An Introduction to Log Construction

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

OK, if you're going to build your own log house, first you'll have to lay a better and larger foundation than you'd need for a conventional home, because a log wall is typically four times as heavy as a frame one. Poplar, to be specific, weighs 32 pounds per cubic foot . . . oak weighs 47 pounds per cubic foot . . . and white pine weighs 27 pounds per cubic foot. The county regulations around here require a foundation that's 8" thick and 16" wide, but we gave this craft cabin one that's 12" thick and 20" wide. What's more, we beefed it up with 1/2" reinforcing rod running around the perimeter. (We also pinned the corners of the bottom logs to the stem wall with 3/8" hot-rolled steel pins—cut to length from 20-foot sections—to keep the building from shifting sideways.)

It took 75 logs, each 25 feet long, to make the craft shop. As you can imagine, toting those timbers was quite a task, so we made a two-wheeled hauling rig—it looks like the bottom half of a capital "H"—out of 5" steel pipe. We straddled it over some logs, used a winch to pick the wood up, and pulled it along with a tractor. The device cost us about $250 to make, and we think it's a useful thing to have if you're going to haul a lot of logs.

When it came time to peel the trees (which isn't always necessary or desirable, as I'll explain later), we started with two guys using drawknives. It took the pair of them about 45 minutes to skin each log . . . and after two days of that work, both men threatened to quit. So we made three different types of log-peelers in the shop and tried each of those. The one that works best is nothing but an old truck spring that's been sharpened on one end and welded to a piece of pipe on the other. The whole thing's attached to a hoe handle. You could make one for $4.00 or $5.00 (store-bought peelers cost about $48). With this tool, one person can skin a round in about 15 minutes. The implement is heavy enough to enable a worker to push it through small knots on a log . . . and if the front edge starts to cut in too deep, he or she can just lean back on the handle, and it'll come up.

The next major task was getting the logs up on the building. We placed the first two courses by hand, but since those timbers weigh 500 to 600 pounds apiece, the job led to a lot of sore backs. So we tried propping poles against the cabin and rolling the logs up. That worked well, but we could do it only on one side of the building, since there were trees on two other sides and a creek on the fourth. To solve the problem, we ran a cable between two trees, tensioned it with a turnbuckle . . . then used a block and tackle hanging from a snatch block on the cable to winch the logs up. (I do have to admit that, when it came time to place the two 52-foot logs that run along the roof line on the cabin there, we cheated . . . and used a tractor.)

I figure you'd need about the same amount of time to build a house by either the chink or the full-scribe method . . . because although it'd take you longer to fit the logs if you went the full-scribe route, you wouldn't have to chink the gaps afterward.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print