we tightened the studs up for security, placing them on one-foot centers. I confess I do not know when 16″ on center became the norm…
As for the sills, we do attach them to the masonry as a matter of complying with the building code, but that is a very modern idea. Early Virginia buildings were not attached but merely rested upon the footings.
Christine Hansley says:
Hi Armoury Crew,
The Tinshop is looking good.
Why are there no windows on, what I think is, the West side of the building? Just a door. I would think having a direct light source for late afternoon would be an advantage? Especially during late Spring and Summer. The tinsmith could work by day light longer.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge,
Chris
Meredith Poole says:
Hi Chris,
It’s sometimes hard to tell which side is up on the Roving Webcam….there are two big windows on the west side of the Armoury, as well as two small windows on either side of the chimney on the south side. It’s the north side that has only a door.
While (as you say) it would make sense for any sort of craftsman to want extra light in the shop, we have to remember that this tinshop was not built (in the 18th century) as a tinshop. It was likely built as a small tenement, and pressed into service as a tinshop during the Revolution.
Christine Hansley says:
Hi Meredith,
Thanks for the “directional shift” to my thinking. I keep forgetting the property layout. Will the interior of the tinshop be painted or whitewashed white like the Armoury for more light reflection?
Have a good day,
Chris
Meredith Poole says:
Chris~
Yes, there will be whitewash inside the tinsmith shop to amplify the available light…although on a gray day like this one, one wonders how much help that will be!
Christine Hansley says:
Hi Meredith,
Thanks for your response and the photos in the Kitchen floor update.
Have a good week,
Chris
Dave Montana says:
Hi, It appears on the webcam that both the Kitchen and Tinshop are placed very close to the Armoury Building. How are they even able to install the siding and soffits? It looks like there’s barely enough room for a person to squeeze in there.
Kenneth Schwarz says:
Dave- It is a tight squeeze, but the close proximity of these three buildings is a product of historical and archaeological research. Historically, we have used what we refer to as “The Frenchman’s Map”, a map made by a French military cartographer in about 1782. Probably drawn as a billeting map for soldiers, it identifies many (but not all) of the buildings existing in Williamsburg at that point in history. The Kitchen, Armoury, and Tinsmith Shop are all illustrated in close quarters. Archaeological investigation uncovered fragments of original foundations which allow us to determine size and shape of missing structures- as well as their proximity. We know that the spacing was tight, with about twenty four inches separating one structure from another. As you may read in past blog entries, originally the kitchen and what was to become the tinsmith shop existed before the Armoury was built, so at least one slightly-built carpenter had to be employed to nail siding onto the Armoury.
Dave Montana says:
Kenneth, thank you for the reply!
Christine Hansley says:
Hi Meredith,
How is the kitchen floor coming along? With your temperatures only being in the 40s most of the time, how long will the floor take to dry? Matt indicated about a month ago, that one month might do. I would think with cooler temps it would take longer?
It’s 30 in Chicago with 6 to 10 inches of snow expected before it’s over. Northern VA is suppsed get some of this. I hope your weather holds for all of the workers doing outside projects like the Tinshop and Wesley in the garden and the Courthouse roofing crew.
Have a good week,
Chris