Timber Framing a North Idaho Cabin

2009-10-20T17:11:00.000-07:00

I've made some more progress on the windows, interior, and exterior siding. I've now got all but the large South picture window installed. The woodstove and hearth are installed and working. This project is close to being finished!

Here is a view of the Northwest corner of the cabin. You can see the windows, wood stove an hearth:

A close-up of the Jotul wood stove and hearth. The hearth is made from a monolithic slab of sedimentary stone, 3" thick and weighing close to 350lbs! It makes a great hearth for the stove and looks great. I've found that its hard to go wrong when you're building with real timber, stone, and iron...

The East wall is getting stud framed, and should be done with only a few more hours of work. I started by framing out the window cavities and hanging the windows. The top window is for the loft. Both of these windows are new, inexpensive single-hung windows that match the windows on the West wall. You can also see that the North side of the building is completely sided now:

From the inside, the stove pipe is centered between the two West windows:

From below, you can see the light coming in via the two East windows and the doorway:

Here is the assembled cedar log bed up in the loft. I've got things covered in plastic until the sawdust settles down. :-)

Here you can see the loft window relative to the cedar bed:

From the loft, looking down at the wood stove, stone hearth, and Western windows. This cabin is now cheery and well-lit, and the rough opening for the biggest, South-facing window is not even cut yet!

Several more days of work to go. Hopefully the weather will hold. I am nearly certain that I will be unable to side the South wall as I am running out of salvaged and weathered board and batten siding. That will most likely have to wait until next year.

2009-10-14T16:27:00.000-07:00

I've made more progress on the siding and windows! The North wall has been completely framed, insulated, and tyvek'd and about 1/2 sided. There is one window on the North wall with a great view of Moscow Mountain.

Here is the Northwest corner detail of the cabin:

Here is the window on the North wall. Since this is an old-fashioned picture window which I salvaged and restored, it seemed that the best way to make it work was to build a proper window sill. You can see that here in this picture:

The wood stove is installed and is completely functional! Here is a picture of the chimney coming out of the West wall and then going up past the end of the gable. It extends exactly 3' above the peak of the roof.

I had to build a piece of exterior framing to help support the chimney, since the chimney extends more than 1' past the exterior of the cabin in order to miss the gable-end overhang. I intend to sheath that piece of exterior framing in wood, probably cedar.

Today was the last day that I will be able to bring heavy materials up to the cabin job site until June 2010. It rained all night, and the Jeep trail was too muddy to make it up the hill without winching. It took an enormous amount of time and patience to get this final load of board-and-batten siding up to the cabin. I did it inch by inch by pulling my Jeep and trailer up the hill using my winch. It is hard to see from this picture how ridiculously steep this trail actually is.

When the weather improves, its more framing, insulating, and siding. I'll just have to hike up to the hill now to continue the work.

2009-09-29T17:55:00.001-07:00

I've more-or-less finished one whole exterior wall! This wall faces the Northwest and gets the most weather. It took far, far more work than I expected, but I like how it turned out!

The patch of tyvek housewrap is covering the thimble hole for the wood stove chimney. The chimney will exit the wall at that point and then go up and mount to the exterior of the cabin. I preferred this solution to cutting a hole in ceiling/roof.

I used salvaged pine board and batten siding, most of which came from a dismantled granary in Potlatch, Idaho. I love the weathered look of that siding! Most of this pine siding is over 75-100 years old and still going strong!

After I finished the 2x4 stud frame, I cut out the rough window openings and installed the windows. I then installed all of the insulation (recyled Denim insulation from UltraTouch), followed by 1x4 horizontal pine nailers over the insulation. This was followed by a layer of tyvek over all of that, followed by the board and batten siding.

Much of the time involved with this wall had to do with scribing and cutting trim and siding (with a hand saw) around the window trim and exposed purlins and rafters. Much time was spent clipping into a climbing rope, climbing up the ladder, hauling up a piece of trim or siding, test fitting a piece of siding, climbing back down the ladder, cutting some more, clipping in and climbing up and screwing the boards and battens in place. I expect the eave walls to go much, much faster since it does not involve such heights/ladders/climbing harnesses.

Today I attached cedar fascia/bargeboard and I carefully caulked around all the windows and trim.

I've got a couple more hours of work to get the woodstove and chimney installed and then its on to framing and finishing the North eave wall.

2009-08-17T09:16:00.000-07:00

I've made some more progress on the exterior, non-structural stud frame. I've been focusing on the Northwest wall, since it gets the brunt of the weather: I want to make sure that gets done and sided before winter sets in. This side is the tallest and most awkward to work, so it will be great to get this wall done.

I've got a skirt framed around the whole cabin on all four sides. The top of this skirt roughly corresponds to the top of the timber-framed girts which ring the whole cabin.

