Glenn's Underground Cabin Update

[glenn kangiser]

Looking through my pictures, I noticed something that is worth mentioning.  It was showed to me by my buddy Al who found the used sawmill for me.

If you take the first cut or few cuts off the top of the log down to where it is a bit wider, then rotate it 90 degrees, putting the cut edge vertical on one side,  with each cut you make after the first (cap is taken off), your boards will be clean on 3 sides, leaving only one edge to trim.



4 clean sides requires 2 more 90 degree rotations.  

The boards are easy to put back on the mill after done and trim the wavy edge to the desired depth and even resaw to smaller widths getting two or more boards per wide board.  You can do them in multiples to the width of the carriage.  That would be useful for making lots of battens off of multiple boards giving you several per pass of the saw.

[rick91351]

Glenn you are starting get dangerous.  You are starting to think like a real sawyer.  By doing that you are now using your mill as an edger. 

Interesting note if you know some arts and crafts type wood workers some times they are interested in taking some of the left overs off your hands now and then.  Those you can not make another bat out of.  They sticker them, dry them, debark them and get them matched up very well.  I have seen them used as trim in several high end homes and cabins. 

rlr         

[glenn kangiser]

I use a lot of them myself.  I use the caps for trim that looks like logs or even to make a door out of, as my front door and a few others are made out of.  Sometimes I use the trimmings for window trim and the rough edge boards for book cases etc.

Here are some of Sassy's shelves using edges for trim.



Front door, for those who haven't read all of my previous drivel...

[glenn kangiser]

Ever have a chunk of firewood that is just too cool to throw into the wood pile? hmm

I was out cutting firewood the other day and found just that.  I wasn't sure what it was going to be.  Just that it was not going to be firewood.

I was thinking bench first then looking at it, it looked more like table.  One of those solid tables for get togethers and a place for extra people to set their stuff on while sitting around the fireplace.

Note the fine craftsmanship as the gently honed chainsaw teeth smoothly rounded the edges of the slab to keep the little wife from ripping her kneecaps off as she is walking by.  

Observe the skill demonstrated as the 3/4 x 3" lag screws were ran into the pre-drilled 5/8" holes in the oak trunk with the powerful Makita 325 foot lb. cordless impact wrench. I only used 3" because the Oak was too hard to get the 3/4" x 6" lags into even with the 5/8 pilot hole.

The table top is 1 1/2 inch thick Ponderosa Pine 24" x 48" full tree width slab - wavy edge both sides.



Total project time.... about 45 minutes.  I just love fine woodworking....

[ben2go]

And people pay many thousands to have that type of rustic furniture in their $10million cabins in the Catskills. What am I missing?,well besides the income.

[glenn kangiser]

Funny - I just heard of a similar table that was listed for over $6000. 

I think the only thing we are missing is a list of clients with more money than brains...

[ben2go]

Glenn,I completely agree.What we call practical some other call it art.So I guess that makes you an artist.

I saw a head board for a full size bed sell for $10,000.It was made from the trunks of debarked sweet gum trees.It was one of those with the fan pattern.

[glenn kangiser]

I had a few of the lag bolts left over from my last job and they just seemed to go just smashingly with my rustic industrial motif. 

I found they were beefy enough to do the job too.... wait a minute... why am I talking like that? ... I don't have a lisp...


... I know....... it's off to sensitivity training for me....  

[Redoverfarm]

Cool Glenn.  It sort of fits the setting.  Maybe you are in the wrong buisness.  Work from home.  Not a bad idea.

[glenn kangiser]

Thanks, John. 

I have thought of that a time or two but have never really tried pushing the wood business.  Still doing steel building, but maybe its time to try a bit of a wood sideline.  Shucks - I could reduce the price to $4500 and come out well.... or even $45.00

Funny though... sometimes you lower the price to reasonable and it just won't sell.   

[poppy]

Art is in the eye of the holder.  I like the table Glenn. 

[glenn kangiser]

Thanks, Poppy.

After working on the Industrial scheme apartments for the past year, I got to thinking that the large lags could well match my steel sheeting and armored electric cable.  Why do we hide fasteners and pain ourselves with perfection on things anyway?

Possibly it is for the wife, so that there won't be a chance of us walking in and dropping a '63 Chevy block on the table and doing an overhaul?  

[MountainDon]

I like the table!

I wonder what would have been produced had the same wooden materials been handed around to others here?  I can imagine PEG would have taken a little longer than you to produce his finished product.


Could be the basis for a contest. Take a pile of odds and ends and have others see what they can make. Ya could even include that 63 Chevy block. Inline 4 or 6 or V8?

