I wish I had found this place four years ago when I started this project...
As it is, I got an acre of land in western Washington, near Puget Sound, and then bought a load of western white pine logs so I could build a cabin. Used inspiration from James Mitchell's book "The Craft of Modular Post and Beam"
If anyone is interested, I can go back to the beginning and describe the process. Here is what it looks like this week. Got the roof finished three days ago.
Looking from the northeast
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Cabin_From_NE.jpg)
Here is a view from the southwest
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Cabin_From_SW.jpg)
The cabin is 14x14 feet and the covered deck is 16x16. The deck uses lots of store-bought dimension lumber, but the bulk of the cabin is from wood that started out as these logs...
(http://home.wavecable.com/~spholmen/Cabin/LogTruck.jpg)
In the winter of 2006 these logs got debarked by my wife and I, cut into shorter lengths, and then a friend with a Woodmizer portable saw mill sawed the sides off to make 8"x8" posts, 6" thick wall timbers, and lots of 1"x? lumber in late June 2006.
That process looked like this...
(http://home.wavecable.com/~spholmen/Cabin/FiveLogsToGo.jpg)
Let me know if you want more details... Lots more pictures and stories if you want them.
I for one would love to see more of the construction process. Looks great.
The place looks great! w*
I would really like to see some more pics, I have 14 x 24 post and beam in mind but I am still in the planing stage.
Marty
Pine Cone sounds like we both are on about the same timeline. Nice looking retreat. It is a retreat rather than a full time residence isn't it. I had a couple questions. What manner of attachment did you use for the wall members meeting the post? What procedure did you use to secure and insulate what it is considered the "chink joint" between the logs. Anyway
w*
A big w* also goes out to MartyM and robinl
"well kiss me in the morning, and then just walk away!" Of course we want more details!! [cool]
Pine Cone, w* to the forum.
Realy cool cabin and porch. Very unusual cabin design. Would also love to see more photos and details of the construction process both on the cabin and the porch.
I started my 4th year of the cabin dream at the end of Sept. and have several more years to go, so you are way ahead of my schedule. :D
Hey Welcome!
I like the layout of your project, I bet it offers some great evenings out there on the deck. The logs you used look very good, I can sure tell they are from more over on the coast both in verity and uniformity. Your sawyer friend with his mill did you a great job, there was not much wasted there in your slab pile. Interesting to me I see a couple old stumps most likely cedar or those big coastal fir on the left hand side of the picture where you had the mill and car topper set up. Looks like they are sawed off very high like they use to do it up there in that region. I for one would love to see your 'brag book' of photos. I am sure you will be able to offer others some great guidance, and learn a few things yourself as you poke around here.
c* rlr
What a great cabin!!! w* Everyone else has said it, of course we'd love more photos and more story whenever you can add. That's a wonderful porch too! Nice on rainy days I bet.
w*
I also would like to see more. Cool.
Thanks for the welcomes and the nice comments. This project started almost by accident when we stumbled on some affordable property not to far from our house. I work as a forester, and the area we bought in was once owned by the company I work for, and is about a 45 minute drive from our house. It is just south of about 40,000 acres which is still managed by the company I work for, so it was a pretty natural thought to consider using logs to build a cabin. While this is Douglas-fir country, there is a fair amount of western red cedar and western white pine mixed in. There is also western hemlock, red alder, and big-leaf maple, but those didn't seem like good cabin logs.
The cedar would make a great cabin, but at the time it was selling at about $1000-1200 per thousand board feet as logs on a landing. Doug-fir was going for about $500 per thousand for good quality cabin logs, and the pine, a minor species around here, was about $300 per thousand. Since lots of people have used white pine to build cabins, it seemed to be the best choice. I looked at the timber sales my company was doing that year and found one about 5 miles from the property we bought which had reasonable amounts of white pine on it. I ended up buying a log truck load of pine and getting it delivered to the property with the help of one of our loggers.
Sad to say, that logger and his wife were both murdered by a crack-head earlier this year. Rural America is not the place it once was...
My wonderful wife Heather not only tolerated the idea of build a cabin, she has been actively involved since the beginning! She has helped debark logs, cut down small trees, dug holes for foundation piers, helped with concrete work, planed and sanded cabin timbers, painted, and was my head cheerleader. Couldn't have done in without her help.
The property came with an old 50s/60s travel trailer and electricity which made the building process much easier. We always had a place to get out of the rain and electricity for tools and lights.
From the looks of the old high cedar stumps, the area was probably first logged between 1880 and 1920. The second logging occured between 1950 and 1965 when the timber company sold off lots to people. The previous owner logged it again between 1995 and 2000. We bought the property in October 2005. At that time about half the property was covered in 1/2 to 2" diameter alder which was about 20 feet tall, spaced about 6" to 12" apart.
We considered building a house on the property, but decided to just build a retreat cabin, large enought to be comfortable in, but small enought to build in what we thought would be a short amount of time.
Got lots of books to help us with design ideas, but ended up using the ideas in this one the most.
http://www.amazon.com/Craft-Modular-Post-Beam-affordably/dp/0881791318/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1259978411&sr=8-1 (http://www.amazon.com/Craft-Modular-Post-Beam-affordably/dp/0881791318/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1259978411&sr=8-1)
The concept is to build modular log walls, and then assemble them in a post-and-beam framework. The log walls use 3/4" thick, 3" wide plywood splines to attach them to the posts. The modules are built on a jig, and are then either stored somewhere until it is time to build or are then re-build on the foundation.
Here is a picture of the first two wall modules on their jigs. One module is about 43.75" wide and is for corners, while the other is 51" wide
(http://www.banjohangout.ws/banjohangout.org/storage/photos/large/34428-1361232772009.jpg)
Really cool! That book is a favorite of mine...
Here's a collage of what the place looked like in the early days of the project
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/FirstImpressionsTxt.jpg)
Here's a look at the inside taken earlier this week
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Inside_South_Wall.jpg)
The basic walls are 6" thick western white pine, scribe-cut on the bottom edge, with emseal log tape and wool insulation in the groove. Posts are 8"x8", also pine,
The cap beam at the top of the walls is store-bought Douglas-fir, and the top of this beam is 100" off the floor.
The bench is made from white pine scraps from the log milling and alder we cut down during the clearing process.
The space at the top of the timbers and below the cap beam is left for possible wood shrinkage making the timber portions of the walls shorter. It still needs to be sealed, insulated, and covered with trim on both the inside and outside faces.
Every building project has to start somewhere, and this one started with a picnic table. The stakes with pink flagging indicate possible cabin corner locations. To see how I liked the site, I would set up the picnic table "inside" the possible cabin location and see how I liked it over a week or two period.
The final cabin site ended up in the background of this photo, about 30 feet north of where the picnic table is in this picture. Choosing the building site is worth a bit of effort...
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/PicnicTable.jpg)
At this point I though I was building a dogtrot, with two small cabins connected by a breezeway...
But that's not what happened ;)
Pine Cone what changed you mind on the Dogtrot?
I began the cabin project thinking I would build a single cabin, maybe 16x24 feet with a large porch on one or more sides.
As I investigated more, I discovered that in this county, like many others in Washington, you can build simple structures which are less than 200 square feet in size without needing to get a building permit. The actual regulations are more complex than that, but that is the basic idea. I also discovered that residence has a place to sleep, a place to cook, and a toilet all under one roof.
To build a residence on this piece of property I would be required to have a well (likely to be 300-500 feet deep) and a fancy above-ground septic system. I just didn't have the $$$ to do that.
I have worked as a forester since the mid 1970s and have lived in places that had specialized structures with limited functions, a cookhouse for cooking and eating, a bathhouse for showers and clothes washing, and a smaller structure (cabin or tent frame) to sleep in. Not much of a stretch to think I could do that again.
I ran across the dog-trot concept on a visit to Georgia in the mid 1990's and had tucked the idea back in some recess of my mind. (Redoverfarm - I am in awe of your great project. Still reading your posts... 7 pages finished so far...) When I started thinking cabin(s) a dog trot seemed like a good bet. One side would be sleeping quarters while the other would be for cooking and eating. I was already planing to build an outhouse to house an Envirolet/Sancor composting toilet. More on that later... ;)
One of the other house ideas which caught my fancy long ago was the Australian outback farmhouse with a 10-12 foot wide deck on all four sides of the home. The one I remember best was Banoon, a house on a farm in New South Wales just beyond the Black Stump (really).
For any of this to make sense, you need to know more about my Washington property. The parcel is a rectangle with the long side oriented east-west for about 265 feet and the short side running north-south for about 165 feet. The best cabin sites were about half-way down on the east-west line. There is a slope break there, with about a 3 percent slope on the east side and about a 8 percent slope to the west. The best views are to the west since the property slopes that direction and the ocean is about a quarter mile away in that direction. In the winter months there is a filtered view of the ocean and the Olympic mountains to the west.
So I wanted a dog trot and I wanted a large porch. To keep on grade and minimize earthwork, a dog trot would have to be oriented with one cabin south of the other, roof ridgeline running north/south, and the roof sloping towards the west.
Did I mention wet snow or snow and then lots of rain? Not at all uncommon in this part of the world. Heavy stuff. It has crushed 4 metal framed tarp car shelters so far... I decided to roof with a 6-in-12 pitch to make the snow slide off rather than crushing things.
When I started to make detailed design drawing it became clear to me that the roof line associated with a dog trot and a large porch overhang would not work well. To keep the view I wanted to the west would end up with a roofline that would have to flatten out over the porch area, and that would trap snow.
So I switched gears, and decided to rotate the cabin roof to run east-west and then add a larger covered deck to the west of the cabin. I always wanted a large outside space which would stay dry. So I ended up with a 16'x16' covered deck in front of (west of) the cabin. This had an added advantage because it gave me a large dry, flat building area. Since it does rain a bit around here that was a huge plus.
Here is a picture of the covered deck (in progress) and the cabin foundation
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Deck_Under_Construction.jpg)
The deck roof is made of three timberframe bents made with a mix of mortise and tenon joints, bolts, and inset recesses in the 6x6 posts to hold smaller 2x pieces.
Here's a look at a stack of knee braces ready to be used to build the deck timberframe.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/KneeBraces.jpg)
Test fitting a 4x4 knee brace in one of the 6x6 posts.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/KneeBraceInAction.jpg)
Test fitting one of the deck timberframe bents before drilling for bolts.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Test_Layout_2.jpg)
I so want to thank you for sharing your building with us, it is very fascinating to say the least. Of all the different projects I have looked at and read in this forum, this may be the most pleasurable I have seen so far. Please continue for I'm sure we're all enjoying your project, thanks. [cool]
Pine Cone thanks for your reply. It sounds as if you gave your project considerable thought before persuing. You did great work on the cabin and porch addition.
Thanks for the comments about my cabin. Although it is not exactly a dogtrot by the original definition it is as close as I could get with the layout that I was after. To incorporate the "dogtrot" signature I would have had to seperate and relocate the fireplaces (Now I have one chase for all three liners to exhaust) to their respective cabins which would have devistated the usable space in each and the bump out would not have worked at that intersection of the dogtrot. My original conception was a "traditional dogtrot" which would have utilized two large doors on the front and rear intersections of the cabins which could be closed in the winter months back against the cabins sides in the summer months. Incorporated within them would be a smaller entry door. This would have been an outswing which when the larger doors were open in the summer months against the individual cabins it would have matched the doors on the sides of the individual cabin entry doors to allow access to each cabin. Seems there is only two ways to operate the doors either swing or slide and the sliding door would definitely not work. So in essence in the summer months it would appear as a traditional dogtrot and the winter would be similar in appearence as I have. Oh well it is still designed in my mind which will have to do. Still an interesting concept.
BTW the timber industry is pretty stong in this area. In fact in 1994 the local high school FFA forestry team won 1st place in the nation competition. My son is currently enrolled in the same class so hopefully he will learn some things I never knew about the industry.
Here's some pictures of a small outhouse/shed that I build in 2007. It is 4'x8', build on PT skids, and houses an Sancor Envirolet composting toilet on one side, and a small storage shed on the other. I think the split is roughly 4x5 feet for the toilet side and 4x3 feet for the shed. Used glass block to build windows near the top of the wall.
