Sunday, September 19, 2010

Stuffing it

I used up the last of my workable cement mix yesterday and only covered a little more than half of one short wall. By my estimates in order to daub the entire cabin this way would require an additional 800 lbs of dry cement mix. Not very encouraging.
On the interior I have been experimenting with canned spray foam insulation. I bought three cans and sealed up part of two walls with it. I know this is terribly unauthentic material but something tells me if Daniel Boone could have gotten his hands on this stuff he would have been on it like flies on honey. The color is not great and the bead can be very uneven.
I put some of this on Thursday evening and trimmed it up Yesterday morning. Once it has been trimmed and or sanded it will take stain. 

I did a quick test with some stain to see what it would look like and I have to say for reasons of time and economy this will probably be the way I go to finish sealing the cabin. At least temporarily for the winter. I may still panel the interior with barn wood eventually and I may still mud the exterior someday but for now I'm going to concentrate on sealing up the interior with this stuff.

3 comments:

  1. I have totally considered using that stuff!!! They make a black, outdoor version that is designed for water feature/pond rocks and such, but I haven't found it locally.

    I was thinking about nailing in strips of ripped planing and then using that for the difference.

    I might just wait till spring, hammer in 2.5" finish nails with a Paslode, bend them toward the top log, and then mash in chinking.

    The designer synthetic chinking and caulk and backer rod just seems to violate the spirit of my cabin, certainly yours, and is waaaaay expensive.

    Let me know how this turns out!

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  2. I really like that your making a cabin out of fallen trees! i personally am somewhat of a tree hugger and i've always hated the idea of cutting trees down. i read over some of your blog and i think its great. Also it must be very hard to even find sufficient logs, little lone work with them effectively! Kudos to you! keep up the good work!

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  3. Thank you!
    It was a real challenge to collect enough fallen trees to build the cabin. I had to adjust my plan several times to accommodate what I had to work with. I am envious of those who can pick and choose logs based on size and straightness but it was important to me to leave the healthy trees in tact. Additionally I avoided using any standing dead trees that had signs of habitation. There are at least a half dozen snags on the property that would have been nice to harvest but they were obviously home to someone already so I left them alone.

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