[Cob] logs from land, land

[Amanda Peck]

LAND--might check out the United Country listings.  I did, bought either the 
first or second piece of property I saw, but that's rare!  And the other 
location was pretty ghastly.  In rural areas, the franchise may be one of 
only three or four real estate people in the county.  DON'T buy land 
sight-unseen.  DO have a local friend check it out with you in tow.  I 
understand that the book on buying rural land is still pretty useful.

This area of Tennessee isn't bad.  Land prices have gone up stunningly in 
the last couple of years, though.

http://www.unitedcountry.com/

Lucky Luanna, with lots of poplar!  Fast growing, easy to work, pretty.

LOG WORK

I thought I had enough logs downed by the bulldozer to use for a log room 
under a pole barn (I didn't).  A friend of mine's brother was a log cabin 
man at loose ends--Tim.  This is what he did.

First, it was good that they were winter cut, although spring cut can be a 
whole lot easier to peel--you can make berry baskets out of poplar bark, 
taking off the whole bark in one piece.

We didn't--put them into the truck--this could be a serious hassle if you 
wanted logs longer than the bed of your truck, and besides green logs are 
HEAVY (one of my neighbors turned over his log truck, partly because of his 
habit of getting "just one more" log  on the truck) take them to the 
sawmill, then, if they're not connected, reload the truck and take the sawed 
logs to the dry-kiln, have them--in this case--do final milling, bring them 
back home.  Extra time, hassle, and, yes, cost which I didn't look at--made 
this seem impractical, and in this case, unnecessary.  If you had access to 
a log truck and some sort of crane to put logs onto the truck, it would be 
much much easier.

I do know people who are making a bit of a fetish of using round logs.  The 
Hand-Sculpted House has a bit on the subject.  There is definitely something 
to be said for using wood from your own property, as opposed to--we're 
getting them in this heavy wood products area, with a mill not fifty miles 
away!--dimensional lumber from AUSTRIA.

He cut the logs approximately to length, peeled them, stacked them off to 
the side to let them start to dry, and so he could do the foundation.

Set them (vertically, can use smaller logs easily that way) on a foundation 
(rubble trench to ground level, block for two aboveground courses) with 
flashing and a 2x plate.

Cut them to the right length, looked to see how they were going to fit 
(biggest logs in the corners), used a home-made jig and a chainsaw to even 
the sides a bit, screwed them to the plate and each other with landscape 
screws.

After they've done with their checking and drying, I'm chinking, going to 
oil--both logs and chinking--with linseed oil.

This, I understand, with the exception of using vertical instead of 
horizontal logs, is how the logs were used in traditional log houses.  
Although they were probably on a post or pier foundation.

If, instead of "a" room, I had interior walls, I might well have done the 
foundation thing--probably without the drain, with the tamping and filling, 
and block up to floor level, with a plate, under the interior walls, 
definitely under a fireplace or wood-stove area.  With a non-loadbearing 
wall out of light clay or something, maybe just tamping for the floor would 
be enough.  A tractor with a post-hole auger (12" because I had this use in 
mind) does a pretty good job of digging in our rock-and-silt soil.  We made 
lots and lots of holes.

Then, a doubled 2x top plate, rafters out of 2x material, very 
straightforward. We didn't even consider using my logs for this.  There is 
very little shrinkage of lumber lengthwise--it's pretty well been mushed 
down by the weight of the tree.  But there can be a lot, and it varies from 
species to species, horizontally--through the diameter.  If you can wait for 
months for pretty complete drying to occur, or have access to a (sawmill 
and) dry-kiln, go for it, cut the top and bottom off so that the log sits 
evenly and go for it.

LINKS:

Drawknife.  Kim found one at her local hardware store.  My log cabin guy, 
Tim, found his at old tool auctions.  If neither of those work, Lee Valley 
Tools has them--look for one they class as suitable for peeling logs--at
www.leevalley.com
Good service from them, by the way--they are in Canada.  There are other 
sources on-line, some looked good,  make a search, but don't buy one of the 
drawknives used for chair spindles.  Too small and delicate for logs.

Jig.  Here's Tim's.  He set it around the log, screwed the jig in so that it 
cut off what he wanted it too, put  blocks on the chainsaw so that it rode 
easily on the jig.  Can't do it with all chain saws, I gather.
"http://groups.msn.com/ap615/spring2003.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=250"
If you go back to photos you can see more of the project.

Here's a commercial jig link, no experience with it.  There are others.
"http://www.haddontools.com/lumbermaker.html"

But I think there's another one somewhere, can't find the link right 
now--Kim sent me the link to a metal tool that looks a lot like Tim's 2 x 4 
jig, but which may not require fiddling with the chainsaw.

Here's the booklet on Alaska Log Cabins.  It's not as easy as he makes it 
sound, he assumes you have forest instead of logged-20-years-ago woods,  
but.....
http://www.alaskacabin.net/

I haven't gone looking for them, but I'm sure there's lots of information on 
using round logs on line.


............
Luanna Dycus, Jill, and others are asking about round logs, milled logs, and 
in general logs from the land--using them for parts of one's house.

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