The siding is rough-cut western white pine milled while making posts and cabin timbers in June 2006. Note the rain-water collection into 55 gallon drums. My wife and I like to garden and this helps give us plenty of water for gardening as well as small amounts of concrete work. The old outhouse is on the right. It will get torn down sometime next summer after I build a storage shed. The cedar shakes on the old outhouse were split from wood on the property by the previous owner. They are in pretty good shape, but the roof has leaked for years and so there is rot in some of the framing and floors.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/ToiletShed2.jpg)
Here is what the toilet side looks like. Note the first aid kit on the door. Luckily I haven't needed it too much ;D
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/ToiletView_2.jpg)
This is what the shed area before I added shelves.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Outhouse3.jpg)
The property came with an old trailer with a shed roof over it built from 3-5" diameter poles cut off the property about 30 years ago by the previous owner. I had to re-roof it, but that was all it really needed. The old outhouse/shed would have taken too much effort to rework, so I decided to build a new one that would house a composting toilet.
Once again I went back to my forestry field experience for building inspiration. The board and batten exterior reminds me of an old shack I saw out near Hyampom in1971, while the plywood interior must have been on at least half a dozen buildings I have lived or worked in. Most of those didn't have any finish on them, but it seems prudent to varnish the inside walls on this one.
Decided to use plywood for the basic construction, the 4x8 size is from the sheet of 3/4" pressure treated ply that makes up the floor. Lots of termites and carpenter ants around here so I'm using PT wood near the ground on all of my projects. I'm also putting down rock on the foundation areas so I have a clean surface to crawl around on as well as an easy way to see termite tubes and other pest problems. Used 3/4" clean basalt under the shed and 2" drain rock under the deck and cabin.
Red - glad to hear that timber is going strong in your area. Hope your son is enjoying his forestry class. I got my first forestry experiences in the Boy Scouts at Conservation Training Camp at Philmont Scout Ranch
in 1967. FFA is a great group as well. One of my step-sons was a member when we lived in the Redding area of North California, but this part of Washington is too urban to support the FFA locally.
Is that Envirolet toilet hooked to electricity?
Yup! It is their hybrid model, has a fan that runs all the time on 12 volt DC, and has the option of running a heater (for the compost to keep it warm and dry it out if needed) that can run on 120 volt AC.
http://www.envirolet.com/hybrid12v110v.html (http://www.envirolet.com/hybrid12v110v.html)
We've been running it for about 2 years now and it works very well.
Here are a few of the design plans I drew up... final as-built versions are slightly different of course ::)
The basic floor/foundation plans
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Visio-Cabin_14x14_16x16_Deck.png)
Deck wall timberframe design, one of 3 bents
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Visio-Deck_Cabin_West_Side.png)
Deck wall side view (3 bents bolted together)
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Visio-Deck_South_Side_View.png)
Deck built-in bench design
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Visio-Deck_Bench_w_Back.png)
The bench design is a modification of the Gettysburg bench from this article
http://www.emmitsburg.net/gardens/articles/adams/2005/garden_bench.htm (http://www.emmitsburg.net/gardens/articles/adams/2005/garden_bench.htm)
The benches are very comfortable. I'm likely to build some similar to the original design for putting around a campfire area.
I understand from reading other posts that folks like pictures of dirt and trees, so here are a few of mine.
Cleared and leveled the foundation area by hand, then had a couple of 3' + diameter cedar stumps to grind, then we dug some holes for piers... Here's a picture from May 2008
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Ready_to_pour.jpg)
Picked up a used electric Kushan mixer for the concrete. Worked very well. They call it a wheelbarrow type, nice big tires on the wheels, mix and then dump directly in hole.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Cement_Mixer.jpg)
After we were done, if put drain rock to cover the dirt under the foundation. A few months later we dug a french around it to dry it out even more.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Foundation1.jpg)
Then we did the foundation for the deck pretty much the same way only no stumps to dig out!
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/LookingSouthPan.jpg)
Yep, we like pics. of dirt and stuff. Very interesting build story.
I was scratching my head about the 14'x14' cabin until you mentioned the magic number of 200 sf. Seems to be the magic number in a lot of locals.
Nice outhouse/tool shed. I've been trying to figure out a place to keep my tools secure.
I had to special order 4"x8"x14' pressure treated beams for the cabin foundation. Turns out two were nice but the other two must have been naughty because they were a bit twisted and bent. PT wood here in Washington is horrible. Always wet, warps as it dries even if nailed and glued down, problems anywhere you turn. On the other hand, I spent the first part of my forestry career working in forest entomology and pathology and I am well aware of all the bugs & fungi that would love to eat up anything you build out in the woods. Lots of termites, carpenter ants and decay fungi out there, so PT wood, despite its problems, does have a place...
I used half-lap joints at the corners and did the best I could, but one beam bent upward away from it's post. Here is a picture.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/GapInCabinFoundation.jpg)
So I weighted that beam down with firewood to help convice it to straighten up!
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/CabinFoundationWithFirewoodWeight.jpg)
Helped some, but eventually I just nailed the strongtie bracket in place...
The deck got its joists a few weeks later, fewer problems putting it together
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/DeckFoundation.jpg)
I had a lot of knee braces to make before I could build the deck. Used a chopsaw to make the basic miter cuts in the 4x4s and then made this jig for my router. It worked pretty well, but I was using the edge of the router plate to index it. Later on I bought a template bushing which indexes more preciesly.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/RouterJigForKneeBraces.jpg)
One of the reasons I decided to build the deck first is that I needed a large flat dry work area before I could build the cabin. I bought some plywood sheathing and used it to make a temporary deck surface, thinking that I could use it later on the cabin roof. One of the first things it got used for was to assemble the deck roof bents. Here is a picture of the first bent laid out on the deck.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/DeckBentOnDeck.jpg)
This was a "close but no cigar" moment. I was trying to save time but it didn't work. I ended up pounding in some boards into the deck to make an assembly jig for the bents, just like you would do when making roof trusses. Don't have any pictures of it, but it allowed for the 3 bents to be very very similar in all of their geometries which made life much easier. I would lay out a bent, add a plywood brace to help hold the truss portion together later on, then drilled holes for the bolts, and then assembled it and moved it on to the cabin foundation.
Don't have any pictures of us raising the bents because all availabe hands were occupied by heavy pieces of wood or the safty rope to keep us from raising them too far forward. Here's what it looked like when the 3 bents were being held in place with temporary bracing
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/BentsUpWithTempBracing.jpg)
I wanted this phase over with fairly quickly so the next step was to screw on one piece of the pair of top beams so there would be a real connection between all of the bents.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/TwoCrossBracesAdded.jpg)
As you can see in this picture, I still needed to at the second board to complete the picture.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/WaitingForOutsideBeam.jpg)
The next job was to get purlins up. Got some help from my brother-in-law and son for this one.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/DeckPurlinInstall.jpg)
Looked pretty nice when done!
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Now_with_Purlins.jpg)
We wanted the structure to be pretty with just a stain on it, so we had to clean up all the pieces of wood used to build it. We got the 6x6 posts cleaned up before the bents were built, but ran out of time before assembling the bents. We needed extra help for that step and when the help was ready we made sure we were ready. Finish work like that is always easier to do before assembly, but sometimes circumstances get in the way. Here is my wife sanding away...
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/SandingDeckBeamsBeforeStaining.jpg)
At this point it was mid-August 2008 and it was clear we lacked the energy, money, and good weather to get the cabin finished as well before winter 2008. We spent the rest of the summer and fall installing rain gutters, doing more finish work, adding the built-in benches, and digging a french drain around the cabin and deck foundations. Here's what it looked like...
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Deck_w_Benches.jpg)
Very nice!!! [cool]
The timber framing is awsome!
I also really like those benches, I might have to steal your design and put some of the those on the porch of my house. ;D
Thanks for bringing us up to speed, and posting the older pics showing your build.
You're more than welcome to use the bench design. With on or two more pieces across the bottom under the bench it should also be a code-legal railing.
The project is alive and well. I am doing the final electrical design right now. Hope to do some of the rough wiring this weekend so I can get some insulation in the ceiling so I can heat the place up. Gotta figure out where all the wires go so I can minimize the undo-redo projects.
Cold snap right now so night-time temps are mid-teens with highs in the low 30's. Heat wave this weekend - should get up to 40 or so!
I'll keep trying to post past activities - it's a good excuse to organize the bazillion pictures I took along the way.
So once the Fall 2008 rainy season hit it was time to add some blue tarps. Once the french drain was in it seemed best to keep the whole foundation area as dry as possible. Didn't figure the foundation needed another 40" of rain either, and then there's that snow thing...
Put up a 2x8 A-frame on the east end of the cabin foundation and then put a 20' long 2x8 from the deck roof to the A-frame. Had to rework the the tarp ropes 3 times before I got it right. Once again the Gulliver vs. the Lillipution's technique worked well, lots and lots of ropes spaced close together with as little slack as possible. With more slack and fewer ropes I ripped out 3 or 4 grommets out of the tarp before I got smarter.
Here is what it looked like in Spring 2009 at the start of this year's building season.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Winter0809_Tarps.jpg)
A really fine looking porch design. I've never seen anything quite like it. Would you mind giving us a little more background on how you decided on the hybrid combination?
What kind of wind loads did you need to account for?
Very nice stain job, BTW.
Quote from: poppy on December 11, 2009, 11:21:38 AM
A really fine looking porch design. I've never seen anything quite like it. Would you mind giving us a little more background on how you decided on the hybrid combination?
What kind of wind loads did you need to account for?
Very nice stain job, BTW.
I'm not sure exactly where the idea came from. I have been interested in timber frame building for a while and got and read lots of books including Rob Roys "Timber Framing for the rest of us"
I live in the northwest and there are dozens of timber or log framed shelters within an hours drive of my house and I looked at a photographed many of them. The building I work in has a timber frame look but much of the actual construction is dimension-lumber bolted together in interesting ways with internal iron fittings that I haven't found anywhere and wasn't willing to have fabricated for me.
I knew I could probably do a full bore traditional timber frame, but I wanted/needed something faster.
Early in this process, probably November or December 2005 I made this 1 inch = 1 foot scale model of a cooking shelter I sketched up. The model is balsa and tin foil, and has many of the elements that show up in the final deck design. The roof offset at the peak would allow heat to escape from a wood-fired oven or BBQ or smoker setup under the shelter. Still might build something like this in a year or two.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/ShelterModel2.jpg)
It's kind of funny... I use computer's a lot, and part of my work for the last 19 years has been digital cartography, making maps for forestry companies, bicycling maps, and other forms of computer graphics, but deep down I like some of the old-school hands-on design best. Some of the final design was done on big sheets of paper using a pencil, straightedge, and triangles.
I should give a word of thanks to my 7th grade drafting teacher from way back in 1964. Can't remember his name, but I sure-as-heck learned some things from him that I still use 45 years later. My youngest kids never even got the chance to take a shop class. Out of fashion these days, since we all know nobody makes or fixes anything anymore...
Enough of the rant...
Hard to beat a tin foil and balsa model to see what something really looks like from different angles. You could do it all in CAD and then build a wire-frame or texture mapped model and rotate on your computer screen, but in the end it's not the same as putting a wooden model on a table and walking around it.
I'm not sure where the final design came from, but I can assure you it is an educated, seat-of-the-pants design. 4x4s for the deck structure would have looked small next to the full dimension 8x8s I planned to use in the deck. I settled on 6x6 posts and that gave me the though of using cheaper, easier to obtain 4x4s and 4x6s sandwiched between 2x8s or 2x10s for the king posts and knee braces.
Wind loads? Never even really thought about them. The cabin site is surrounded by 40 to 60 year old Douglas-fir and western red cedars which are about 100 feet tall. They take the wind, but at cabin and deck and ground levels the wind isn't too bad.
The stain is a Defy epoxy stain from the Log Cabin Store. Seems to work well and we like the color. Cabin outsides use the same stain, while cabin insides use a clear Defy interior epoxy.
Thanks for the answers Pine Cone.
You hit on one of the nice features of a timber frame and that is nice proportions. I hate 4x4 posts even though they are strong enough for many applications.
I'm using as large a post as my timber will allow. One frame will use 8x8's and the cruck at the bottom will be about 6x12. Main beams will be 6x8's.
I took my high school drafting course around 1962 and I still have the tool set that I bought used for $2.00.
I also built a balsa wood model of one of the early timber frame designs. I have intended to build another one based on the current design, but haven't got around to it.
I have fond memories of my wood shop class. I think I was the only college bound student who took shop.
Hopefully younger folks will get some good lessons and inspiration from builds like yours.
Moving back to the present, this weekend I managed to get the soffit and ridge vents screened and got about 1/3 of the ceiling and gable-end insulation up. We've had a record cold spell here for the last 10 days or so and I haven't managed to heat the cabin above 50 degrees F yet. Still have more work to do before it will be a comfortable place to hang out, but it is getting closer. I have great hopes that by Christmas I'll have it sealed and insulated to the point were it's easy to get warm!