The door is framed in and hung:

I finally got two rough openings for two windows framed in. I've opened up one of the rough openings:

Its great to *FINALLY* have real light and fresh air coming into the cabin.

A view of the window opening from the atop the loft:

You can see Moscow Mountain in the distance through this window:

The natural light in the cabin is a welcome change. It really cheers up the place!

I probably have 4-5 full days of stick framing left to go. And then its on to insulating and siding.

2009-07-20T22:22:00.000-07:00

The cabin door is hung!

I finally decided that it was time to get the proper cabin door installed. Now that door is fully framed inside and out, I started by placing 3/4" cedar around the entire rough opening.

This process took quite awhile and it took hours of hand planing to remove enough wood to get a workable opening for the door.

While I was planing the cedar door jambs, Peter and Sadie came over to help for awhile. They helped by mounting a deadbolt into my custom made ledge and batten door:

I really appreciated their help, as it shaved a couple hours off the project. It turned out great!

Next, I installed the pintles into the door jamb. These are custom-made wrought iron pintles from blacksmiths at Horton Brasses. They hold large wrought iron strap hinges. I mortised these pintles into the door jamb, and I think it turned out nicely.

I then hung the door! Sounds simple, but it took some time.

Here is a view of the closed door from the exterior.

And the door when it sits open:

The black deadbolt turned out to be a nice and simple solution. I still need to attach a handle to the door.

Interior pictures of the exterior of the door. This door swings inward.

Some interior pictures of the interior of the door:

Getting this door hung and locked seems like a major milestone in this cabin project!

2009-07-12T18:39:00.000-07:00

I've started the last large sub-project: building the exterior stud frame. The idea here is to construct a non-structural frame which provides space for insulation as well as windows and door framing.

I started by lag bolting 4x4 beams to the sill plates. This provides a strong and stable ledge upon which the rest of the stud frame can sit. I fear that unless there is a super stable ledge like this, the exterior frame might sag over time.

The studs are on 24" centers. The first part of the exterior frame extends from the 4x4 ledge to a plate which sits at approximately the same height as the tops of the interior 4x7 girts. This wraps around the entire cabin, uninterrupted except at the door opening.

Once the window framing is in place, I will cut out window openings.

It is slow going. Its going to take me several full days to complete this process and do it right. However, I am excited to finally get the window openings framed so that I can cut out the openings and get a lot more light into the cabin!

I will infill the studs with insulation and cover with either 30# roofing felt, Tykvek, or both. I'll place horizontal 1x4 nailer over that and then put up the board and batten siding over that.

Simultaneous to all of this work, I've restored three large picture windows that I salvaged when we performed a house remodel in 2005. This restoration involved scraping glazing and paint, re-glazing the windows, replacing glass panes, and painting the windows. I find window restoration to be miserable work, but I think the old windows will look perfect in this cabin.

2009-07-12T18:11:00.000-07:00

The interior is mostly done, with the exception of the windows, window sills, and trim.

I got the remainder of the flooring installed, I got the ladder/stairs installed, and I got the loft railing secured and installed. This cabin is usable, although working doors and windows would be nice at this point.

The loft railing and the stairs were pre-fabricated in my workshop, but with only a little bit of planing, everything fit like a glove.

I used beautiful black oxide square head lag bolts to secure the loft railing and stairs. Worked like a charm!

Here is the backside of the loft railing. I still need to trim the pegs...

I even moved a little furniture into the cabin... Here is a bench/chest in the loft:

The flooring turned out well. I still need to do a final sanding before I oil it. This goat barn flooring is a bit rough. There were some 1/8" gaps in places and some height differences between boards. Sanding should help that somewhat. Overall, I am very happy with this flooring.

Here, the bottom of the stairs terminate on a piece of flooring. However, I've replaced that piece of flooring with two custom pieces of cherry that I harvested and milled from Moscow.

Things are going well. I'm working on the exterior frame now so that I can finally add windows, insulation, and hang the door. More on that soon...

2009-06-15T14:00:00.001-07:00

The Jeep trail to my cabin is passable now and I've moved several loads of supplies up to the cabin. Namely, I moved the rest of the Douglas Fir goat flooring, my timber-framed/keyed staircase, and a large pile of lumber to finish the external nonstructural frame.

In reality, I probably only have 2-3 more trips via the Jeep, and this thing will be finished.

Here is a picture of me installing the Douglas Fir flooring above the subfloor. I'm "blind-screwing" it just above the tongues. The flooring is crude and rustic, but it looks pretty good. Its not as tight as store-bought finish flooring would be, but I like the effect.

Unline the loft flooring, I think I will have to sand and fill in a few large gaps in the main-floor flooring.

You can see the custom-made stairs in the background. They look great and they work great! They look like they really belong in this timber frame cabin.

Which, of course, they always did.

