Daily Life in China                  

Qing Restorers:

The Qing summer retreat buildings were mostly wood and have been mostly destroyed by fire either by natural fire or invasion.  Here are the boys who do the restoration work. Note the nice hunk of wood the big guy in the gray tee shirt is sitting on. Four re-sawn timbers glued together with - they claimed - fish glue.  The restoration buildings are on the Qing summer grounds but well off the beaten track so probably never get visitors.  The guys were shocked to see someone poke around let alone a foreigner.

They have a great stock of just about any timber size you could imagine. There were nice logs and timbers drying in stickered stacks.

Roof supports laid out for fit.

Not many large modern tools here. They did have a big bandsaw resaw and a 22" table saw.

Short octagional members for the underside of a roof.

A modern plunger router.

Large timbers are and hued.

A nice snap line decorated with a swan and turtle.  They claimed it was very old and worth 500 Yuan but I doubt it.  Not sure if it was ebony or not.  It seemed like some other hardwood, stained.

The restorers also do stone work.