Put up the other half of the ceiling insulation last weekend. Started on the wiring needed before I can finish insulating the gable ends, but I still need to do more before I can finish the gable ends and the remaining bits of ceiling insulation.
Moving ahead to the floor, I was originally thinking of using sheets of 3/4" hard foam sheet insulation between a pressure-treated subfloor and the final subfloor. My concern is trying to insulate the floor without having fiberglass insulation which might serve as a home for insects and small mammals. I could screen the floor joists to keep them out, but thought that foam sheets might work well.
Now I'm beginning to have my doubts, and am thinking of just putting down sheets of tongue-and-groove plywood subfloor over the PT plywood and then putting un-faced fiberglass between the floor joists and then putting 1/8" hardware cloth screen on the bottom of the joists to keep it pest and critter free.
The cabin is in the woods of western Washington, lots of termites, ants, mice, Douglas squirrels, and other critters.
Anyone have any thoughts on the best way to insulate my floor? Inquiring minds would like to know since I'm likely to do it between now and the end of the Christmas/New Years holiday period.
Any advice would be appreciated. Never had to insulate a floor before...
I SO would love to have one of those Woodmisers! Oh man!
I've spent some time looking at them (drooling) and thinking of all the lumber I could make...but then reality sets in and I realize that without enough $$$ to get one, plus the joiner/plainer and LOTS of solar power (for the plainer) I'd probably just make big round logs into smaller square logs that would be good for beams maybe but not much else :(
But I might yet convince myself that it would be worth it :) After all if I convince myself long enough I might even think I could make money using it to cut other peoples lumber and while I'd probably never do that it would be convincing :P
Very nice cabin project! WOW!
I always think some day it would be nice to use some of the timber on our property to build a cabin...someday :)
Quote from: OlJarhead on December 23, 2009, 01:53:56 AM
I SO would love to have one of those Woodmisers! Oh man!
I've spent some time looking at them (drooling) and thinking of all the lumber I could make...but then reality sets in and I realize that without enough $$$ to get one, plus the joiner/plainer and LOTS of solar power (for the plainer) I'd probably just make big round logs into smaller square logs that would be good for beams maybe but not much else :(
But I might yet convince myself that it would be worth it :) After all if I convince myself long enough I might even think I could make money using it to cut other peoples lumber and while I'd probably never do that it would be convincing :P
I've had my own wood milled up twice now for building projects, and both times had someone else with more experience and their own WoodMizer do the milling. You get to provide the grunt work to debark the logs and buck them into their proper lengths, but it takes experience to mill them up right, and I'm willing to pay someone for their experience and portable sawmill.
I used a guy I already knew http://www.specialtywoods.net/portable.html (http://www.specialtywoods.net/portable.html) who currently charges $65/hour for his mill, but it was more than worth it. He did a great job and my step-son and myself kept him in logs for 3 days to get the job done. The end result was a pretty big pile of timbers and 1x? lumber. The final dimensions of the pile was about 9'x30'x7'. Not too bad for 3 days work!
It was a lot of work for all of us, but by keeping the sawyer free to just saw boards and timbers the price is pretty reasonable. The satisfaction of building something from trees and/or logs you have worked with is worth it. The lumber you get is likely to be much better than what you can buy at your local lumber yard or box store.
In any case, unless you own a lot of timberland, it makes more sense to let someone else own the WoodMizer and let them do the milling... Look at Yonderosa's posts for another look at what someone else's milling can be turned into. He has some great looking cabinets and window trim and (I think) is planning on using similar wood for interior paneling.
Of course you still need to buy a planer and have electricity to run it...
I think we're only a few miles from Yonderosa :)
Perhaps I'll get the contact he used.
As for tree we have a few but not as many as you west coasters!
Pine Cone, I like your original idea on insulating the floor. And if you want more R value than the 3/4" "hard board", then I would suggest foam board between the joists.
Just pick a board that critters don't like. If you haven't seen it, here is an insulation survey thread in General.
Pretty productive weekend. Got the ceiling and gable end insulation done which also required getting more electrical done, which also required putting up a few of the gable end boards for the board and batten covering of the gable ends...
That led to today's project of getting the planer out and smoothing up some of my rough-cut 1x8 pine lumber so I can finish putting boards on the gable ends, board and batten outside, and ship-lap on the inside. Still need to get the table saw out there so I can take to boards I planed today and turn them into shiplap siding.
Here is the before picture, with a view of some of the wood I had milled off the sides of the logs that became the walls of the cabin.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Before_Planing.jpg)
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/The_Planer.jpg)
Here's the after picture - lots of sawdust and chips and now some boards ready to use to finish the outside of the cabin. Lucky for me the rain held off until I was done with the boards I wanted to plane today. Still have another 30 1x6s to plane and then turn into tongue-and-groove ceiling boards, but that will have to wait until another dry-ish day.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/After_Planing.jpg)
Turns out to be much easier to heat the cabin once the ceiling is insulated... of course it helps that it has warmed up into the high 40's today versus the 20's of a couple of weeks ago.
That's some pile of sawdust! :o
How are you going to do the T&G on the 1x6's...router, table saw?
I'm also planning on T&G pine for the ceiling in my house. I've got a router and a table saw, just not sure what the best way would be to cut the T&G. ???
It's great how you've been able to make a lot of your own lumber for the house!
Wish I lived in the woods...
Quote from: Beavers on January 04, 2010, 10:52:19 AM
How are you going to do the T&G on the 1x6's...router, table saw?
I'm also planning on T&G pine for the ceiling in my house. I've got a router and a table saw, just not sure what the best way would be to cut the T&G. ???
I haven't decided yet. I am going to use my table saw to make shiplap boards for the inside gable ends, but I may go with a fancier look on the ceiling with the T&G, probably using a router.
Hadn't thought about trying to make T&G on the table saw. I have a dato blade kit and I suppose I could use that.
Anyone else making T&G boards out there?
PC personally for ceiling T&G IMO it looks a little better to have a beveled edge or bead to seperate the boards so that it doesn't look like a floor. Sheetrock looks fine as one flat surface but with wood it always looks better to have that individual board distinction.
Red - I agree about the need for a bevel at the edge of the boards to help visually separate them. I was planning on using a hand plane, probably an old Stanley 18" jointer, to make the bevels if I don't use a router bit that does if for me. It probably won't turn out perfect, but it will be more in the style of the rest of the building.
If it is a bevel that you are looking for then you could set up your planer with a bevel and knock the edge off. I have a Makita electric hand planer that has a "V" grove in the plate that I used to bevel the edges of my battens. Maybe a champher bit in a router?
I prefer a router with a V groove set of bits, seem to get better results. The shorter the easier. I set up a looong fence on the tablesaw and use it to joint the board edges just as straight as I can get them. I then set up the router with hold down and hold in and a fence that is set to joint a small amount. Keeping a straight parallel board machined to uniform depth coming out is the key.
I'm just a retro-grouch at heart ::)
Old school, wood and steel, no electricity and a bit of skill beats a power tool any day.
I like my electric hand planers for smoothing wall timbers, love my chainsaw for cutting the big stuff, but for a simple bevel on a board or 70 I like the sound of a quite hand plane that is older than my grandkids, older than my kids, older than me, maybe older than my father, and just like the ones my grandfather Oscar used to use.
It's not a building. It's MY building. Pride/vanity of creation maybe, but my cabin is mine above all else. I'm old enough to appreciate what that means, at least to me. I really don't give a hoot how much of my time it costs, because I get it all back when I sit in a room I made.
If it's only a little harder to do it by hand that will be my choice most days. It's about creation and the journey. Results are nice and certainly desired, but slow and easy work pretty well, and the power planer just doesn't make those nice curled chips when your done making the bevel cut. For planing a bevel on 70 boards I doubt if there is an hours difference in total bevel time, might even be faster with the hand tool since I don't have to get an extension cord out at the beginning of the job and then put it away at the end.
Thanks for the advice, I really do appreciate it, if the job was bigger I'd probably use the power tools, but for smaller scale jobs I'll stay old-school if it is not too much more effort. Nothing wrong with elbow grease and sweat holding your project together.
I like your style Pine Cone. You are a man after my own heart. :D
Why use a power tool when the old hand tool will do the job?
Like you, when I sit in my finished (or probably never-finished) cabin, I can be proud of the hand crafted effort.
If it weren't so darn cold here, I would be out at the farm hand hewing some more beams. d*
I agree with the hand plane for the bevels, but would use a tablesaw with a dado blade for the shiplap. The place is looking very good! Looks like you should be able to cash in on all that time soon.
I love the smell of ash off a router bit in the morning, it smells like, victory.
This is a shot I came across today of my T&G router setup. There's another router on the other side of the table for the tongues. I borrowed the idea for the hold downs from an old wooden body hand plane. There are tapered wooden shims, instead of holding a plane iron they hold strips of formica that do the work of holding the board tight to the table. If I'm doing alot of the same width I'll set up a couple of hold ins as well.
(https://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x109/windyhilll/vgroover.jpg)
My philosophy is all over the road, I've set up gin poles and windlasses to avoid calling a crane, but, was quite happy to have a tablesaw and router to make a door frame today. In the end I remind myself that a hand tool is very often a chisel or series of chisels travelling in a line. The industrial revolution simply attached those same chisels to the wheel. I don't know then that it is an issue or if its just an observation.
If I did more of this I'd probably lose my deer gut.
(https://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x109/windyhilll/hewingcollar.jpg)
love the hold down idea Don. Nice looking board too. I prefer a router for that type of work as well, although if I only had a piece or two to do, and some nice hand tools...for me, the draw in hand tools is pretty much about feeling more connected to the wood, and not having a screaming weasel drowning out G-d, my own thoughts, or my music. Then again, I used my DA sander to sand drywall ceilings today!
Dear Pine Cone, what a beautiful setting...
I seem to remember, and am guessing from the pics that you are on or near the Olympic Peninsula...Your tarp shed may be ripped to shreds or kited into the next county if we get a screaming winter wind storm.
I lost 2 in 2006...they can't take it, even anchored. I salvaged the roof frames and built again, using 4x4 PT posts set in concrete and wooden walls....haven't finished the roof yet, so yes its tarped. :-[ We usually get at least one major field stress test per winter and I'm anxious to get the roof sheathed, collar tied, and shingled before that happens.
We can compare war stories when it does.
Would you mind posting your location so it shows with your name? Its hard to remember where everyone is. Thanks in advance.
Jens - I'm planning on using a dato blade in my table saw to cut the shiplap boards. Sunday's weather forcast looks good so with luck I can cut them then.
Don P. - I really like your router setup. Much better for holding stock down on the table than any method I have seen to date! THANKS!
Considerations - I'm south of Chimicum. I have had my share of shelter trauma. In North California I was very proud of the shelter I put up in my back-back yard that had views of both Mt. Shasta and Mt. Lassen. A few days later the shelter was totally missing ??? Found it a day later about 400 yards away in a neighbor's yard d*
Here in Washington I haven't had any problem with wind. Too many tallish trees around for wind to be a problem. My problem is wet snow or snow then rain!
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/CrushedShelter2.jpg)
Lost 4 shelters so far in 4 years.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/CrushedShelter.jpg)
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/CrushedShelter3.jpg)
My solution is to rebuild the shelters with tripods made of alder and/or maple and then add a new tarp or two on top...
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/UnCrushedShelter3.jpg)
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/UnCrushedShelter4.jpg)
I have great hopes that I can empty this year's shelter and take it down before we get a nice wet snowfall :) If anyone needs some slightly bent steel tubing I can make you one heck of a deal...
"If anyone needs some slightly bent steel tubing I can make you one heck of a deal..." [rofl2]
I've been doling my surviving pieces out to the neighbor, he keeps trying to rebuild his...the rest are already in my rebuilt project. Nope, don't need any more "stuff" right now, but thanks.
that top photo of the downed canopy makes it look like a giant prehistoric grasshopper!
rofl
Jens that is exactly what I thought as well when that opened. Wow that is weird yard art then it dawned on me.... OH OH..
Wet snow and rain in western Washington I really cant believe that.
Worked this weekend on getting the gable ends finished. I'm putting up boards & battens. Planed the rough boards last week, then they need to get painted in a heated place until the finish (with epoxy) cures, then put them up on the cabin. Should have the exterior pretty well done within a couple of weeks. Only get one day to work on the cabin next week due to other plans...
