Gratuitous Afghanistan Photo of the Day (58)
There sure aren't any Home Depots or Lowes in Charikar. If you want a board or a beam, however, drag some wood over to this fellow, and he'll make what you need. Seeing things like this always reminded me what a marvelous thing we have in our country's advanced economy. Every once in a while, when I am in a Menard's or a Super Target or such, a sense of wonder will come over me.
posted by LTC John at 8:15 AM
3 Comments:
Jeeez. Look at the massive handplane on the bench. If that's what I think it is, this guy's not in the 21st century; he's in the 19th. Still, those planes work nicely. He can make you a piece straighter than the warped crap you find at Home Depot. Old school.
Yes. And using that kind of hand plane, I've watched one of these fellows turn a 6X6 into a 2X4 and lots of currly wood chips. Doesn't take them that long either.
Don't be too sure it beats the crap from Home Depot.
When we bought local only about half of the lumber was even straight enough to use; all of it was green; none of it was the same size; and nothing was even close to square.
Oh, did I mention that shipping wood half way around the world is not only better it is about half the cost?
Don't even get me started on the plywood. I will just say this: sand for filler.
The Afghans don't have too many trees (not ones that are good for lumber anyway) and don't use wood very often. That's why we started using brick even though we weren't supposed to build permanent structures.
Let me say this, at Salerno we had what the Engineer Task Force belived to be the largest wooden structure in Afghanistan and it was built by ME (with a little help from a company of engineers).
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