Down in 4 hours, Up in 8 !

Well this went, well! Took Lynn's cabin down in 4 hours and loaded the logs on two trailers on Friday night. A good crew and a Bobcat with a boom mounted on the forks made short work of it.

 Took a lot longer to plan, cut and assemble the cabin but that's the way it is with most projects.

 9 am Saturday. Great weather and good day for cabin building. Here is the view that Lynn with have. First step was to lay down sill seal and the treated 2x6's that the logs will sit on. A layer of 1" styrofoam insulation will go down over the concrete and them a layer of 1/2" treated plywood for the sub-floor.

Here is Lynn putting some fiberglass insulation in the area where the half-dovetail surfaces will meet. This will insure a tight seam and eliminate drafts.

Lynn's dream cabin project is a family affair. Her daughter and sister were in charge of selecting and rigging the logs so husband, Steve could bring them to the cabin wall on the skid steer forks.

This process continued, round after round. By noon we had the window frames set and the first trailer unloaded.

As the height of the walls grew the boom was used to lift the logs up. This was trickier that it looks and required a bit of thinking and planning as each log had a specific inside and outside to it. If you look at the end of the log you can see the "playing card" system I used to ID each log end and it's specific round and corner placement on the cabin.

Son-in-law, Lucas and I worked on the walls setting and pinning logs to knit the walls together. You can see the 1 1/2" pin just to the right of the window, between the two top logs. This was done all the way around the cabin on the full length logs. Pounding in the Oak pegs for this was a challenge even when we greased the pegs. We also had to drill several holes in the logs as we went to allow for wires to be ran for electrical wiring that will go in later.

And here's the crew after a good day of hard teamwork completing phase 2 of the cabin project. A hundred  years ago this crew could have held its own with any family building a cabin to live in on the farmstead.

So, next up will be re-framing the roof and getting it ready for sheathing and shingles. Also I will go back to work inside installing the floor of the loft and cutting the stairs to it. Still plenty of serious fun  to be had before the family can move in for the winter and gather around a nice cozy wood stove fire!

Phase 1 of Log Cabin build compete

With this blog post phase 1 of the cabin build is complete and ready to be disassembled, moved and re-assembled. Now for the story as to how I got to this point.

After getting the walls to their finished height it was time to work on the pockets for the roof rafters. To get this just right I felt that a practice cut was in order. Here you can see the shape of the rafter tail end cut and receiving cut that was made into the top log. A nice feature of this cut is how it locks into the top log cut.

Cutting 18 of these was no small task but the design allows for you to line up the stop cuts in a straight line and equal distance from the ridge on the irregular surface of the log top.

 For a number of reasons I decided to raise the ridge with the hoist and block it up for a test fit of the rafter cuts to see if they were correct. And they were so I could proceed to build in the gable ends and frame in the windows.

With several rafters in key places the ridge was supported and I could take out the temporary supports so I could build in the gable end studs and frame the windows.

Because of the 36" lookout at the gable end I had to cantilever it. This required the first rafter to be dropped. You can see that I used a 2x4 for the first rafter. This worked out nicely as the main rafters were 2x8's

Getting the assembled "ladder" required a ladder to form an incline plane that would allow me to slide it up and screw it into place. When you are working by yourself you have to be a problem solver. Although I got the job done it was a lot of work so now that I know it works I'll just build the other three and not put them up. Just like I will cut all the rafters but not put them all up either.

Nice cantilevered gable end for a 36" over hang to protect the lower logs of the cabin.

And there we have it. Phase 1 of the cabin build process complete. All the log work done and the roof cut and framed. Now the ball is in the owners court when we will disassemble the cabin and transport it to the building site to be re-assembled. Then I will install the last and cut the stairs to it.

In the mean time I can get on to other projects (Manor fish tank memorial and KidWind Challenge training)  that have been started during the summer.