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/LotsOBoards.jpg)
This is about half the boards that were in here a few hours earlier...
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Boards_On_West_Gable_End2.jpg)
Here's a look at the almost finished product...
Its looking really good!!! [cool]
Nice work on the board and batten. Interesting finish work on the bottom of the battens. [cool]
Quote from: poppy on January 11, 2010, 12:06:39 PM
Nice work on the board and batten. Interesting finish work on the bottom of the battens. [cool]
Thanks!
I decided it would be nice to do a little something extra, so I cut the battens about an inch and a half long and then cut two small 45 degree cuts with a hand saw and used a microplane to round off the corners.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Battens.png)
They look a bit
rough rustic, but then it's a cabin. They also help mask the fact that the boards just might not all be the same length :D Of course since the boards aren't the same lengths, the battens should match the boards so they aren't the same lengths either. It all goes up-and-downhill from there d*
Forcast is for rain for the next week plus, so while I can get the outsides finished, I will have to wait for dry weather before I can turn the next set of boards into shiplaped boards. With luck it will dry out for a few days at some point in the not-to-distant future.
At least I'm not snowed out from my cabin project. I would go into severe withdrawals if that ever happened. My wife is worried about what I will do when this project is finished. I have averaged about 3 visits a week for the last year... Only a 45 minute drive each way, and since the company I work for owns about 40,000 acres of forestland just north of my property I have the occasional opportunity to work nearby and then visit the cabin on my lunch break.
My cabin-project calendar is already booked through March and I have plenty to do beyond that. My goal is to have a cabin-warming party either at Memorial Day or at the worst by the 4th of July.
Making slow but steady progress. Nothing too exciting, got more battens up, more boards run through the planer to be used for ceiling and trim boards. My wife got almost all of the inside walls painted, only one more wall module left to paint and then some spots need touchup.
Our kerosene heater is working great! I had to learn how to adjust the flame since too little or too much means lots of odor. When you go back and read the manual it does a pretty good job of telling you what to do, but I just wasn't reading it right the first time around. Now it has lots of heat and no odor except on startup and shutdown.
The big news is that with a break in the rain on Saturday I got one of the rain gutters up.
This has been a wet winter and the drip off the south side of the roof is inside the "dry area" we are trying to establish with a french drain that surrounds the cabin and deck. Now the water will drain outside of that area.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/SouthRainGutter.jpg)
Still need another dry day or two so I can mill up some shiplap or T&G boards for the ceiling, but dry days are hard to come by, especially dry weekend days.
Looking good.
I forgot if you mentioned it, but are you going to use any of the rainwater?
I have a small 4' diameter stock tank that is filled from rain off the deck, and 5 55-gallon barrels to collect water from other roofs. I'd like to store some of this but haven't found a deal on a tank yet. Right now I'm storing about 500 of the 22,000 gallons I could be collecting each year.
I'm sure if I wait long enough I can find a tank or three on Craigslist...
Quote from: Pine Cone on January 25, 2010, 01:12:55 PM
I have a small 4' diameter stock tank that is filled from rain off the deck, and 5 55-gallon barrels to collect water from other roofs. I'd like to store some of this but haven't found a deal on a tank yet. Right now I'm storing about 500 of the 22,000 gallons I could be collecting each year.
I'm sure if I wait long enough I can find a tank or three on Craigslist...
I shouldn't tell you this but did you know the State of Washington prohibits the collection of more then 50 gallons of rain water? They claim the state owns the rain.
Ya, i know, crazy huh? I personally don't give a rats arse what they think and will collect all the flipping rain water I want, but you might want to keep the barrels out of site and mind ;)
It's the old old tale of western states water rights. That collected rainfall is being prevented from flowing naturally downstream, where there may be lawful owners. There have been some changes in CO, but I forget what they are. Just like I have forgotten if I'm collecting any water here in NM or not.
You can always say that you are just creating a diversion. They will eventually recieve it in some form or another. ;)
Last fall the Washington Department of Ecology relaxed regulations on rainwater collection, but... the new rules still prohibit collection into a below-ground tank without a permit.
http://www.downtoearthnw.com/stories/2009/oct/21/rainwater-collection-break-clouds/ (http://www.downtoearthnw.com/stories/2009/oct/21/rainwater-collection-break-clouds/)
http://www.wagreentech.com/2009/10/washington-department-of-ecology-has.html (http://www.wagreentech.com/2009/10/washington-department-of-ecology-has.html)
We now have gutters on BOTH sides of the cabin and the inside walls are totally painted. Since the ceiling isn't finished that doesn't count.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/GuttersAndBattens.jpg)
Warm around here lately, especially after our December deep freeze. I think this January will have been the warmest on record, while December set a few record low temps. Still wet enough to delay projects and alter plans, but warm is nice. Temps have mostly been between high thirty's to low 50's.
I'm trying to get the remaining boards being stored in my Costco metal & plastic tarp carport milled up but it's been too rainy this week to do anything. I brought home six 15/16" X 8" X 100" boards today so I can set up the table saw with a dado-blade so I can test making some shiplap siding if weather permits some afternoon this week. I'd like to get the wood milled up ASAP so I can put it up on the inside gable ends and free up some of my cabin space which is full of stacks of boards.
"and free up some of my cabin space which is full of stacks of boards."
That is a real sweetie - I really like the covered open space. As for the cabin space, I can relate, I had to cobble together a structure to house the building materials because it was becoming impossible to work inside with everything stacked up in there.
Quote from: MountainDon on January 26, 2010, 03:37:55 PM
It's the old old tale of western states water rights. That collected rainfall is being prevented from flowing naturally downstream, where there may be lawful owners. There have been some changes in CO, but I forget what they are. Just like I have forgotten if I'm collecting any water here in NM or not.
Meanwhile, in LA, they may require rainwater collection . . . .
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-rain-barrels1-2010feb01,0,1154413.story (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-rain-barrels1-2010feb01,0,1154413.story)
/
Making steady progress. I got a break in the weather and got the 1x8 shiplap siding made for the inside gable ends. After planing the boards I used a dado blade on a table saw to cut a 1/2" wide dado on each side of the board, then I used my trusty Stanley No. 7 plane to put bevels on the edges, then I choice the finish side and sanded them with 120 grit until they were sooth and oh-so-pretty. Then we though a finish coat on them.
Next weekend I will cut them and install them. Shouldn't take too long but I do have some electrical outlets to make cut-outs for.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/MakingShiplapBoards.jpg)
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/BevelShiplapSiding.jpg)
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/ShiplapBeforeSanding.jpg)
This is the first time I've done this and I'm pleased with the results. I think I will do the 1x6 ceiling boards like this. I was considering making tongue-and-groove, but this seem to work fine and it's pretty quick.
I got to thinking about how many times I will have handled each board before I put the finished product in place...
1st debark the 33 foot logs and buck into 8-foot lengths
2nd move the log away from the pile for storage before milling
3rd move the log to the mill
4th place the newly made board on a cart so we can move it to where it will be dried
5th stack for drying, wait 3 1/2 years...
6th, 7th, 8th, 9th plane each board twice on each side to get to final thickness of about 7/8"
10th, 11th cut shiplap dado on each edge
12th, 13th cut bevels on each side
14th sand finish side
15th paint before cutting and installing board
16th cut board to final dimensions
17th time the board is handled it gets nailed in place...
It changes the way you look a lumber. Some boards get handled less, for instance, I built a shed/outhouse out of rough-surfaced boards so they only got touched eight or nine times...
Dollar-wise it's very inexpensive, but you have to enjoy the time you spend with each board or it will make you crazy d* It does give you a great appreciation of the final product.
The wood we are building with has a long personal history by now. I work for a forestry company, so I looked at the sales we had planned for the next few months after we bought the property. I looked at the forest inventory data to see the size and species mix for the expected harvest and choose the most likely unit which was close (less than 5 miles) to the cabin site.
Then my wife and I went for a walk in the soon-to-be-harvested area so I could look at the trees to see if they might work for cabin logs. They looked good, so I got my company to agree to sell a load of logs to me.
The next step was to choose the individual logs while they were on the landing. That gave me a chance to choose the best of what was available. There isn't much of a market for white pine here since we mostly grow Douglas-fir. I think I paid $360 per thousand board feet on the landing, and then had to pay about $250 or $300 to get the logs delivered to the cabin site. I bought a total of 4430 board feet, mostly western white pine for a delivered cost of about $1800. Log markets are poor now, so today it would cost less than $1500. Milling the logs into a mix of 8x8 posts and 6" thick cabin timbers left me with a lot of 1" thick boards. The milling cost about $1500 and three long days where my step-son and I worked harder than I had worked in 15 years. If we hadn't done our share the milling price would have been three or four times that.
On the plus side, it didn't cost much, and I have enough wood left to build a second cabin similar to the one almost completed. So basic material cost for cabin walls is about $1750 per cabin, so I can't really complain about having to handle the boards 10 or 20 times.
I just want to wait a year or two before I start on the next one... ;)
Excellent report on using available resources. Your hard work is paying off. :D
But who is that mean looking guy operating the table saw? ::)
Maybe we should have an old fart photo contest. :)
Quote from: poppy on February 08, 2010, 01:27:54 PM
But who is that mean looking guy operating the table saw? ::)
Beats the heck out of me... probably some guy who wants to make sure he keeps all his fingers on his hands and is trying to warn the board and the table saw about the possible consequences if that doesn't happen.
Unfortunately I know enough people missing finger parts that it is hard to take it lightly. I almost lost several fingers to a radial arm saw back in 1970 and I never forgot... Earlier that year I ground off most of one thumbnail and it left a lasting impression (but no visible scars) ::)
I was once operating a table saw (early AM- not fully awake) and actually brushed my thumb against the moving blade. Just scraped the first layer of skin- no blood. It still gives me the willy's when I think of how close I came to disaster. Now, every time I turn on the saw I think about that morning and keep my hands way away from the blade!
Thanks for the photo's on making the shiplap siding. Looks like a very doable project. I'd like to do some kind of pine planking on my ceiling, and really like the idea a making my own.
Looking forward to seeing how it looks after you get it installed.
It sounds like a lot of work, but it's very cool how you went from raw trees to finished lumber! Got to be great feeling knowing you did it all yourself! [cool]
I took a few hours off work today to work on the cabin. Here's what the shiplap panels look like installed on the east gable end.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/East_Inside_Gable_End.jpg)
Discovered a cool free program, FotoSketcher, http://www.fotosketcher.com/ (http://www.fotosketcher.com/) which turns images into paintings or artistic sketches...
Here's what my cabin looks like in the classic commercial art style of the 1960's
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/FotoSke_WC-Cabin_SW_020610.jpg)
While this is what it looks like drawn with colored-pencils...
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/FotoSketcher-Cabin_SW_020610_2.jpg)
The interior wood looks awesome!
What is the blue paper in the peak? vapor barrier?
Darrell
Quote from: devildog on February 11, 2010, 09:45:45 AM
What is the blue paper in the peak? vapor barrier?
Darrell
Yup! It is a left-over piece of the synthetic underlayment that I used on the roof. I could see light through my roof vent after I finished putting up the insulation so I thought I'd add just a bit more vapor barrier there at the peak. http://www.sdp-products.com/HTML/palisade_more.html (http://www.sdp-products.com/HTML/palisade_more.html)
I didn't want to have all my warm air exiting the vent this winter while I am heating the cabin without a finished ceiling. For a vent I just cut about an inch of sheathing back from each side of the roof peak before putting on the corrugated roofing panels.
Got the other gable end done last weekend, and even got some lights up.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/West_Inside_Gable_End_Lamp.jpg)
On Sunday I got back to processing ceiling boards. Basic production numbers to make the shiplap boards with a tablesaw and dado blade is about 15 boards per hour. That still leaves cutting the bevels on with the jointer hand plane, and minor sanding around knots where the grain tears out from the planer. Figure that adds about another 4-5 minutes per board to make them nice and presentable, so start to finish for 30 boards would be about 4 to 4.5 hours. Here's what my work area looked like...
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/MakingCeilingBoards.jpg)
The end results are nicer boards than I can easily buy around here. Here is a look at the partially finished stack. I figure I need about twice this many to finish the ceiling. Not to many knots, and most of those are small. Some bluestain, but that just gives it some character. I'm pleased with how it is turning out.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/StackOfCelingBoards.jpg)
Nice work pinecone.
Our younger readers can take a few lessons from you; like stacking finished product on sturdy work stands. Being an old fart myself, it's smart to avoid bending over too much.