2009-05-12T12:00:00.001-07:00

Peter and I just cut and raised another timber frame!!

http://pceiwriterstudio.blogspot.com

I think it turned out quite nicely!

2009-04-10T08:59:00.000-07:00

The dog and I took a spring hike up to the cabin to check it out. Its April now, and I had not been up there since early November! There were patches of bare ground, but still plenty of snow.

It will be until May or June until I can get heavy materials up there again.

There were only minor blow-downs this year. Among them, a particularly nice Douglas fir tree right across the path. I will use logs from this tree for my Adirondack-style woodshed.

After being absent for four months, I was happy to see the cabin again.

The Tyvek is definitely starting to weather and give out. Good thing I plan on finishing the siding work this summer.

Everything is exactly how I left it. No signs of animals, etc.

I look forward to finishing up the cabin this summer. It'll be great.

2009-03-27T20:13:00.000-07:00

I am at the 2009 Western Timber Framers Guild Conference at Sunriver Resort in Oregon. Its a beautiful, scenic place in the timber just above the high desert surrounding Bend, OR. The conference is going well. The theme of this conference, if it has one, seems to be surrounding natural building systems.

There is an emphasis on strawbale, wattle-and-daub, straw and clay enlosures. However, I did attend a lecture on SIP timber-frame hybrids which was informative. There are some folks out there that are using the structural properties of the SIPs to limit the timber frame elements in their designs. One of the most common approaches is to build up SIPS-only walls and then attach timber frame trusses directly on top of the SIPs.

Here are some misc. pictures from the conference...

A *huge* log (pine?), maybe 6 feet in diameter around which a spiral staircase winds. This was in the Great Hall at the resort. The treads of the spiral staircase were cut a solid 8" thick. Unbelievable:

Here is another staircase at the other end of the Great Hall. It also uses 8" thick solid treads, but is attached to a central steel post:

A look from the balcony in the Great Hall:

This structural is largely post-and-beam, using rounded logs and metal fasteners:

One of the weirdest and most interesting features at this conferences was about "compressed wood" which is a way of performing "extreme wood bending". The presenter (Fluted Beams) owns a massive hydraulic machine capable of constraining a 10' long green hardwood 2x6 and then COMPRESSING IT 20% LONGITUDINALLY!

What comes out is an 8' long hardwood 2x6 with completely different mechanical properties. In particular, it is flexible and remains flexible until it dries. When dried, its shape is fixed permanently. Overall, there is a 5-10% strength loss, which is usually negligible.

Here are some pictures:

This is what the presenter called a "fluted" column. The wavy wood is a compressed 1x6:

I watched two guys loop a 2x6 piece of elm twice over using only their hands and a couple 2x6s for mechanical advantage:

This wood is not really under tension after its been bent! It will retain its shape without snapping back. Once seasoned, it will hold its shape forever.

This is just nuts:

The coiled elm 2x6 without clamps:

Then, the presenter used a come-along to bend an 8' long oak 2x6 "the hard way":

The following is part of a massive artistic hardwood floor installation:

Some artistic uses of compressed, bendable hardwood. I personally like the perfectly round oak ring.

One of the greatest parts of the guild conference are the all-day kids timberframing workshops:

I *really* wish my kids could have participated this year.

I'll post a couple pictures of the finished kid's project.

A great conference, for sure!

2009-03-27T19:28:00.000-07:00

I recently got a mini lathe. Previously unused woodscraps now seem far more interesting and useful. So far, I've turned elm, dogwood, black locust, end even spruce and willow. :-)

I turned these timber framing mallets from American Elm. The weight and feel of the mallets is perfect, but I've found that elm is too soft. It deforms easily when being hit against a hardwood mallet handle.

Here are two of the elm mallets:

The mallet on the left on the bottom pictures was turned by Peter's father. It is made out of hornbeam, and I used it as a prototype for my mallets.

I've also recently turned another mallet from Black Locust. It is both hard enough and easily heavy enough for a timber framing mallet. It sanded to a perfectly smooth finish, unlike the elm.

I think black locust is quickly becoming my favorite hardwood. I'll post pictures of the finished locust mallet soon.

2009-03-05T16:59:00.000-08:00

I finally finished the cabin stairs/ladder for the loft. Last year, I had constructed the stringers from store-bought 2x12 Douglas Fir boards. I had used a small chisel mortiser to cut shouldered mortises for each of the 8 treads. I had cut the joinery on treads from rough-cut Ponderosa Pine and Douglas Fir that I had harvested myself. I had also collected a bunch of local Black Locust firewood rounds for making into hardwood wedges.

I used a chisel mortiser to cut a 1/2" slit in every tread tenon to accept the locust wedges. I tried to offset this slit about a 1/16" such that as the wedge is tightened, the stringer is pressed tighter and tighter into the tread.

