Log Cabin Disassembly

The cabin building process in reverse has begun. It took three trips and about 15 hours but the cabin pieces are all racked at their new home and ready to be reassembled!

It got pretty late but we got the job done. Tom, the new owner has a nice spot by a spring on his hobby farm picked out for the cabin to sit on.

After removing the roof rafters and front porch it was time to use the jib crane to pick off the wall logs. Here Tom picks the first of many. Note: Taking down the jib crane and support bracing was a project in itself and required considerable planning and effort.

One down and 53 to go!

Keeping in mind that each half dovetail joint is unique and the cabin will only fit back together one way mixing up logs is not an option and must be avoided. I have found the use of playing cards cut in half to be the best way to accomplish this task. One suit for each corner. Simple but most effective.

Tom and Charlie made short work of the walls but we decided to make two trips, this was a good call. Tom was nervous about the load on the trailer and Charlie pointed out that the pile of logs on the trailer was getting pretty high which would soon require considerable effort to load the twelve remaining wall logs and 14 foot Oak 8x8 sill beams.

The last of it for awhile.

To keep myself busy until Tom gets ready to reassembly the cabin I decided to start making preparations on my EV conversion project. Over the next several months I will be transplanting the components of my 1980 Dodge Omni EV to a 2001 Dodge Caravan. The uni-body frame of the Omni rusted out and I got the Caravan for $200.

The Omni has been parked for the last two years and I started having trouble getting the 96 vdc battery charger to keep the pack charged up.

Whoa! Now I know why.

Bench complete

Bink's bench is complete and just in time for Thanksgiving. He was a good neighbor and good guy to visit with. He would have enjoyed overseeing the building of this project from his kitchen window using some of his home sawn oak from the farm.  R.I.P  Bink

So now it is on to the next project. Moving last winters cabin kit project built from the recycled barn timbers to the new owners land and reassembling it there. Should be fun.

Behind the curtain

Back of Bink's bench is coming along nicely, should have it done by Thanksgiving. Plenty of mortise and tenon work on this piece.

Got a good fit on the joints and softened the edges with a 1/4" round over bit in the shaper.
Now just have to mate the back to the bottom and this project is done.  Bink would have enjoyed watching my progress from his kitchen window across the street. And that brings me to another story about my neighbor.

I had been doing several chainsaw wood carvings one summer and on some of my many breaks I would wander over to Bink's for a visit and to see how he thought the carving was coming. The carvings would always start off pretty rough and were hard to identify. Bink had a good eye though and had studied many of my carvings "in process". He made some pretty good guesses on what the final carvings would be and we would enjoy talking and joking about it.

A week or so later I set up a new log for carving and began the process. This time I noticed Bink had opened up his living room curtains and it looked like he was going to change his point of view. I carved away for most of the morning making some major cuts but by no means to the point of where anyone could tell what the finished carving would be. After lunch Brink drove out to check the crops and I thought I would play a prank on him. I moved the carving out closer to the road and than put up a big blue tarp that I had around the carving. For the next four days I spent several hours on and off "carving". I would go inside and carve. Even after I finished the carving I continued to go inside the tarp with my saw and "carve away". I cut and re-cut the pieces. On many of my trips to the mystery carving I could see Bink in his window and gave him a big wave and hi. We had some fun talking about that carving later that summer.

Bink had one of those riding lawnmowers (Dixon ZTR) that you steered with two levers and required both hands to move. It was always fun to give Bink a big friendly high neighbor wave and see if he would let go to wave back causing the mower to go off course. No matter what he always smiled! I think he was on to me.