Looking good Pine Cone.
Are you familiar with the term brown or coffee stain? We were at dinner recently and went upstairs to see the new panelling, the deepest and most brown coffeestain I'd ever seen, beautiful. They are both the result of slow drying. Where blue is a fungi, brown is an enzyme reaction.
Spent last weekend at my Dad's 90th birthday party, but this weekend it was back to the cabin...
Don - Hadn't heard of brown-stain before, seems like it may be more common on eastern white pine, but I do have a few small brownish areas. I worked in forest pathology research back in the late 70s and early 80s so I am very familiar with blue and black stains.
Here's a picture of some of the shavings made by my plane while making bevels on the shiplap siding. Much easier to do out at the cabin since I have an 8-foot long workbench with a woodvice on one end. Put one end in the vice and use a clamp on the other end for a nice, secure board on edge ready to plane.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/CeilingShavings.jpg)
My wife helped with the sanding and painting. We find it so much easier to paint stuff before it is in some awkward position...
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/PaintingCeilingBoards.jpg)
I think I have all the boards ready to install for the first half of the ceiling, and managed to get about half of those up. Paint took longer to dry than I had hoped, but worth the wait. My wife and I are pleased with how it is starting to look. We had considered trying a white-wash or pickling finish on the boards but in the end went with a clear finish.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Ceiling_8boards.jpg)
Looking good Pinecone.
Man, you really work your wife hard. Give her a smallish brush and she works up a sweat that soaks clear through her coat! :o :D
Very nice. :)
Been making slow progress...
Spring has started to arrive. Getting used to what the deer and other critters like to eat and what they leave behind. One nice thing about Washington is that we get lots of foxgloves as native volunteers. Don't look like much now, but they will be 4-6 feet tall in a few months.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Spring2010Flowers.jpg)
Finished installing all the ceiling boards I have made to date, just a bit more that half way. Need to make about 24 more to finish, but other misc. jobs have gotten in the way.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Ceiling_19rows.jpg)
Decided I needed to brace the foundation more. Seems like there are a large number of posts here suggesting that people's foundations could use more bracing, so I have added some. Still have a few more to install, but I have to move a bunch of stuff from under the cabin first.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Foundation_Bracing.jpg)
Last and not least, as we move towards making more paths and defining garden areas, it is time to take some of the larger cedar's I cut down in the last two years and start turning them into split rails. Here's the first few...
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/CedarRails.jpg)
Still have a bunch of other stuff to finish, but I think it's going to happen by early summer. I'm hoping for a cabin-warming around the 4th of July, which seems do-able from here. This year's mild winter has let me get more things completed than I anticipated, a first for this project ;D
Pine Cone here are some Chestnut fence rails that I happened upon. They were used alot before wire fence came around. Hard to tell how old these are. Considering that they are not in bad shape for their age 80-100 years). Mostly used now ( if you can find them) for landscaping. Some older farmers are selling them for $20 a piece.
(https://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd161/redoverfarm/hightop/100_3853-1.jpg)
Redoverfarm - Nice looking rails! They look darn good for their age.
I've lived in a couple of forestry camps that had lots of rail fences made from incense cedar. They have held up pretty good for the 25-30 years I've been looking at them. They just seem like a great fence in a forested area.
Mine are western red cedar, but they should do the trick. I have at least 100-130 feet of cedar logs I cut down a couple of years ago. Half of that should give me at least five or six rails/log segment and most of the rest should be good for three or four rails per segment. That should be enough to fence off the garden & flower bed areas from the grandkids. Don't think they will slow the deer down, but that's what wire fencing is for...
We still have old chesnut trees laying in the forest and quite a few large old stumps. The very last of these would have died 60+ years ago, I think the blight was introduced about 95 years ago. I can see it still, hitting the stumps that are still trying to send up sprouts. Every now and then one will make a small crop of nuts. I hope one spits out the magic seed one day. Nearby we have a fairly new very small state park, a local judge left his farm to the state for a park asking that they would use it to help with chesnut research. I had one of the foresters here walking my woods this past week and he said they are prepping a plot for a trial of the 15/16 American/chinese crosses. We were debating a small patch here. It'd sure be nice to put those giants back in the forest.
(https://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x109/windyhilll/chestnut2_1915.jpg)
I had brought home the joists from an old porch I had repaired and was cutting up the roughsawn mixed wood for heat in the shop last weekend. I had whacked up what I thought was an oak joist till I picked it up and saw the fresh end grain...no rays, darn I had whacked a chesnut board d*.
Don - I'll see your stump and raise you a cabin and some spring flowers! That's one large stump [cool] Mine are pretty darn small by comparison.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Cabin_Stumps_From_SE.jpg)
Great spring weather here, warm, (mid-60s) and only a little rain ;)
Got the remainder of my ceiling boards planed and turned into shiplap siding. Got some painted today, so with luck the ceiling will be finished in a couple of weeks. Sunshine this afternoon so I got some better pictures of the cabin today with enough light to show more detail than my Winter pictures.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Cabin_From_SW_Spring_2010.jpg)
The ceiling is finished except for some minor trim work, and the fan/light is installed and mostly wired.
Nice milestone to have finished. Left to do is a bunch of trim work inside and out, installing the flooring, and building another set of steps so we can actually use the eastern door.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/CeilingFan1.jpg)
I terms of total material use, the project is very close to being done, but it will probably take another three months of weekend work to get it all accomplished. Of course I need to plane more rough lumber to make the boards for all of the trim, and I haven't actually designed the stairs yet.
Lots of other miscellaneous projects seem to pop up as well. Had a small snowstorm on Friday that knocked the tops out of two 35 foot tall alders, so that has to get cleaned up now. We were planning on cutting those trees down, but they have moved up on the priority list now.
Once the cabin is pretty much finished we can move on to the summer projects, putting in an underground water tank, building a small wood-fired earthen oven, working on getting a covered, outdoor kitchen built, etc.
I don't think I will run out of projects any time soon.
Did a bunch of miscellaneous tasks this weekend.
I worked on hooking up electrical under the cabin. No very fun and I ended up doing lots of electrician crunches, raising my head and neck and maybe shoulders to look at this or that or work on some task or other while attaching conduit to run wires between outlets and switches under the cabin. By yesterday evening I was tired and had a sore neck.
Electrical in a log cabin is a bit of a challenge. I have one double outlet (4 plugs) in the middle of the second full log in the center of each wall, and a two light switches in the center of the posts next to the two doors. When building the walls I tried to drill holes in the three log segments that the wire needs to go through, and tried to make it so I could pull wire though later. Sometimes it worked pretty well, sometimes not so well. For the light switches in the 8x8 posts next to the doors I cut a spline in the post to run wires from below the cabin up into the gable ends. For both the switch boxes and outlet boxes, I routed an area out of the logs/posts and then drilled holes to run wires into the routed out areas.
I tried without success on Thursday to get wires to run from the outlet in the west wall down through the wall. After almost two hours I gave up. Saturday wasn't much better. I could get a single wire to go all the way, but each time I tried to pull romex through it would not work. I was trying to pull the romex through because that was what I had to work with. Eventually I realized I didn't need all three wires in romex, I just needed a hot, a neutral, and a ground.
Major strategy change! Within 20 minutes the three individual wires were through. Lesson learned, once again. It it isn't working, maybe there is a different way to get the result you want with a variant using the materials at hand.
Also planed a bunch of boards that will become the trim at the top of each wall and others will turn into furniture of some sort.
My wife helped with painting and then with starting to caulk the walls with Sachco Log Builder. Then she did what she really wanted to do an planted two hanging flower baskets, planted some lilies, and did other garden stuff.
Today I painted some boards, finished the portion of electrical work I wanted, and then put up half of the outside top-of-wall trim. Building with logs means being ready for some shrinkage. The 6x timbers in the walls are held in with splines which connect them with the 8x8 posts. The splines allow the logs to shrink. That means at the top of each wall module you need to cap the walls with trim boards which are only attached to the posts, allowing the logs to potentially shrink. While my wall timbers have been drying for 4 years now, they could still shrink some. Here is the end result.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/DSCN1184.jpg)
The cabin got its first family weekend workout this weekend. Saturday was a mix of rain, showers, and sun, and the combination of covered deck and heated dry interior worked great. Total of 6 adults, 3 teenagers, 3 kids, and a 2-week old baby granddaughter.
The next generation of builders was there, developing there hammering skills.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Hammering.jpg)
At one point we had 10 people eating dinner in the 14x14 cabin and it was cozy but not crowded. The grandkids had a great time pounding nails and sometimes screws into various cabin scraps and pieces of firewood. They will need a bit more practice, but they are very willing. Kyle wanted to start hammering at about 8 am this morning, but we delayed him until after breakfast. He really wanted to build some walls, even if they were only 6" tall...
Still working on wall, window and door trim. Then on to the floor!
Working on trim and misc. electrical now. Realized I needed to finish painting door frame trim gloss white (I know, boring...) before adding the remaining cabin-colored trim, so that is what I did today, paint trim. Also did some log wall caulking, and got my outside Christmas-tree lights outlet and motion-sensor light on the NW corner so I am done with the electrical on the south and west walls.
Here is what the walls are looking like. Nice to finally get the trim up at the top of the walls. To add sense of scale, the darker board at the top of the walls is a commercially made 4x8, the only store-bought wood visible above the floor. Posts are 8x8s (actually about 7 3/4") while the wall timbers range from about 10 to 20 inches tall and 6" thick.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/W_North_Walls_inside.jpg)
Walls are close to done. Still need to finish caulking all the joints with Log Caulk, but I ran out today and need to order more. Here is a modified view of what it looks like looking out the western doorway onto the covered deck. Needed to make the walls lighter to be more visible and this was the result. The trees really aren't purple, but it does give you a feel for how visible the deck framework is from inside the cabin.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/WestDoorway.jpg)
Probably have another weekend or two of trim works since each board has to be custom cut, lots of them only semi-square, and the bottoms of all window trim needs to match the shape and curves of the log timber below it. With luck I might have the floor in by the end of May, although I am about to start on some cabin furniture building soon which may slow other parts of the project down.
The cabin is looking very nice! [cool]
What kind of furniture are you starting on? Looking forward to seeing the pic's.
Quote from: Beavers on April 26, 2010, 09:09:42 PM
The cabin is looking very nice! [cool]
What kind of furniture are you starting on? Looking forward to seeing the pic's.
Thanks!
I've built some of it already and posted it here... The sapele table will go to the cabin and I have bought more sapele which I will use to make 6" deep window sills. I got the wood for those last weekend.
http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=1355.msg105371#msg105371 (http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=1355.msg105371#msg105371)
My current thoughts are to try and mimic the look of the cabin post-and-beam construction in some of the furniture. I've got lots of pine boards left... I need a blanket chest to store bedding away from the mice, a dry sink as a general cabinet that will fit underneath one of the windows, a portable closet, and maybe a corner cabinet. Eventually there will be a fold-down wall bed of some sort, but for now we're using an inflatable bed.
Here are some preliminary design thoughts.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/BlanketChestSketch.jpg)
This one might still need some design revision.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/DrySinkSketch.jpg)
Might also build some sort of bookcase, either one that hangs from Shaker pegs off the cap beam or a moveable floor version with 3 shelves.
I want flexibility, so for now nothing will be built-in or permanently attached to walls. Kinda fun to start with a clean slate. It's my cabin and I can furnish it any way I want. ;D
I've got a bunch of wood in my living room (keeping dry) right now, and my wife will be out of town until this Sunday. It would be a real good thing if I had less wood inside the house and more furniture made (or at least started) before she comes back. I hope to start the blanket chest and rip the wood for the window sills if I get a rain-free evening or two this week. Forecast isn't looking good until late this week, but the weekend looks dry.
Got some window and door trim up and the pine panels are glued up for the blanket chest, but a new project has emerged :)
After two years of searching Craigslist and the internet, I found a great deal on a water tank. Exactly the one I wanted, just need to add a riser. Had to drive a couple of hours to pick it up, but I got it today and it is now out at the cabin. I have a neighbor with a mini-excavator who will probably dig the hole for it.
The tank is brand new, the guy is building a house and after he got the tank the county told him he needed at least a 500 gallon tank, and he had bought a 325 gallon one. He was glad to sell it and I was very please to buy it. Even with the gas cost for picking it up it is about half of what the same tank would have cost through PlasticMart.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/WaterTankInTrailer.jpg)
If you look close you can see a motorcycle hanging from some sort of machinery in the background. Redneck kinetic sculpture I guess...