Much of the work of fitting the treads into the stringers was laborious test fitting and calibrating with a chisel. Every tenon and every wedge is custom fitted.

The joinery turned out pretty nicely. Not "fine furniture" quality joinery, but pretty good for a "timber framed" staircase/ladder:

Naturally, I sanded the whole thing with rough 100-grit paper and finished it will Landark interior finish penetrating oil, as I did with pretty much all other wood surfaces in the cabin.

My younger daughter was the first to climb the ladder. She was thrilled!

The great thing about this design is that it can be easily disassembled and re-assembled for transport.

I can't wait to get this up to the cabin in May/June! Not long now.

2009-02-28T18:24:00.000-08:00

This has nothing to do with the cabin project, but hey.

I recently built a rustic coat stand from local wood as a Christmas gift. The first step was finding the perfect tree. I searched our land for hours, looking for a Ponderosa Pine tree with whorls at a good spacing and branches pointing upwards at a good angle.

I finally found an unbelievably perfect tree: This single pine supplied two great coat stands. I used the upper portion of the tree for this particular stand.

As soon as I got the pine tree into my shop, I stripped the bark off using a drawknife. I let the tree season for a couple months.

I constructed the base of the stand using American elm from East City Park. The finished coat stand is in a house about 100 yards from where this tree grew for nearly a century. Talk about using local wood!

I half-lapped the two elm cross pieces and glued them together.

I cut a 2"x2" tenon on the bottom of the pine. This tenon fits into a mortise in the base of the coat stand. I glued the joinery with a healthy dose of Gorilla glue. In addition, I drove in two 9x3 screws up from the bottom of the base and into the pine tenon.

I finished the whole thing with a liberal amount of Landark penetrating oil.

Fun stuff!

2009-02-01T11:19:00.000-08:00

I just completed a second framing pony. This one made with:

4x6 Engelmann Spruce bases and legs
4x7 Wany Ponderosa Pine Top
3x6 American elm braces
1" Locust pegs

I think it turned out nice. I decided to leave the bark on the wany edge of the pine top.

That spruce can have some amazing grain, as shown in leg in the picture below. The light spruce and pine contrast nicely with the locust pegs and the elm braces.

My shop now has 4 framing ponies, which are probably enough:

I love building with mixed species, primarily for the color and grain contrasts between timbers.

2009-01-25T11:25:00.000-08:00

I finished a new framing pony today. I needed a new pony, but I also wanted to try some new things with timber framing. I wanted to use hardwood (Elm) knee braces, cut decorative curves in the braces with a bandsaw, and use a different mortise/tenon style for the braces.

After cutting the tenons on my braces, the first order of business was to layout my brace curves. I used an excellent ruler that my dad gave me which is centered at 0", allowing you to quickly and accurately find centers.

Using a combination square, I marked the deepest point at the center of the curve.

Writing with a pencil on 3/16th" poplar stock that I got from the hardware store, I free-handed one half of the curve and then cut out the curve template with a jigsaw.

By building a template for only half the curve, it was trivial to get the curve to be completely symmetrical.

I bartered some cherry and American elm slabs with a local fine woodworker for time on his bandsaw. The results were nice, as you can see below.

Below, you can see as I start to fit the "timbers" and braces together.

I do not drawbore my joinery. Instead, I use ratchet straps to pull the timbers together so tight that the wood starts to deform. Once this is done, I can then bore the peg holes and drive the pegs in. The pegs will "forever" keep the wood as tight as the ratchet straps did. In my opinion, this is nearly as good as drawboring.

I sanded everything and put a coat of Landark interior penetrating oil finish on everything. This is a 5-species framing pony: Ponderosa pine top, Douglas fir legs, Engelmann Spruce bases, American elm braces, and Locust pegs.

The joinery turned out pretty tight. Much better than my first set of framing ponies!

I routed a decorative 45 degree chamfer on pretty much all edges.

Mmm, wood. This American elm brace does a good job of showing off the color differences between the heartwood and sapwood.

The elm braces turned out better than I could have expected.

I've got timbers already cut to length for two more of these ponies. The braces for them are already finished.

The finished product.

2009-01-23T15:57:00.000-08:00

While I am waiting for the snow to thaw so I can continue working on the cabin, I thought I should talk about tools.

When it comes to removing wood, chisels are the tool of choice with Timber Framing.

I use Barr framing chisels, which are forged close by in McCall, Idaho by Barr Quarton. I own a 1", 1 1/2", and 2" chisel. I also own a large 2 1/2" wide slick with an 8" long blade. I also own a 7/8"x7x8" Barr corner chisel, although I rarely use it.

I sharpen my chisels with a two-sided diamond sharpening stone from DMT.

