Gable end complete

With the help of my "crane" the job went smoothly. Each log is pinned to the roof truss with two 10" GRK timber screws. A bit pricy at $2.50 each! Then I drilled two 7/8" holes down through each log for wooden pegs that will be driven in at final assembly time. Should make for a strong, secure gable end.

From the inside of the cabin this is how the gable will look. When the logs have been cleaned up and finished it will be impressive. The ends have been left long as they have to go to the top of the perlins and the be cut off to butt and match the roof boards on top of the perlins. I have painted the south ends of the logs so they don't get turned around when I take them down and rack them while I work on placing and notching the middle truss.

With the bottom chord of the middle truss removed I decided to paint the tenon ends of this truss orange so they stay as a set. The front truss will be painted red and the back truss will be brown. I also placed 2" GRK screws in the side of each truss member facing the rear of the cabin. More insurance to eliminate the chances of rotating or flipping any of the parts during the process of putting the truss together on the top of the cabin walls.

Here is the bottom chord notched and in place. Three 2x6 planks will be placed on top of the walls on this end of the cabin. Then I'll position the "crane" so that I can lift the rafter parts up and reassemble it. Then the assembled middle rafter will be rolled up to vertical and braced in place.

Then use the crane again to assemble and lift the back truss and gable end logs. Tie the two trusses together and move to work on cutting, fitting and raising the front truss. Having some serious fun now!

Gable end logs going up

Finally real cabin building weather has arrived. Ten degrees out with a nice 15-20 mile per hour breeze! Real crisp weather to begin work on the gable end logs today. Here you can see the first log that has been taken off the back wall and attached to the log truss rafter.

With the second log in position and spaced I could determine the amount that would have to be removed from the back side of it to to get the log centered over the first log.

A couple of inches chopped out did the job. Now the log is centered on the wall and the groove can be scribed and cut.

I have to do some cutting on the ends to match up with the perlins and will have to think about just how I will do that. Then there is the top to consider because the perlins are 3 inches higher than the top of the rafter. May have to pull a couple of perlins out of storage and size them up. I plan to drill holes down through the gable end logs and peg them. Then when the cabin is assembled on site I would drill a few holes through the gable logs up at an angle into the rafters to secure them in place.
Plenty to think about.

Cabin walls are up, now back to the roof

It has been a labor of love and the weather has been good! Glad to have gotten the logs on the wall before the snow came and made things more complicated. Now it is back to the roof and placing the trusses and gable end on the walls.

The roof trusses were built this spring on the cabin floor, removed and then stacked off to the side out of the way while the cabin walls were being cut. Now I will take the bottom chords of each truss to the top of the wall where it can be notched and fitted.

Since the bottom chords have been flatted I needed to come up with a way to raise them and came up with this set up. I had the yard arms left from when I raised the ridge log in truss building so I fastened them to my scaffolding and used my chain fall to do the work.

With a little bit of tweaking it did the job nicely.

Because the back gable end will be made of logs the back truss needs to be set in from the cabin log wall. The notch to fit the bottom chord to the wall was new for me but I think it will do the job.

The fit is good and now I can notch and groove the first gable end log and see how it matches up with the bottom chord truss log. I will then remove both logs from the wall. The truss will be assembled and braced up on the ground. The first gable end log will be put in place next to the bottom chord. Then the rest of the gable end logs can be placed, scribed and cut while at ground level.

Well at least that's the plan.