Nice tank. We have the exact same tank. Nice trailer too.
Re: Hanging motorcycle: Maybe that's how they keep the other rednecks from stealing it? ???
That is a nice tank. I guess I need to scour craigslist a bit more carefully.
I have a number of things I'm looking for but can never get the search terms just right, it seems.
At 1/2 the plasitcmart price, that's a major score, in my book!
Are you going to fill it with rainwater or do you have a well? Also what type of pump setup are you going to use?
Quote from: Solar Burrito on May 09, 2010, 11:45:20 PM
Are you going to fill it with rainwater or do you have a well? Also what type of pump setup are you going to use?
Still working on the details of how to fill it. I have a verbal agreement with my closest neighbor to share his well, but without a tank there hasn't been any urgency to get a formal well agreement on paper. Now's the time for that I suppose...
As for pump and plumbing details, I'm not sure yet. In the planned world I wasn't going to worry about a tank until later this summer, but this was too good a deal to pass up. Kinda like the flooring that I bought when they were closing it out last fall, even though it won't be needed until next month.
I ordered the "Cottage Water Systems" book by Max Burns that was recommended on another thread but it won't be here until the end of the week. I also will probably be ordering a tank riser but I'm not sure at this time. The goal is to keep it simple and inexpensive for now. To start we might use a garden hose to fill the tank up part way and put a hand pump on it.
We used an Oasis pump on our tank top. So far we're happy. One thing to keep in mind is freezing weather if you have it and weather or not you will want to be able to access the water when the temperatures drop. I have a modification I'm going to make to assist in that. The deep well model Oasis pump helps avoid the freeze problem, but it cost much more.
http://www.oasispumps.com/pumps.html (http://www.oasispumps.com/pumps.html)
That looks like a great pump at a reasonable price. Even if and when I go electric it would be good to have a backup.
About how long does it take to pump 5 gallons with it? I see that it says "up to 10 gallons per minute" but how well does it really work?
I built what looked like an insulated doghouse over my last well head. Seemed to help keep things from freezing. Around here it rarely drops below 25 degrees F, and last winter's record lows were below 20 for a couple of nights. Not sure it has ever gotten below about 15 degrees where the cabin is. A few weeks of nights below 25 can be expected now and then, but it is rare to have a week where the daytime maximum is less than 35.
I can cheat however, since there is good electrical service out there. There is a small Navy base which tests torpedoes and the like nearby and they get grumpy when the power is out for very long. I had a tree come down on the distribution line near my cabin and was pleased at how fast they came out to fix it. Unfortunately, cold bad weather and power outages do tend to come at the same time, so I would probably follow your example and make the pump easy to remove.
I don't think that it gets cold enough for long enough to freeze the water in the tank as long as I bury it a foot or so below the surface and use a riser like you have on your tank.
I know I don't do ten gallons in a minute, but it's not too long to be a bother. Maybe next time ZI'll try to time a ten gallon run. What I can tell you is that, once primed, it takes 10 strokes per gallon. Now I should point out that I am pushing the water uphill a few feet through a hose, 1.5" ID. For best uphill performance a back flow preventer should be installed at the pump. I didn't bother as leaving that out reduces complications (and cost) and I thought I'd try it out first.
If guess you looked at the installation in my cabin topic. If you have anything other specific questions just ask.
The temp there had dropped to a low of 8 degrees sometime before ours froze. It had made it through the 20's with no problems. Anyhow I have a change in mind; I'll post that whenever I get to it. Warm weather has placed it's position on the to=do list a tad further down.
Let us know what you decide to do. I'm still decided on my original plan of pumping the rain water we collect now up to our 600 gallon tank on the hill then having it gravity fed down to the cabin. Or to simply and put a 55 gallon drum under the cabin to pump into the sink with a hand pump.
Right now I'm leaning toward the gravity system since we have the tank that sits unused now, we have a 12v marine utility pump that can just reach the the height of the tank at about 20 feet. Then we would have more pressure and that magic feeling when you turn the tap handle and water comes out. I'm too lazy to run the hoses or pipes right now. I'm leaning towards using garden hoses for simplcity but I know they aren't the best system. Anyone know of a flexible hose that cheap to run 50 feet up the hill then 40 feet back down? I think pvc would eventually crack or get stepped on.
??? Are you aware of the head to PSI relationship?
Each foot of head provides 0.43 PSI, or 2.3 feet provides 1 PSI. So 20 feet head = 8.6 PSI.
So that asks the question, is that 20 foot measurement the height from the faucet to the upper level of the tank or the bottom of the tank? If it is the lower level of the tank 8.6 PSI is all the pressure you'd have as the tank was about to run dry. If the tank was ten feet tall in addition to the 20 elevation that would only add 4.3 PSI when the tank was full (12.9 PSI); hardly what most people would consider adequate.
If you used a large enough diameter line, like 2 inch, the increased volume would help make up for the low pressure. You would need to use use something UV resistant, not white PVC, if it was buried. Gray electrical PVC is UV resistant but it's not rated for potable water. I believe black PVS pipe (the kind that comes in coils) is rated for potable use, just not certain. But it needs to be buried properly as on the surface it will crush and be easily cut. I don't like the idea of garden hose water myself. Not with it sitting there in the sun soaking up waterever from the hose as the water heats in the sun.
Well right now I've got 1 rain barrel about 3.5 feet off the ground to the bottom of it and the tap is about 2.5 feet off the ground. They are connected by a garden hose about 20 feet away and its flows ok, not much pressure but it works for washing dishes. It's probably only 1-1.5 psi. haha so low but it flows.
So If I add 20 feet in height and a 1 1/4" pipe it's going to be a massive improvement I assume. Can I shower with 8.6 PSI? not sure. What's an RV shower normally putting out. Anyway we don't live there so the water only gets used for washing dishes and eventually I'd like to get a wood fired water heater system for showers.
I could move the tank further up the hill I suppose but then my pump couldn't get the water there...
RV water pumps run around 40 PSI.
Many low flow shower heads require 40 PSI to work well.
Maybe it does but I don't think I need anywhere near 40 psi for a shower. Look at this picture. Derek says this solar shower he made works great. It's only 5 gallons of water falling from about 8' feet up. Looks like he's got some kind of shower head or hose nozzle on their. Mine would probably be similar but plumbed into a hot water heater and a large tank way up on the hill. Maybe the key is not using a low flow head.
Now does the pressure double if you have a twice as large pipe going down hill then getting reduced to 3/4"?
(http://relaxshax.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/solar-shower-45.jpg)
http://relaxshax.wordpress.com/2010/01/
That's one think we have going for us in Washington, we got lots of water! Too much most of the time. d*
Sorry Pine Cone, I'll get off your thread.
Don't the neighbors look a bit askew at him taking a shower out there in the middle of the yard? ??? :o ;)
Yeah, we have a camp shower that sort of operates on the same principle.
As for more pressure when you reduce the size of the pipe ... um ... I don't think so... just less flow
Quote from: Solar Burrito on May 11, 2010, 06:07:54 PM
Now does the pressure double if you have a twice as large pipe going down hill then getting reduced to 3/4"?
Pascal's Principle states that a pressure applied to a fluid system at rest is felt equally throughout the entire system. This means that, regardless of pipe diameter, pressure is felt everywhere. Decreasing pipe diameter will only reduce the flow rate of the water.
Increasing the size of the pipe will result in higher flow rate, but the pressure is the same as it would be in a smaller pipe connected to the same source.
The low flow shower head, we have a head that is rated at 1.5 GPM at something like 40 PSI. If I tried to run that off 15 PSI there would not be much more than a trickle more than likely.
On a related idea, many shower heads that restrict flow use the trick of integrating extra air (room air) into the output. The water flow draws the air in much like a hydraulic ram can be used to move water. That air cools the output flow and causes the user to use more hot water. Of course the spray feels like it's doing more. Trade-offs everywhere.
Still working on trim and furniture. Progress is nice, but slow.
I'd thought I would back track and fill in some details on how the walls were built...
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/01_PrepWork.jpg)
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/02-PrepWorkcopy.jpg)
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/03_PrepWorkcopy.jpg)
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/04-Scribe.jpg)
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/05_Scribe.jpg)
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/06_Scribe.jpg)
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/07_Scribe.jpg)
Very cool post; I hope there are more installments! The funny thing is that this method utilizes such short timbers, and yet you started with 34' logs. :)
Quote from: Ernest T. Bass on May 19, 2010, 12:37:14 AM
Very cool post; I hope there are more installments! The funny thing is that this method utilizes such short timbers, and yet you started with 34' logs. :)
I can lift the short timbers, but it is cheaper to buy the long ones...
Here is more...
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/08_Scribe.jpg)
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/09_Scribe.jpg)
More to follow...
Wow, beautiful work. A true craftsman!
How do you like that Granderg Mini-mill? Does it work "as advertized"?
I was thinking of getting one of their mills and basically milling my own "D" shaped logs from large ones - similar to yours - for my next cabin project.
Quote from: JavaMan on May 19, 2010, 11:46:51 AM
How do you like that Granderg Mini-mill? Does it work "as advertized"?
I was thinking of getting one of their mills and basically milling my own "D" shaped logs from large ones - similar to yours - for my next cabin project.
The Mini-mill is OK, but it works best when used in the horizontal position. Their more expensive chainsaw mills would probably be better for milling boards, but the mini-mill works well for making larger timbers.
Been working on inside trim and misc. tasks. Did some pruning, path cleanup, burning, electrical, and other tasks which had been postponed.
My wife was doing some weeding and other gardening work and the birds were making noise like crazy. After about 15 minutes of non-stop robin warning calls I looked around and saw the reason.... They didn't like this guy hanging around near their nest.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/BarredOwl.jpg)
It was a barred owl. I have hear it before, but this was the first time I saw it in our yard. The robins dive-bombed it, eventually chasing it into another nearby tree. It hung out in our yard for about an hour.
Inside is closer to being done. Got the blanket chest into the cabin. Still need to finish window trim, but if the weather is warm enough for finishes to dry quickly tomorrow they will be done by tomorrow night.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/ChestAndBanjo.jpg)
Foxgloves are native weeds here, and they are just starting to bloom. The wild rhododendron's are just about done blooming.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Cabin_June_5_2010.jpg)
The cabin is looking good! Lovely spot.
We have a barred owl that visits us as well. Handsome and scary dude. Apparently they are an aggressive invasive species that is replacing our native spotted owl.
I was looking for a pic I had of one here. My understanding is that he is from ours side but can migrate across the upper midwest to the NW and is better at taking the spotted owl habitat. I think they were crossbreeding as well.
Our Catawba Rhodies have just finished, flame azalea and mt laurel are wrapping up. My wife has foxglove that was in peak last week.
One of our invasives, multiflora rose has been perfuming the region the last couple of weeks.
The barred owl made a brief visit again today before being chased away by angry robins. Can't get no respect... ::)
As a forester in California, Oregon, and now Washington I have been involved with spotted owls almost all of my professional career. I was around spotted owl research studies back in the 1980's when I worked at a research forest.
Spotted owls are finicky eaters and not that aggressive. The barred owl migrated west into habitats the spotted owl wasn't using, and now is displacing the spotted owl. They are similar in size and other characteristics. I'm not sure about barred owls, but spotted owls are cavity nesters, making their home in holes in pretty big trees. Neither seems very bothered by people. Somewhere I have pictures of a spotted owl that hung out in a tree about 10 feet from the edge of the deck off the back side of the house I was living in.
Working on window trim prep this weekend. I decided to splurge and went for some fancy wood... The darker wood is sapele, I am using it for the window sills and trim on two of the three windows. The third window has a sapele window sill, but will have quilted big-leaf maple trim. Here is a pix of most of it...
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/WindowTrimBoards.jpg)
Not warm enough to dry paint very well (actually Minwax WipeOn Poly) so this won't get installed until next weekend. I already built a sapele table which I will move out to the cabin when I get the floor finished.
Window trim is up. The end is in sight! :)
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/WindowTrimEast.jpg)
East Window - you can just barely see the carpenter ant carving on the post to the left of the window.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/WindowTrimSouth.jpg)
South Window
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/WindowTrimWest.jpg)
West Window - another carpenter ant carving on the post to the right of the window.
And we even got some curtains up using alder saplings for the curtain rods.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Curtains.jpg)
Still have one door to trim, but that's only three boards. I got the planer out and make some more finished boards today so I now have enough wood to finish the trim. Outside trim is done. Next step is to finish the basic electrical and the floor. Then on to the stairs for the east door and the basic cabin will be done.