I've tried many different mallets (for driving chisels), Wooden mallets, rawhide mallets, round mallets, square mallets, etc. The one I settled on is a 30 ounce round carving mallet with a soft, urethane head. It provides better countrol and balance, better force, and less shock to the hand and wrist.

I really wanted to go with an all-wood mallet. I really did. But urethane won out here.

The next most important tool to the modern timber framer is the circular saw. I've got 5, and each has their own job.

The right-handed Makita 5402NA 16 5/16" beam circular saw is shown below. This is a large saw and can cut 6 1/4" when the blade is set at 90 degrees. It is a bit daunting to hold, but once you power it up you realize that it is somewhat underpowered. The blade spins at low RPMs. I've had a lot of problems doing any kind of precision work with this saw. It is good to quickly lop of ends of timbers, but that's about it. Some have recommended I upgrade to a 64 tooth carbide blade, so I may give that a shot.

When I was struggling with the large Makita (above) to rip hardwood knee brace blanks from 3" thick American elm, I decided that something a bit smaller but a bit faster would probably be ideal. Hence, I recently got a right-handed Makita 5201NA 10 1/4" circular saw. This saw will cut 3 3/4" when the blade is set to 90 degrees. I can precisely and quickly rip my elm slabs with this saw. It also works well on tenons that require cuts deeper than a conventional 7 1/4" saw can do. This is a pretty ideal saw for many timber framing cuts.

My real work horse, however, is my right-handed Makita 7 1/4" circular saw. I use this saw for cuttings tenons, dovetails, and more. No other saw gets more use in my shop, as you can probably tell from the picture.

Some cuts, especially dovetails, are much easier done with a left-handed circular saw. Here is my left-handed Porter-Cable 7 1/4" circular saw. This saw gets very little use, but I've been really impressed with it when I'm cutting dovetailed tenons.

I also have an old worm drive 7 1/4" Skilsaw circular saw. Its worm drive gives it more power, so it is especially useful for ripping thick hardwood stock. I rarely, if ever, use this saw. I find the other saws to be sufficient and lighter weight.

I'll post more about tools sometime soon...

2009-01-23T08:35:00.000-08:00

Working with Elm is fun.

I decided that I needed some more Timber Framing ponies in my shop. The two that I built back in 2007 turned out nice and have been real "work horses" (pun intended), but I need a couple more.

For another ongoing timber framing project, I plan to use American Elm (Ulmus americana) hardwood knee braces. Peter and I have been collecting American Elm from the local park, where several trees a year have been removed due to Dutch Elm Disease. I've got huge quantities of elm now. We've largely been slabbing the elm into 3" thick slabs and then stickering them to dry:

I used a 17" Makita beam saw and a 7 1/4" Makita circular saw to cut blanks from the slabbed elm. I used a chalk line to snap straight lines onto the slabs, and then used the circular saws to cut the blanks.

The elm is great to work with. It is still pretty green, and it works nicely with power and hand tools. It is a little "fibrous" and softer than I would have expected (as compared to Red Oak). Circular saw cuts usually leave short stringy fibers which can be scraped, planed, or sanded away. I've noticed that kickback from binding circular saws can do a lot of damage to elm. Its kind of a weird wood to work with, but in a good way.

The result is nice. Much of the elm is figured. It will look stunning once it is finely sanded and oiled.

I'm building three additional framing ponies. Here are the nearly finished elm braces sitting on top of some timber-framed framing ponies.

The next step for these braces is to cut a decorative curve into them with a bandsaw. I bartered some elm and cherry slabs for some bandsaw work from a local amateur fine woodworker. Its all good.

I've finished the "timbers" for one full framing pony. Most of this was mortise work, but the Makita chain mortiser made quick and clean work of those. I'm using softwood scraps for the remainder of the pony. Here, I am using Ponderosa Pine bases, Douglas Fir legs, and a Ponderosa Pine top. Some of the ponies have components also built of Englemann Spruce.

A 4-species timber framing project, with almost all of the wood harvested by hand from the yards of friends, family, and the city park!

2008-12-16T17:19:00.000-08:00

I visited the Adirondacks in upstate New York this Fall. I fell in love with some of the classic Adirondack scribed log lean-to shelters. I'd actually love to build one, so I found a great excuse to do so:

I need a woodshed for the cabin.

Something like this:

I'll make it out of Western Red Cedar and Ponderosa Pine found on my property. It doesn't need to be big. I'm thinking a 6x10 footprint and 8-10 feet tall.

This will allow me to get experience to scribing and building log cabins. Besides, it gives me a chance to buy a new toy:

A log scriber. :-)

2008-12-16T12:58:00.000-08:00

The snow (and arctic cold conditions) have finally hit Northern Idaho. The cabin is now entirely inaccessible by Jeep until late Spring.

