Ridge cap, daubing and paneling

First project this weekend was to put a ridge cap on the seam of the roof. $20.00 investment but should prevent water from damaging the ridgepole.

Next up was a test of the cement mix and unfortunately moisture has contaminated it over the years. It was more like gravel than cement mix. I pulverized it with a hammer and mixed it up just the same but it doesn't have the right consistency anymore and doesn't appear to be drying well. Also, a quarter of the mix only filled the gaps between six courses of logs on one short side of the cabin. Another solution may be necessary to seal up the cabin.

Knowing that the hardest part of daubing would be the gables I returned to the rafters of the garage and found some old floor boards that had been squirreled away years ago. I trimmed them up and used them to panel the interior gables. This will at least reduce the amount of daubing needed to seal up the gables.

Despite the disappointment of the cement mix the cabin is in practical terms, very close to finished! Most of what I have left to do is cosmetic. I may decide to panel the interior walls if I can find enough old barn wood or other satisfactory paneling to do it.

Chinking

I spent the better part of Saturday and Sunday wedging sticks into the gaps between courses of logs. For the really large gaps I split small Sassafras logs into quarters. Sassafras is very soft wood, splits nicely and smells like root beer!

As you can see I also got the door and shutters for the window hung. Nice bug and rot resistant Ceder left in the rafters of the garage. I used some old cupboard hinges to hang them. After getting the wood chinking, door and shutters finished I decided it was finally time to check out the bags of cement that have been living under the workbench for the last eight years. I had been putting it off because I didn't really want to know if it was unusable.

Turns out the cement wasn't the only thing living under the workbench! A nice healthy Black Rat Snake had taken up residence in one of the open bags of cement. Looks like some mice had been living in it before him. I chased him off with a broom stick and low and behold the cement is still workable. There are three part bags and one unopened bag, all together probably 200 lbs of dry cement mix. Next weekend I'll start sealing up the chinking.

Today I raised my colors to celebrate the beautiful weather and the fact that the snake didn't bite me. Happy  Labor Day!

Please Be Careful

Last night we had our first good soaking rain since the roof went up. First thing this morning I walked my dog down to the cabin to see how the roof fared. To my amazement the walls both inside and out were dry along with the interior floor. I found that to be a great piece of luck considering the walls are not chinked yet, the roof has no ridge cap and I had no idea how far to extend the sheet metal to keep the exterior walls dry. 

As I stood inside the cabin drying off and listening to the rain fall on the tin roof I was thinking this bit of luck was just the latest in a long string that started the day I dropped the first dead tree. Almost every phase of this project could be categorized as Extremely Dangerous.

It is no small miracle that I didn't die, or permanently injure myself, considering how little I understood about what I was planning to do. I took no safety instruction courses and my only experience with the chainsaw and axe was limited to cutting firewood. As I've fumbled along over the past few months I have learned that there are literally hundreds of courses on these skills and schools dedicated to log cabin building.

With all this in mind I thought it was time to clarify what exactly it is I'm doing with this blog. It is a "Brag Book". I started it with the intention of sharing my experience with friends and family who are unable to visit, sit around the cook fire and listen to me spin yarns about how I did it. As with every aspect of the project I have turned the journal into more than I thought it would be. 

In less than three months I have had over 1680 visitors who have made over 2600 visits from 49 different countries! At one point in July over 500 people a week were visiting. 

So ... I'm concerned that someone could get hurt. Of course I hope every visitor learns something and is inspired to get outdoors and learn more but I don't want anyone to consider this a "how to". Especially if your thinking of doing this alone like I did. It is dangerous and no one can help you if you make a mistake.

I am by any definition a novice and my cabin can only be considered amateur. Even my design's structural integrity is untested. There are many things I would have done differently if I could start over. Proper training and tools foremost. I do hope I have inspired and entertained but I don't want anyone to consider this a tutorial or instructions. 

Thank you all for joining me on this journey and I hope your enjoying it half as much as I am. Be safe!

Roof!

Three weeks behind schedule but no less satisfying, the roof is on!

I had to splurge and buy ten dollars worth of sheet metal roofing fasteners for this job. They have sharp ends like nails to puncture the sheet metal, threads like screws to turn into the wood and hex heads like bolts so you can use a wrench to tighten them. I put about seventy of these little guys into the roof. Below you can see the green heads of the fasteners. They also have a neoprene washer that seals up the hole as you tighten them.

I know hand split shakes would have been much more authentic but I kinda dig the 1930's depression era grunge look of the sheet metal.

In other news, Kent Griswold posted another House of Fallen Timbers update on his Tiny House Blog for August. Thanks Kent! Also, I registered the blog on the Nature Blog Network. It's a great listing of blogs on all things nature, lots of birders and other flora and fauna related topics!

Purlins, Gables and Ridgepole

Hands down the toughest job so far. As I mentioned before I had to re-design the roof plan based on the lack of suitable dead trees left on the property. I had to scrap plans for a loft over the porch that would have given me an additional 15 or so feet of storage space but I was still able to gable the roof. 

 The first  big challenge was to get the purlins up on the walls. I'm 82 inches high at the corners now so I had to lift these logs over my head to get them up on the walls. These are the Hackberry logs I floated up the river, they are strong, straight and heavy. The largest is 9 inches at the butt and 8 inches at the tip. All are ten feet in length. The ridgepole stands ten feet off the cabin floor. 

I used Cherry, Box Elder and Elm for the gables. I have some left over scraps of bridge decking I will be using as makeshift rafters. Those are the boards you see laid across the purlins. Cutting off the ends of the gable course logs at an angle with the pitch of the roof is extremely difficult, as you can see I still have to get the back side gable trimmed up. The sheeting you see on the side of the cabin is the corrugated metal I'll be using for the roof. The previous owner of the property left around fifty sheets like these stacked up on the side of the garage.

I slid the metal up to see if my rafter scheme will work. Not ideal but it does look like I can make it work. I hope to get the gables trimmed up and the rafters nailed down next weekend. Who knows maybe I'll even get some sheet metal tacked down!

Last Round Up

Friday evening I hiked the entire property and made a treasure map of every fallen or standing dead tree the size I can use. The news wasn't good. I had to re-design the roof based on what I have left to work with. On Saturday I rounded them up and hauled them to the site. I left no stone unturned as they say, one of the fallen trees was hanging over the river, its root ball still attached to the bank. I dropped it and floated it upstream using the water to carry it. Real lumberjack style.

I'm sure this river has been used before to move lumber but I would bet it was a very long time ago.

I got two logs out of the tree and pulled them about fifty yards upstream to a less daunting embankment, closer to the cabin. I ended up with six twelve foot fairly strait logs by   the end of the day. All six have at least a 6 inch diameter at the tip. Today I cut six notches and stacked three logs. The walls are just under seven feet around and I plan to start on the roof next weekend. Weather was pretty good for felling, hauling and notching. My wade up the river was perfect. The temp is like bathwater in August. All in all a great weekend and a real treat to be finished felling and hauling logs.