Unfortunately, the plans for new projects seem to be growing at an exponential rate. Get the water tank buried, build a water system, finish the outdoor shower, build a kitchen shelter, storage shed, wood shed, build a new stitch-and-glue rowboat/sailboat, and of course, build the 2nd 14x14 cabin which will house a kitchen and bathroom.
I figure I should have it all done by 2020 or so and then I can figure out what to build next... ::)
Time to finish up the "How to Build Log Infill Walls" saga, complete with a few typos and spelling errors d*
Enjoy :)
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/10_TimbersOnJig.jpg)
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/11_ReadyToTrim.jpg)
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/12_TrimTheWall.jpg)
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/13_GrooveAndBorate.jpg)
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/14_WallAssembyBegins.jpg)
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/15_ScrewTheSillLogDown.jpg)
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/16_EmsealAndInsulation.jpg)
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/17_MoreTimbers.jpg)
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/18_AFinishedWallModule.jpg)
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/19_ModulesTwoThruFive.jpg)
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/20_ModulesSevenToTen.jpg)
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/21_ModuleEleven.jpg)
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/22_CapBeam.jpg)
It was mostly fun, but a lot of work. I started building wall modules on July 19th and got the cap beam on the top of the completed wall modules on October 31. I worked most weekends and most of those were three day weekends with help from my wife for log cleanup, misc prep work, and lots of pre-painting before assembly. On average, it took slightly more than three days to make each wall module. Full/solid modules took longer than the door and window modules.
Mighty impressive there Pine Cone. The interior is stunning. I especially like the lid. [cool] I still have that to do on mine, the wife is leaning toward some faux beams and probably T&G Pine.
Thanks for the kind words Yonderosa
Lots of things going on besides cabin building, including a trip to Montana and Idaho where I saw lots of little cabins and got a glimpse of Dugout Dick's caves south of Salmon, Idaho. Got to spend a couple of nights in an old homestead cabin outside of Salmon. Very nice, but I like mine better ;D
Cabin work is progressing more slowly. Working on the floor install now. Was hoping to get it installed today, but the rented floor-hammer-stapler broke about 8 feet into a 13 foot floor.
I am using a pre-finished, engineered wood floor made of tauari or Brazilian oak. Very nice stuff. It took two years of looking for the right close-out deal, but I managed to pick up 173 square feet of flooring at only 99 cents per square foot. It was one of those total fluke deals. I think the original price was around $6/square foot, but this was all the store had left, and it was only enough for one small room. Lucky for me, it was just the right amount. They recommend you purchase about 5% more than you need, and this batch was 7% bigger than the room.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Tauari_Floor_Install_01.jpg)
I'm pretty sore right now, but with luck I will recover and finish the job tomorrow. If not there is always next weekend. The wood grain and colors vary nicely, and the end result will be much nicer than any floor I've ever lived with. Some minor glitches and dings added during the install, but I think it looks pretty darn nice!
Just shows what you can find if you are both watchful and patient
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Tauari_Floor_Install_02.jpg)
Started working on the cabin walls one year ago tomorrow. Always more work and effort than I optimistically estimate. It will be nice to have the basic cabin finished and at least that end is very much in sight. A bit of flooring, trim, electrical and one porch and stairs to go. I was hoping for a cabin-warming by 4th of July, but now Labor Day looks like a reasonable target.
Floors are done except for trim which I will have to make myself to get it to fit the quirky geometry of the wall/sill plate/floor geometry.
Got a couple of pieces of jatoba, for my door sills. Jatoba a very hard South American hardwood, and pretty cheap. The wood for the two thresholds was less that $15. I finished making and installing them today, and they turned out well. I have always liked wood, especially fancy wood, and figure that for only a slight increase in cost over "normal" wood, having some accent pieces of local and tropical hardwoods adds a lot to the pieces of the house I will look at all the time with only a minor increase in the cost of the cabin.
Here's what it looked like out there today. Flowers in the hanging baskets have been slow to bloom.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/WestInside_July25_2010.jpg)
Jatoba Threshold Closeup
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/DoorThreshold_West2.jpg)
Working on the queen-sized wallbed, but that is going slow. Might get it done by the end of next weekend, but furniture tends to take a long time, especially since there is more finish work than regular construction. I'm using the Create-a-Bed hardware kit. I think Yonderosa used one in his cabin bed as well. Seems to be a pretty good set of hardware and plans.
Finally got the wall bed done today. Built with the Create-a-Bed hardware kit.
Queen size mattress, up against the wall... Takes up very little space which is most welcome.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/WallBed_01.jpg)
On the way down
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/WallBed_02.jpg)
Almost ready for bed...
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/WallBed_03.jpg)
Latest Banjo Project, built from parts. Hank Volk walnut block rim with beach tonering, Rickard Dobson-style brass tonering, Gold Tone neck, misc parts from Stewart McDonald, First Quality Music, and Taisamlu tuners.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/VolkRickardDobsonHotrodCropped.jpg)
Moved some furniture out there today. Getting pretty darn domesticated! The chairs once belonged to my wife's grandfather, the rest of the stuff I made...
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/SEWall_Aug8_2010.jpg)
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/WestWall_Aug8_2010.jpg)
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Bed_w_Comforter.jpg)
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/SouthWallTable.jpg)
A year ago I finished the first wall module and ended the day by smashing one of my fingers with a sledge hammer. Today as much less painful...
Still need to build another porch, stairs, finish some electrical, and get the water tank buried...
Amazingly nice work. Don't you wish you could hear the comments 100 years from now? ;D
Great work Pine Cone-
Love that Murphy Bed.
Thanks :) It took a lot of time and effort to get this far.
As many of you know, you start this stuff with the thought that "Maybe I could..."
Most people either look at you like you are crazy or go along with you just to humor you...
Years pass, $$$ spent, hours of planning, days and months of site work, building and revising...
Nobody sees the vision in your head, and you hope to heck you can pull it off even close to how you envision it...
After about 55 months of work I'm pleased to be able to show a pretty finished result, look down, kick the dirt and think to yourself... "I just might have pulled this whole thing off..."
Heck, my Dad's cousin Ralph did it before I was born. We stayed at his Minnesota cabin in 1959. I guess I figured if he could do it, so could I. Looks like I was right. ;D Only took 51 years d*
Fantastic to read this thread!!! Thank You for sharing it with us all!!!
Irene
Looks great, PineCone! Somehow I missed this thread. You can tell lots of hard work went into your cabin 8)
Thanks for taking time to post all of the detailed instruction, Pine Cone. Your cabin is a beauty. :)
Sweet - but you will find more that needs to be done, it never ends. ;D
Thanks for all the kind words :)
The wall bed passed its use test last weekend. Spending the night and waking up rested sure starts the day right! Got on to a variety of belated chores that we have been ignoring including more outside paint/stain on the stairs and underside of the roof and some electrical work.
Here's a good example of a feature from a bug! While we stored the wood for a few years the carpenter ants moved in a started a nest between a couple of 8x8 posts. We discovered them before too much damage was done, and I decided their work looked interesting enough to highlight. The two posts they carved face each other on opposite sides of the building. Here is the one on the east side... It's about eye-level, but normally hidden by the window curtains.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/CarpenterAntCarvingsOnEastPost.jpg)
Finally got the remaining lights electrified! Lots of rolling around under the cabin running conduit, but not too difficult. The only problem is the electrical outlet on the north wall. The holes I drilled in the logs as I assembled the wall somehow don't quite fit right, so I have been unable to get the wires though the logs from underneath the house. Got a drill bit extension on Sunday to redrill the hole, but forgot to bring the drill and bit so it will have to wait until next week.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/InsideGableLight.jpg)
Weather finally got hot again. The cabin wants to be cooler than the afternoon outside temps, but it is still very nice to have the ceiling fan to keep things cool. Both the ceiling fan lights and gable lights are compact fluorencents which seem to work fairly well. I'll see how they do when the weather gets cold this winter...
Starting on the east door porch and stairs next weekend, and I might be able to cut the boards for floor trim some evening this week. Remaining projects will require bringing out the planer to clean up more boards for cabinets and shelves. With luck there will be a cabin-warming party sometime around Labor Day ;D
Got the east porch and stairs mostly finished this weekend. Still have to put a bunch of rock down on the paths to minimize the dirt tracked into the cabin, and still need to finish the stair railing.
Here the porch is in place and we have started making the new path to the outhouse.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/East_Porch_From_SE.jpg)
Looking south from the NE corner of the cabin
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/HeatherOnEastPorch.jpg)
Looking out the door at the new path to the outhouse
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/NewPath.jpg)
Mostly just little stuff left to do... but there seems to be an endless supply of little projects which keep popping up. ;D
Just a great project with a wealth of well-documented information. Thanks for helping folks who will see this long after you are finished and kicking back. :D :D :D
Just about got the new paths finished. All the inside trim work is now done, and almost all the log-caulking is done as well. Time to start thinking of what needs to be done for this year's winterizing. Gotta move a bunch of wood and re-do the tarps covering it. Still need to get the water tank in, but that isn't urgent.
We turned the table 90 degrees, now you can open either door without having to move the chairs. The bed still folds down without having to move the bench.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Finished_the_Trim.jpg)
Got the bottle opener and fire extinguisher installed. Gotta be ready for beverages... or fires.
Note the log caulk between the timbers. Still need to finish caulking log cracks, but all the larger cracks are on the inside of the cabin by design.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Bottle_Opener.jpg)
Finished re-aligning the path from the cabin to the composting toilet, including finally building some concrete block stairs.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Path_Sept_2010_2.jpg)
Added more stone to the path
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Path_Sept_2010_1.jpg)
Nice having more rocked paths now that the rainy season has started again.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Path_Sept_2010_3.jpg)
Lots of plans for more stuff, water system, storage shed, outdoor covered kitchen area, cob oven, etc. but for now I'm enjoying the acoustics and playing old time banjo in the cabin. Went to American Banjo Camp earlier this month and I have a bunch of new tunes to work on... Here's the first new tune, lots more tunes to learn... http://www.hangoutstorage.com/jukebox.asp?site=Banjo+Hangout&URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.banjohangout.org%2Fmyhangout%2Fmedia-player%2Faudio_player.asp%3Fisjukebox%3Dno%26musicID%3D18451 (http://www.hangoutstorage.com/jukebox.asp?site=Banjo+Hangout&URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.banjohangout.org%2Fmyhangout%2Fmedia-player%2Faudio_player.asp%3Fisjukebox%3Dno%26musicID%3D18451)
Had a nice visit with my oldest sister who hadn't seen the project in person since we finished the covered deck. Ready for more visits as cabin users than cabin builders in the next few months. Deer season starts here in a few weeks so I'll probably be out here the night before the season opens. Too busy building to hunt much last year so I'm looking forward to it. Don't really care if I get a buck, but I sure like walking in the woods.
Wow I love it! Very interesting the carpenter ant sculpture! I like the touch of blued timber here and there - both inside and out.
Nice work Scott. Never ceases to amaze me the variation of music from one region to the other.
Got some help this weekend in restacking timbers and rough-cut lumber so we could consolidate multiple wood piles and put on new tarps before the wet season really begins. Even had the time to take the tarps of the Costco Carport shelter we were storing wood in so that it does not get crushed by winter snows. Lost 3 of them to snow so far on the project, so it is nice to know we just have to put the tarps on this one next spring and we will have extra dry storage. Here is what the wood pile looked like before we covered it.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/ReadyForNewTarps.jpg)
I have the feeling there better be another small building in my future. Just a little bit left over after finishing this one. Must have miscounted something ???
Here is what it looks like now with a blue-tarp makeover
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/BlueTarpWood_100210.jpg)
Got a chance to take a good picture of our hand cart, based on plans by David & Jeanie Stiles in their book "Cabins". Could not have built the cabin without it. With it, you can move half-a-ton pretty easily on flat or downhill grades. Of course, we did try it with heavier loads, but they were not as fun. d*
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/CabinCart.jpg)
Starting to think about furniture designs and winter projects. Now if I just knew where I could find some wood...
Found a used oak armoire on Craigslist which fits the space between the wall and the wall bed pretty well. I was going to build one myself, but it seemed easier to buy it used. Saves me a lot of time and effort, both of which seem to be in short supply lately.