I've got some things to do up at the cabin site, however. I left 2/3 of the goat floor up there to be worked on, and I still need to attach the loft railing to the loft. I'll get started on those interior projects soon. The important exterior projects will have to wait until summer.

In the meantime, exciting things have been happening with my other timber framing project:

You can see more at:

http://pceiwriterstudio.blogspot.com

We're about to get started cutting joinery, and I'll try to document that a bit better than I did with the cabin. :-)

2008-11-01T20:29:00.000-07:00

Finally, I've got some recent pictures!

I oiled the loft flooring with LandArk oil, and I really like the final result. This old Douglas Fir floor is really reddish in color, and contrasts nicely with the timbers and pine walls.

The terminal edge piece of the loft flooring is actually a store-bought 2x8, planed and sanded to fit. It is thicker on one end to compensate for some warping in the bent 2 tie beam. It is attached to the tie beam via countersunk lag bolts with 3/4" white oak plugs.

Below, you can see the entire loft, with the cabin door and cedar log bed below it. What a celebration of wood!!

The following picture shows underneath the loft. You can see the tongue-and-groove Western Red Cedar above the Ponderosa Pine joists. The oiled Douglas Fir is immediately above the cedar ceiling.

Below is a shot of the cedar bed and fir/larch door. Both need to be put together and installed fully. The cedar bed will go up on the loft as soon as I wax and buff the loft floor.

Peter gave me a small J0tul wood stove. I've got the stove up at the cabin, but its not hooked up to a stovepipe, etc. If I can get stovepipes up there, I might try to hook it up so that the cabin would be a reasonable destination this winter.

In my shop, I'm working on prepping the fir flooring for the main cabin floor. Its time consuming. I'm cutting every piece to a length that is a multiple of 16" to span the floor joists properly. I'm running each piece through the thickness planer a few times, cleaning compacted straw and dung out of the tongues and grooves and then sanding every piece with a belt sander. The result is good, but its a lot of work to salvage this old goat barn floor!

2008-10-20T09:53:00.000-07:00

I've been really delinquent in updating this blog. This is primarily due to the fact that I decided to finish my Ph.D this summer, and that took a couple months of dedicated time to wrap up.

In addition, I've started a second Timber Framing project!!! You can follow the progress of that here:

http://pceiwriterstudio.blogspot.com

As far as the cabin is concerned, I've installed the Douglas Fir finish floor in the loft. It looks GORGEOUS. Yay for salvaged goat barn wood! Pictures will be forthcoming...

I've also moved the log bed, the door, the loft railing, and some misc. furniture out to the cabin.

2008-07-13T20:49:00.000-07:00

With a burst of work, I finished the entire loft railing system.

The first step was to cut joinery on three 4x7 Ponderosa Pine posts.

The loft railing uses 2x8 rough cut, weathered, circular-sawn Douglas Fir barn wood boards salvaged from a 1905 grange building in nearby Palouse, Washington. These pass through mortices in the pine posts and are pegged.

The base of each post has an extension which will be bolted to the face of the Douglas Fir middle tie beam. I'll also attach the base of each post to the top surface of the tie beam.

I'll most likely oil the pine posts, which will be gorgeous.

I like the mixture of old vs. new wood, the rustic agriculture look, and the pegged, timberframe style of construction.

I debated whether or not to pre-assemble the railing system or assemble at the cabin. Either way, its a total pain. Pre-assembled, the railing is heavy and awkward to move (and lift up to the loft). However, it took quite a bit of effort to assemble the railing and fit the boards through the posts and get the whole thing square. Some of those joints fit very tightly. The idea of taking it apart only to reassemble it again up on the loft was not appealing.

I will probably just get a hand from a friend to lift it and bolt it to the cabin.

2008-07-12T16:21:00.000-07:00

A bunch of miscellaneous progress...

The floor system is done, with the exception of the final finish floor. Having the floor system pretty much finished is great! The cabin seems to be noticeably better insulated overall, and the floor is solid and rigid. The acoustics are much improved, too.

Mainly, having the floor system complete makes the whole cabin feel much more finished...like there is now a clearly defined, real, interior space which is more or less separate from the outside world. Loose pieces of 1/2" plywood half-covering floor joists simply didn't do that.

Using a combination of an electric planer (running off a portable generator) and a 2.5" Barr slick, I leveled the tops of the loft floor joists. Several timbers in the cabin have warped, but none so much as a couple of these Ponderosa pine 4x7 loft joists. It took considerable effort to level these so that the loft floor would be flat and level.

After leveling, I sanded and oiled these loft joists and started applying the loft ceiling (the ceiling that you see when you stand below the loft). The loft ceiling is made from 1x6 tongue and groove Western Red Cedar. It has been coarsely sanded, with one coat of semi-gloss polyurethane (like I did with the pine tongue and groove ceiling for the main cabin).

In retrospect, I probably should have just used oil. Next time!

