The Eichelberger Distillery at Dills Tavern looks like a PennDOT salt shed right now, but it will look much better soon. The building has to be constructed according to the International Building Code. This means that we have to essentially build a modern structure and then add all the 18th century details to it. The stonework is already underway in the back of the distillery. The stone masons are doing a wonderful job. It will take them a while to get the whole building covered. 

The next early feature that will appear soon, is the wood shingle roof. The lath has already been installed by the carpenters on the rafters. The lath is evenly spaced to allow the cedar shingles to be nailed to them. Traditionally, wood shingles were fastened to lath so that when the shingles got soaking wet, they could dry out from the inside and the outside. This extended the life of the shingles.

People often think that wood shingles were rough split and put right on the roof. Actually, early tradesmen put each shingle in a shaving horse and used a drawknife to smooth both sides of the shingle and taper them. It was a tremendous amount of work to do this. Often older men would be employed to shave shingles, as it was easy but tedious labor. The closest we can come to having a period looking roof today, is to use nicely sawn shingles. That is what we will use on the distillery.

The wood shingle installation should begin very soon. The dormer will have standing seam metal on it. The masons will continue to veneer the building with stone and the heavy wood widow and door frames will get installed as the stone goes up. It will shortly begin to look a lot more like an 18th century distillery. All good things take time.