Deer season starts this Saturday, and right now I'd rather go hunting than building much of anything. Not sure if I actually want to shoot anything, but I like the walk-around-in-the-woods-being-attentive part of hunting. Probably spend Friday night out at the cabin and hunt a nearby area Saturday morning.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/OakArmoire.jpg)
I also picked up a mega-BBQ at a fall closeout sale. One side is gas, the other charcoal/wood with a side fire box for smoking. Should provide hours of fun and some great eats as well. Now I really need to build that outdoor kitchen area so I can move it off my porch...
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/BBQ.jpg)
Wow! That's a cooker!!
very nice grill
Enough of this hanging out and enjoying the cabin.
Time to start building again! :)
Started clearing for a storage building/workshop.
We had picked out a building site earlier this year, but it just didn't feel right. A couple of weeks ago I found a better site, and clearing has commenced.
It is fairly level, and in an area where it won't be in the way. I want to build something 10'x18' so I can build kayaks and other boats as well as store some of the kayaks I have already built.
Here is the clearing partly done so you can see what needs more work...
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/StumpsToCut.jpg)
Lots of little-ish 12-18" diameter red-cedar stumps to cut down and then grind with a stump grinder. Got the chainsaw out today and made some progress. Still lots more to do before any foundation work, but winter is a good season to do that sort of work. This is the burning season, so any wood and limb waste is easily disposed of...
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/CutStumps.jpg)
The structure in the back of the photos is an old shelter build over a travel trailer, using a mix of small poles cut off the property covered by cedar shakes made on the property by the previous owner. I has to be at least 30 years old. I added a new layer of OSB and sheet roofing as well as new corregated plastic for the windows, otherwise, it is the original construction.
For the past few years the best thing about winter, to me, is being able to burn slash and other unwanted debris. We have about 20 piles just waiting for good snow cover. ;D
I have to admit that I love the burning season. Lucky for us, it runs from about November through the end of May around here.
I use a propane blowtorch to start my burn-pile fires these days. Much easier than a driptorch filled with a mixture of diesel and gasoline that I used back in the 1980's.
We started out having to clear 1000's of small red alder trees off the property, most between 1 and 3 inches in diameter at the ground. Here's what the property looked like in November 2005... and that's after we had spend weeks cutting and burning alders. You could hardly walk through the property.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Alders_to_cut-1.jpg)
Never would have got the cabin built without a large number of burn piles... This picture is taken from about the same place that I took the picture from last weekend, this is facing west while the recent picture faces north. Quite a difference in five years!
Those alders do grow like weeds here in Western WA! Since my place was logged in 1998, I have a similar infestation, but some are now about 35' tall. I'll have to dig up some pics of my place showing the alders over time, starting in 2007. Just had someone out at my place with a tractor/backhoe yesterday clearing all of the alder stumps for my cabin location. I also had him dig the trenches to fill with gravel where the skids will rest. Thanks for the tips on bracing for skidded structures, by the way!
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Wreath.jpg)
I hope everyone is having a good holiday season. Got some Christmas decorations up out at the cabin this year.
I wanted to thank some of the people who helped make the cabin a reality with some extra hands and critical help on some parts of the project where my wife and I couldn't do it by ourselves
Decided to make some clocks using leftover bits from the cabin along with some small clock inserts from Lee Valley.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/ThankYouClocks.jpg)
Here is a closeup of one of them... Base is a western white pine board from the ceiling and the clock is inset in a piece of sapele leftover from window trim.
The rough cut on the white pine board is from the huge machine which cut down the trees. The machine grabs hold of the tree, cuts it off the stump, and then removes the limbs by rolling the tree up and down. It then cuts it into (mostly) 35 foot log lengths, putting the logs into a stack next to the machine. Most of the trees I used for my cabin were over 100 feet tall and about 16-20 inches in diameter at the stump. As you can see, it leaves a very distinctive cut on the stump cut.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Clock1.jpg)
Started working on making fence rails today, but it raining too much to get much done. I will continue to work at this over the winter months since it is too wet to do much of anything else.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Rail_Fence.jpg)
Hope everyone has a great and productive New Year!
Cool clocks. Reminds me I have some movements I should do something with. :-[
With Spring finally getting here the 2011 building season has started. Spend the Winter cutting down unwanted trees and burning slash and debris. Decided to get serious about clearing potential hazard trees left around the cabin before they get too big. Also doing lots of plant and garden related clearing as well to get more light to areas where we have planted tree seedlings and ornamental plants.
Discovered that Don was right about small propane tanks in cold weather. Almost no heat from the propane torch when it's 20 degrees out. Same setup works great when it's 50 out.
Here's a look at this springs flowers.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Daffodils2011.jpg)
The new porch works great for a little pickin' & grinnin'
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/BanjoPickinPorch.jpg)
Made some hand-carved spoons from maples I cut down earlier.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/MapleSpoonBack.jpg)
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/MapleSpoonFront.jpg)
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/MapleSpoonSide.jpg)
Finally started some new construction, it started out as a firewood storage area but has since evolved into a small (6x8 foot) storage shed. Trying to get the basics done before a family camping trip out here on Memorial day weekend... Tucked into a little flat spot with no stumps!
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/StorageShed01.jpg)
Been pretty lazy this year, more interested in gardening and playing clawhammer banjo out at the cabin rather than in building much.
Had a bunch of mutant peloric foxgloves this year. The stem develops a terminal flower that opens up much wider than the normal flower.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/PeloricFoxglove.jpg)
Shed work has been slow but steady. Not enough pre-planning on this one and it shows. It will be known as the "Crooked Shed" since the walls lean to the east...
Got the roof sheathing on and then used some leftover synthetic underlayment since I knew it would take me a while to get shingles on it.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Framework.jpg)
Building it somewhat backwards, finished the inside so we could fill it with stuff before the family Memorial Day campout.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/InsideWallsDone.jpg)
Got the door on it last weekend and it is now lockable, but still needs most of the exterior board-and-battens put on. Easier to paint them first. The exterior is just rough-milled boards milled from our cabin logs. I'm not bothering to plane then, just brush off the exterior and paint them before installing them on the shed. FiddleTunes in Port Townsend this weekend so I doubt that I will get the exterior done for another week or three.
Here's what is looks like right now...
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/SomeBoards.jpg)
Clawhammer with the banjo is much more relaxing than a clawhammer with nails and boards. Although mine is not nearly finished we sort of rushed the opening of the cabin Saturday. Started a fire in the outside fireplace, roasted hot dogs and then Steven and a few others musicians provided the entertainment for the evening. Good time.
We're hoping to have a cabin-warming sometime in the next month or so. For anyone here who would like to come and visit this project PM me and I'll send you more info. A little over an hour's drive from either the Kingston or Bremerton ferry terminals.
Almost time to fire up the smoker and enjoy the summer. Temporary pause on the summer-thing for now, back to rain and low 60s. Don't know if we will ever get ripe tomatoes or not... Back to the 70s this weekend.
:( I'd be signing on if our original summer plans had gone better. We'd planned a west and PNW trip, but I don't feel like it with my jaw being wired shut and all.
Quote from: MountainDon on July 07, 2011, 11:18:44 PM
:( I'd be signing on if our original summer plans had gone better. We'd planned a west and PNW trip, but I don't feel like it with my jaw being wired shut and all.
I hope the jaw-healing is going well. In any case, if you ever do make it up this way I'd be glad to show you around.
@Pine Cone - awesome story. Just read the whole thread. You've got a good thing going!
@MountainDon - what happened to your jaw? I had mine wired shut once for 6 weeks. Got Mono at the same time which was bitter sweet - suppressed my appetite for 5.5 weeks ... But I lost 30 lbs and had no energy.
duncanshannon - thanks! its been an interesting project
Finally progress on getting our 350 gallon water tank in the ground. Have a neighbor with a tiny excavator and we talked about him digging me a hole last year, again earlier this year, and finally he called on Friday saying he was ready.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/DiggingHole_01.jpg)
Didn't need anything fancy, just a roundish hole about 5 feet in diameter and 4 feet deep with a drainage ditch running downhill out of the hole to keep the tank from floating.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/DiggingHole_02.jpg)
Here is the end result. Cost me a whopping $40. Best money I have spent all year. When I am ready he will come back again to help get the tank in the hole and rebury it. He will lift it up with the excavator which should take all the hardship out of it. Then I just have to fill it.
So for any of you who have done this sort if thing in the past... is there any good way to clean the tank inside before it is burried? Do you need to clean the inside? Haven't come up with a good method yet, but I am open to suggestions about what we might do. The only constraint is it can't take more than 10-20 gallons of water to do it.
PC being that you do not have an outlet low in the tank you are only left with one option. I would put about 10 gal or so of water and about 1 pint of bleach. If you have got a flexible brisstle brush like a car wash brush you can lay it on it's side using the brush to clean a side portion, roll and continue until you have went around all the interior. The tank is probably not that heavy that you can't tilt it up to pour out the water. I use 350Gal square tanks which have a low outlet so it was easier to dump the water. I also used a high pressure sprayer. But I only had a 6" top hole to manuver through.
Looks like our tank. :D I washed it out with a hose at home before hauling it up to the mountains. Not sure if it wash necessary as it was clean in appearance. ??? The first water I stored in it was all chlorinated from home as well.
That probably didn't help you out much did it?
Got a nice Christmas surprise.
My copy of Lloyd Kahn's almost available "Tiny Homes - Simple Shelter" book.
My cabin project is on pages 30 and 31.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/TinyHomesBook.jpg)
Haven't had time to do more than glace at it, but it looks like another great book from Shelter Publications.
I even got a copy of the very tiny 1 15/16"x 2 5/8" Tiny Homes book. You can actually read it with the help of a magnifying glass!
The text and pictures used in the Tiny Homes book came from this website. Thanks for everyone's encouragement and advice.
Extra thanks to John Raabe for hosting the Country Plans website. It is a valuable source of info and support as well as some great house plans!
[cool] congrats PC.
Not much progress lately, too many other things going on.
Ended up getting a new house which is actually closer to the cabin, but now we just have unfinished projects at more places... d*
Working on making a rustic kitchen worktable for the new house. Bought a 3'x6' maple butcher block workbench top from Grizzly. I was going to make a maple base, but got side-tracked. Finally decided to make a prototype using 2x4s and 4x4s from Home Depot, and it looks the part so we may stop here. Still needs to be sanded and my wife want to paint it white with a white-washed, distressed look.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Table1.jpg)
Assembled with Kreg pocket screws. The best quick and reasonable joint I know of.
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/Table_PocketScrews.jpg)
Next major cabin project is to finish the cistern. My drain ditch isn't working as well as I wanted so we never got the tank in the ground. I as afraid it might float up out of the hole, so I need to get my teenaged son or my neighbor with the backhoe to dig the drain ditch deeper. right now it has about 18" of water in the bottom.
My neighbor logged the property across from mine last fall so I now have a filtered water view. Won't last though, the trees grow too fast around here.
The not-so-new shed is almost finished, but it got too cold to paint the remaining boards, so we are waiting warmer weather. Boards are mostly up, just need to put the battens on. The roof overhang is large enough that the walls never seemed to get wet, and there is tarpaper whch won't get too damaged with a bit of blown in moisture.
Really nice that the cabin is finished enough that we finally get to go out to relax, rather than finish the latest project.
Congrats on being included in Lloyd Kahn's book! Looks like he used a nice spread of photos of your place. Enjoy that view while it lasts. My new place was selectively logged around 2004 and never replanted, so I'll be thinning alders in the cleared areas for as long as I'm here. Thankfully I've still got some nice cedars, big leaf maples, hemlocks, and a few areas of big doug firs, some in the 3-4' dbh range.
Not much cabin building going on these days, but I have been getting setup for poultry again. Haven't had ducks or chickens in over a decade. Nice to be back raising birds again. Still have to wait a few months until we get some eggs.
Still needs some paint, but the chicken ark is finally done!
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/ChickenArc3.jpg)
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/ChickenArc4.jpg)
Got a batch of mixed bantam chickens from Murry McMurray
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/ChickenArc5.jpg)
And some ducks from our local farm supply store
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/ducks01.jpg)
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/ChickenArc6.jpg)
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/ChickenArc7.jpg)
Still need to build some nest boxes, but they won't be ready to lay until mid-August so there is no real hurry
(https://i753.photobucket.com/albums/xx172/Pine_Cone/ChickenArc8.jpg)
Awesome, just Awesome PC!
Pretty cool :) I need one of those! Probably make my lawn look great!
Got some ducks a week ago and now I need to build something for them. Different food than the chickens at least for the next few weeks. The Pekin's more than doubled in size in a week. Khaki Campbell's are growing a bit slower. So far the chicken tractor/ark is working well.