"The Very Efficient Carpenter" by Larry Haun

[kristingreen]

I wanted to share these videos with everyone.

They may not be your thing, exactly, as they deal with stick framing but I enjoyed them so much. I could watch this guy all day. The second video deals with framing walls and watching him work is like magic.

Watch how easily he drives nails. Watch how quickly he cuts a piece to length... sighting by eye! He often 'forgets' to use a tape measure... and measures against the work. He uses a hammer like an extension of his arm. I was fascinated by his workflow and how he marks the plates and lays out the walls. There are so many little tips and tricks in these videos!

It is a set of three 'tapes', digitized and uploaded to youtube. (You do remember VHS tapes, right?) This is the first one...

https://youtu.be/JnaDklxgnGo

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Larry Haun began his building career on the Nebraska prairie, where at 17 he helped to build his first house. In 1950, he began framing in Albuquerque, N.M., and in 1951, he joined his older brother in a Los Angeles building boom that brought about rapid change in tools, materials, and building methods. Later, seeing a need for passing on production-framing techniques, Haun began teaching two nights a week at a community college-and stayed there for 20 years. He retired to Coos Bay, Ore., where he built houses for Habitat for Humanity, wheelchair ramps for poor people, and backpacked in the High Sierras, the Rockies, and the Andes.

He is the author of "The Very Efficient Carpenter" (The Taunton Press, 1999) with "three companion videos" on how to frame a house, "Homebuilding Basics: Carpentry" (The Taunton Press, 1999), "Habitat For Humanity: How to Build a House" (The Taunton Press, 2002), and A Carpenter's Life as Told by Houses (The Taunton Press, 2011). Larry also kept a blog, A Carpenter's View, where he wrote until a couple of weeks before he died at the age of 80.

Read more: http://www.finehomebuilding.com/authors/larry-haun.aspx#ixzz3mqfSg2t7
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[MattJ]

Thanks for sharing. His skill was amazing!

[Brian_Weekley]

He sounds like the kind of guy it would have been nice to have lunch with one day...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/27/garden/larry-haun-the-carpenters-carpenter.html?_r=0

[kristingreen]

He sounds like the kind of guy it would have been nice to have lunch with one day...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/27/garden/larry-haun-the-carpenters-carpenter.html?_r=0

Wow! Thanks for sharing that article!

Clearly I'm not the only guy who thinks he was a genius...

Mr. Haun could drive nails in two licks, said Kevin Ireton, the former editor of Fine Homebuilding and Mr. Haun's first editor there. "One to set and one to sink. I never got a chance to work directly with him," Mr. Ireton said. "I know he would have shamed me and made me feel like I was totally incompetent. Not that he would have said anything. He would have expressed that with his extraordinary skill."

[47sawdust]

Larry Haun's book is excellent.He has many helpful tips to make carpenter's work a pleasure.I'm 68 and have been a carpenter for 44 years and I'm still at it and still learning.His book is one of favorites and he is also a very fine man.

[ChrisGermany]

Fine fella right there. And so easy to learn from. Taught me volumes about saving time with a stick framing project.

[classicadirondack]

Fun to watch him--man's a machine.  With the way things are now, OSHA would write him up for having tape on his hammer's handle, though.