[poppy]

Glenn

Why do we hide fasteners and pain ourselves with perfection on things anyway?

That's a good question.  I have some future plans for a wooden structure and have been trying to figure how to hide the bolts, but maybe I don't need to. 

[glenn kangiser]

Do you think you could figure out a way to feature the bolts, Poppy?  I think it's all in how you want to look at it.  Sometimes we make the game too difficult for ourselves for little reason.  If you cut the requirements back to simple functionality things get easier.  

I leave all of the screw heads exposed in my rustic cabinets, much less time consuming and if put it reasonably straight they look decent.  I just set the drill clutch to pull the heads down into the soft wood.

I read of an architect who had some personal deformities - I don't remember what it was exactlyor who he was , but it was his view that the things his projects were made of - the way they were held together etc, were not in need of hiding.  Nothing to be ashamed of.  That makes things easier.  Also, My son who is quite an artist made a bay window installation and bench for us, of wood, with all black headed screws well aligned but fully exposed.  It looks great in my opinion.

Fancy works of craftsmanship take more time and therefore are more expensive in time or money, but nothing wrong with that if that is what you want or like.

Don, PEG is in a different class than me and his creations are more like precision works of art for the people who could not live with rustic.  I know his use of the same materials would result in much higher class piece of furniture.

On the table above, I did take time to lay out the lag screws so they would be in line parallel with the back legs, and offset the table to match the layout of the branch/legs - not too much sticking over one end etc.

[Redoverfarm]

Glenn I think that time is the biggest drawback to finishing work.  In some settings exposed fastners look good and not in others.  I usually try to hide the fastners if at all possible to make the wood appear more natural.  Hey all the bolts in my tractor are exposed so you know I not against it.

[glenn kangiser]

I thought about hiding the fasteners, John, but then again I also suggested to Sassy that I just bolt some type of giant antique machinery right in there with the bolts.  Corn planter or somethin like that.

[Redoverfarm]

That would be cool Glenn. You should have thought of that before but instead of it on the top of the table use the planter for legs and the wood plank for the top.  I recently saw someone making coffee tables out of the old wood stove bases.  Like the parlor stoves with the flared legs and a nice finsihed wooden top.  Pretty sharp when it was finished.  My uncle has been collecting the old treadle sewing machine bases.  You can pick up some at auctions for a song.  He has made several small tables and using the cast iron bases as the legs.

[glenn kangiser]

Careful there, John. 

You may cause me to cut the front end off of a '58 Ford to make a couch or something.  Come to think of it, I once knew where there was one ... but wait a minute... that one had a big crease from a jack handle on the hood...

[glenn kangiser]

Glenn I think that time is the biggest drawback to finishing work.  In some settings exposed fastners look good and not in others.  I usually try to hide the fastners if at all possible to make the wood appear more natural.  Hey all the bolts in my tractor are exposed so you know I not against it.

I was thinking about this a bit John.  If I didn't use those gigantic lags in that table, how would I ever use up some of my unnatural resources? 

[poppy]

Glenn

Do you think you could figure out a way to feature the bolts, Poppy?

That's a good question.  In attempting to construct a traditional looking timber frame with wooden pegs and all, I originally didn't want any structural element to show metal fasteners.

I have some time to coggetate on the matter, since the black walnut for the project is air drying in the barn and construction may not start for a couple of years. 

BTW, not to hijack, but what would you make out of this 3' x 6' hunk of white oak?

[steveastrouk]

BTW, not to hijack, but what would you make out of this 3' x 6' hunk of white oak?

Screams "carved bench" to me.
Steve

[ben2go]

Depending on diameter,I think quite a few small rustic table tops.Slice them every two inches and use thin logs and branches to make the pedestal and feet.Also make good tops for night stands and telephone tables,but who uses a house phone any more?  me

[glenn kangiser]

Glenn

Do you think you could figure out a way to feature the bolts, Poppy?

That's a good question.  In attempting to construct a traditional looking timber frame with wooden pegs and all, I originally didn't want any structural element to show metal fasteners.

I have some time to coggetate on the matter, since the black walnut for the project is air drying in the barn and construction may not start for a couple of years. 

BTW, not to hijack, but what would you make out of this 3' x 6' hunk of white oak?

Looks like it could make a decent table if slabbed or smooth one edge of the slab and it could be a built-in wall desk top.

[glenn kangiser]

Hi Steve. 

That could be cool.  Looking at it in the pix it looks like if stood on the end cut with the hollow end in the air it might make a mighty fine throne also....