There are all sorts of challenges here, most of which you cannot see from the pictures. Namely, the 7x9 Douglas Fir tie beam in Bent 2 has twisted (warped), so it is no longer flat on the top nor is is the surface plumb. There will be all kinds of subtle planing and hidden shimming involved here.

The wood is probably not done moving, either. Yay, timber framing with green wood!

Below is a picture of the loft joists, looking up from the floor under the loft. You can see the beginning of the cedar loft ceiling falling into place. The effect is good. The cedar contrasts with the pine and the Douglas Fir tie beam.

Below: A closer look at the loft ceiling... You can see in the nearest pine loft joist dovetail that the joint is no longer flush at the bottom. That is caused by the tie beam twisting (warping).

I'll finish up the loft ceiling, and then I think I will install the Douglas Fir loft flooring next, followed by the railing posts and barn wood railing. The loft railing posts will obviously need to be level and plumb as it sits on the twisted tie beam.

Plane, chisel, and shims...

2008-07-09T10:24:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about the loft railing for awhile now. I want to do something interesting that will fit with the stairs, door, and general timber frame aesthetic. I also want a safe, strong railing.

What I came up with is a heavy-duty "timber framed" design that uses three large 4x7 ponderosa pine posts and three rough-cut, weathered, circular-sawn barn wood 2x8s. Its a mix of new and old wood in cool design:

The old barnwood 2x8s will have reduced tenons on either side which will fit into mortises on the two end pine posts. The three 2x8s will pass completely through the middle of the center post. The 2x8s and posts will be draw-bored and pegged with the same 1" white oak pegs used everywhere in the frame.

The post opposite the loft stairs will be lag bolted directly into a bent 2 post. All three posts have a 2.5" thick, 7" long extension which sits on the face on the bent 2 Douglas Fir tie beam. The posts will be lag-bolted to the tie beam here, perhaps in two places. All lag bolts will be counter-sunk and plugged with a hardwood plug.

The loft stairs/ladder will lag bolt directly into a post on one side and into the railing post on the opposite side.

The current plan is to do this before I apply the loft flooring, so the flooring will have to be scribed around these posts. Perhaps the posts should be placed after the flooring. I'm not sure yet.

2008-06-28T12:31:00.000-07:00

I've started laying in the Ultratouch insulation batts between the floor joists:

This stuff is super easy to work with. It is essentially recycled denim (i.e. cotton fibers), so there is no real need to wear gloves or a mask like you'd have to do when dealing with fiberglass batts. This stuff tears easily if needed, and this allowed me to quickly fill in the spaces between all of the floor joists.

After laying the insulation down, I started screwing down the 1/2" plywood "subfloor". Technically, I don't really need this layer of plywood, but the plywood layer accomplishes two key things:

1) It will help tie the joists together even more (acting as a dimensionally stable rigid sheathing layer in two dimensions)
2) It helps raise the floor slightly, which is important because both the door and the loft ladder /stairs I made this winter assume a slightly higher floor than the goat floor alone will achieve.

I still have a lot of work to do on the floor system. One full day of work should finish it off.

I still have to decide on a vapor barrier material between the subfloor and the goat floor. Most information I can find seems to indicate that I should use 15 pound roofing felt. A few recommend 6mil polyethylene. Roofing felt would be easier to work with, but I wonder about that asphalt smell and related gases.

After all the insulation and entire subfloor is laid, the to-do list is:

1) Level the tops of the loft joist timbers with a hand plane (these pine loft joist timbers warped somewhat and the loft floor joists are not all straight. I need to create a level surface on the top of those joist timbers to put the "loft ceiling", which will be finished tongue-and-grooved cedar placed orthogonal to the loft joists. The fir flooring will sit on top of the cedar loft ceiling.

2) Finish applying penetrating oil to some timbers that didn't get oiled last year.

3) Start the exterior frame.

2008-06-22T17:54:00.000-07:00

Yay! I actually got up to the cabin site and started work again. The ground was a bit wet still, but the trusty jeep made it (with a little help from the winch).

The first thing I did was remove all of the stickered rough-cut dimensional lumber that I stored in the cabin all winter. I took that back to the workshop to rip into rough-cut 2x4s for the exterior frame. I might have just enough rough-cut wood that I can avoid buying any 2x4s for the exterior frame!

A little aside: so much of this project has involved moving wood around. Moving it from one pile to another. Sorting timbers and lumber. Hauling it here and there. It always takes so much time. I never would have guessed the building something like this involved so much banal wood moving. This little project would make a good study in embodied energy.

I removed the 1/2" plywood temporary floor, exposing the 2x8 joists, and letting a nice breeze and a little light in from under the cabin:

Here is a closeup of my "hybrid" joist system: a mortise/tenon + metal joist hanger. I think it worked out well.

