I Built a Log Cabin From Scratch For Under $11,000

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The first major piece of equipment I acquired was the sawmill. I knew I couldn't afford a new one, and even the used ones were beyond by means. So I started building one. For $100 I bought a burned mobile home with a 72' long frame, which I narrowed to make sawmill parts, including a 42" diameter saw blade and an old hand-crank Case engine. (I ran an ad for one in a statewide farmer bulletin and bought one for $800.) In addition, I bought some scrap automotive and lawn and garden equipment, and then built a sawmill that would produce boards or logs up to 18" wide and 35' long.

"The Thing" & Other Equipment

Next came a loader for handling the timber, logs, and boards. I purchased a 1962 GMC two-ton truck for $200 and converted it into a loader with forks capable of lifting 2,000 pounds, up to twelve feet high. The loader was also suitable for dragging the large trees we needed out of the woods. I converted the truck into a loader by removing the entire cab and then reinstalling the steering wheel, pedals, a homemade instrument panel, and a driver's seat from an old school bus in the center of the chassis, directly over the transmission and facing the rear. By turning the driving position backwards, I made the dual-wheeled rear axle now the front axle, so that the loader could be operated like a forklift. The original rear-axle springs were removed, and the axle was rigidly mounted for better stability.

For improved traction, I used pieces from the front-end loader of an old farm tractor to fabricate a lift with forks that would carry the weight on what was previously the rear drive axle. Basically, I turned the driving position backwards from what it originally was, so that the drive axle and forks are now in the front, and the wheels in the back do the steering. It sounds confusing, but it's easy to drive around, as long as you remember that it steers in exactly the opposite direction as a normal vehicle. Our loader is affectionately known as "The Thing," and is by far the most versatile and useful piece of equipment that we've used throughout the entire building process.

The next item on my list was a truck and trailer for moving cut trees back to the sawmill. I was able to borrow a two-ton truck from my father, and I built a 30'-long trailer from 2-by-5-inch steel tubing and covered it with pressure-treated lumber. We were a sight to see, riding down I-75 with 12'-long logs in the back of the truck, a 30'-long trailer loaded with logs, and "The Thing" on a tow bar bringing up the rear.

An end trimmer, used to cut boards to a specific squared length, was next on my list. I didn't consider this a necessity, but it sure did save time when it came to cutting a whole truck-load of boards to length at one time. Without the trimmer, we would have had to mark each board individually, and then square and cut them to length one at a time using a circular saw. I found an end-trimmer that had been built in the early '30s, but had long since been junked for $50. After making minor repairs and mounting an eight-horsepower engine on it, the chain-fed end-trimmer could cut both ends of a board square to any length between 4' and 18' in a matter of seconds.

Like I said, this wasn't an absolute necessity, but it certainly made life easier.

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