For me, it is a passion to work with such old tools. He removes parchment-thin layers of wood with his ax, which he says was hand forged in the traditional way to resemble what Notre Dame's carpenters would have used.ĮDOUARD CORTES: (Through interpreter) It leaves a magnificent mark on the beams, the same medieval mark found on the beams from Notre Dame. And part of redoing the roof as it was is keeping those skills alive.īEARDSLEY: He's using an ax, a little hatchet, to really make a smooth line.Įdouard Cortes is another carpenter here. HENRIKSON: But a lot of people involved with the historic monuments, historic buildings of France, are really enamored with the traditional way of doing it and want to preserve that. So they could have used faster modern techniques.
So the middle of the tree is in the middle of the timber.īEARDSLEY: Notre Dame's charpente, or roof frame, won't be seen by anyone, says Henrikson. PETER HENRIKSON: Taken from the round tree to a squared timber all by hand, all with axes - all these timbers are what's called boxed heart. He says these hand-hewn trusses are special. Peter Henrikson is a carpenter from Minnesota who heard about an opportunity to work on Notre Dame through the organization Carpenters Without Borders, a group reuniting those who share a love of traditional methods. The roof frame is dating from the medieval - the 12th century, and especially just the big volume of wood.īEARDSLEY: He says the nave and choir roof needs some 1,400 oak trees. JEAN-BAPTISTE BONHOURE: We've never done something like that before. Still, Notre Dame is special, says CEO Jean-Baptiste Bonhoure. But keeping the wood fibers the whole length of the beam gives it more resistance.īEARDSLEY: This company devotes itself to France's historical monuments, so its carpenters are used to working with traditional methods. And, yes, we could easily cut this log into two long planks. You got the wood in the nearby forest, like we're doing. JOSEPH CANUEL: (Through interpreter) We made roofs well before saws and sawmills existed, and this is how it worked. The oak trees are transformed into long, square beams by hand. It burned like a forest, too.īEARDSLEY: At this 250-year-old carpentry company in France's Loire Valley, they're busy reconstructing it, but you don't hear the whirring of electric saws. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley visited one of the many restoration projects, where experts are rushing to finish on time.ĮLEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: The wooden structure supporting Notre Dame's roof was so vast it was known as the forest. Notre Dame Cathedral is set to reopen by December of 2024, five years after the Paris landmark caught fire.
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