No wind, sun is out, temp above zero...pretty nice day but, might need gloves. Had breakfast with Alex (South Wayne bridge building student) a few days ago and brought him up to speed on the cabin building and what I was doing. When I told him I had some logs to straighten he looked puzzled and asked, "How do you do that?"
For their work as floor joists in the barn they needed only to be straight in one plane and the saw mill took care of that. However for use in a log cabin it is desirable to have them straight in two planes. For cabin building I think I would have left the log on the left in the timber.
I am sure there are many ways to get this job done. I start by snapping a chalk line down the "center mass" of the log. Then one one side, nail a straight 1x4 along this center line. The first cut to "straighten" up this log will be made to the right side on this end.
You can see the results above. The process was repeated on the other side and a slight hump was cut off in the middle area. You end up with a "straighter" log for the cabin wall. Looks like I will be taking just a bit off the far end of the second log on the right. And so it goes, straightening logs.
The walls have now gotten to a height where working from the ground is difficult. Some type of scaffolding was required. After some considerable thought and effort I came up with this idea.
Using materials that I had on hand I now have a catwalk around the cabin that I can stand on to layout and cut notches from. Nice!
The growing height of the walls presents another problem. With each log weighing in at over 200 pounds they are a hand full and it will only get worse as construction goes on. For now simple ramps and some c-clamps will do. Should be getting to the top of the door frames this week. May have to rig up a parbuckle. Better control and safer. May have to rig up a similar catwalk inside the walls also. We'll see how it goes.
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