About
Meet Murphy, a man, a husband, father of 7, teacher, coach, author..
L. Murphy Pottage: a MobileMills Trainer....
It was not my plan to do a lot of MobileMilling. It was not my plan to use a mill at an educational tool. We were living in a remote community on Vancouver Island’s far West Coast. In 1991I got my first mill, even then I thought how it could be a teaching tool. Each of our seven children helped out on the Mill.
By 2007 I had cut a million board feet ( 200 miles of 2×6 end to end, and 300 kilometers.)
In 2011 I began some consulting work to Fly-In First Nation communities in BC. I also began travelling to the Northwest Territories that year.
In following years Alberta, California and the Yukon received Hands-on Workshop Trainings too
My first virtual workshop was during Covid Lockdown.
I especially enjoy trainees cutting their very first board–I get them to sign it and then to make something out of it–because that’s what I would have wanted in retrospect.
Looking forward to creating some rewarding E-Learning courses (from what I learned the hard way.)
my journey in building a cabin...and discovering a Canadian Legacy!
I wanted to build a cabin years ago–but I wanted it to feature the sawmill, and I wanted to use local materials as much as I could– and buy very little. As I sawmiller I knew I could not pump out 2×6 on the scale that big mills do. Then the walls need insulation, and exterior siding, and interior paneling! A thick walled cabin did not need those things. Fort Langley, close to Vancouver, showed some history, and the style proved very promising. I saw how they build a piece-sur-piece style, then I had to figure out how to do it with todays technology. I often thought it would be neat to say,” there is the forest, here is your MobileMill, here is a pair of hinges for the door, and glass for the windows, a handful of fasteners–now sweat!”
...Murphy helps maintain an older mill
MobileMills Trainings are the direct benefit, but really the spin offs are huge! Economic Development progress using raw materials and learning manufacturing to produce innovative buildings to provide housing while learning Employability Skills!