As seen below, I started screwing my 2x2 rough-cut furring strips to the bottom of every joist. This goes relatively quickly:

I laid my OSB panels on top of the furring strips and screwed them down. As with many parts of this project, I pre-cut the OSB strips in my workshop based on my SketchUp CAD drawings. The panels fit like a glove, yet the extra-wide strips give me some room for error if I need it.

I got about halfway done before my battery-powered drill/screwdriver died:

I am going to fill any cracks between panels and joists with an expanding insulating foam to help keep out drafts and bugs. Then, I will lay the UltraTouch insulation batts down between the joists. I will cover this with a 1/2" plywood "subfloor", vapor barrier, and then my gorgeous goat floor!

2008-06-22T08:24:00.001-07:00

So, as much as I enjoy opening up a green tree and dealing with freshly milled green wood, I love old wood at least as much.

Both the cabin siding and flooring will be made from old wood. Its always fun to see what one can coax out of old wood.

Below are three 1x12 Douglas fir board-and-batten siding boards that were salvaged from a historic granary in nearby Potlatch, Idaho. From what I was told, the granary was built in the 1920s. I bought 700 board ft. of the siding from Larry Duff's TimberWorks wood salvage business. This might not be quite enough, but he has more. :-)

Most/all of the boards have residual red barn paint on them. The leftmost board was covered in boiled linseed oil. The rightmost board was covered in Landark's exterior penetrating oil finish. The middle board was left alone. The oil really brings out a gorgeous, dark purple color. This will no doubt fade, but the oil should help preserve the wood. This old, dry, rough-cut wood was amazingly thirsty. I think it might be prohibitively expensive to use Landark on the whole think, so straight linseed or maybe some inexpensive deck oil might work.

The goat barn flooring cleans up nicely, and I am very, very happy with it.

Below, the old, grayed, unhandled barn flooring is shown on the right. On the left, is a board after one pass through the thickness planer and a bit of coarse (120-grit) belt sanding. The middle two boards were planed, belt sanded (120 grit), covered in Landark oil, and then waxed and buffed with Bioshield hardwax.

Below. To oil or not to oil? Verdict: oil!

Below: A dramatic difference.

Finally, an up-close image of the final flooring. I purposely used a moderately coarse sanding. I like the look of coarsely sanded wood in a cabin like this. Most of the other wood (timbers, interior pine wall planks, etc) are also coarsely sanded. It saves time, but mainly I prefer the smooth but slightly "distressed" look of coarsely sanded wood on a cabin like this.

Fun stuff. I think this floor and siding combination are going to rock. Its going to look very rustic on the exterior, like an old barn. The red, dark color of the rustic fir flooring will accentuate the light pine posts, ceiling, and interior wall planks. The cabin is going to be all-wood, but that doesn't mean that it won't be colorful!

2008-06-17T06:39:00.000-07:00

My LT15 mill has a new home! The Wilder family of Moscow, who are owners of The Natural Abode here in downtown Moscow, graciously offered me a place to keep and operate the mill.

The spot is perfect in many ways. Close to town, accessible, and mill itself actually sits on a large concrete pad which once served as the foundation for some kind of outbuilding. This makes moving and leveling the mill easier, and I don't have to worry that the mill will slowly sink into the soft Palouse loess.

I used the same technique to move the mill around as before: large casters attached to boards which are bolted to the mill bed sections. However, I seriously beefed up the wood (two 2x10s per side) as well as the casters (larger and stronger).

If I am careful about how I load and unload the mill from my trailer, this caster system should work well for a long time.

Here is my system: I mount the trailer to the front of my Jeep. I have an 8,000 lbs Warn winch mounted there. Make sure that the heavy mill power head is furthest away from the Jeep and winch the mill bed section without the power head onto the trailer until about half of the mill is on the trailer and half is off. Then, roll the power head along the bed sections onto the trailer, thus avoiding putting a lot of weight on the trailer gate. When the power head rolls up the bed section onto the trailer, and all of the mill weight is now on the trailer, its easy to winch or just push the rest of the mill onto the trailer. Detach the Jeep from the trailer and re-attach at the rear hitch and drive away. Voila!

I think Woodmizer should make a caster-like system like mine and sell it as an accessory for their LT10 and LT15 models. It makes transporting these mills pretty simple. A 1,000 lbs hand winch could be used instead of an electric winch.

2008-06-16T19:55:00.000-07:00

Goat Barn Flooring! Yes, I said "Goat Barn".

I paid a visit to a local building supply salvage yard looking for old barn siding for my cabin, and instead found the wood floor for my cabin. Its absolutely perfect! I bought 400 square feet of the stuff immediately.

2x4 Douglas Fir tongue-and-groove blind-nailed flooring which came from an old goat barn from the nearby campus of Washington State University!!! Most pieces came in 16' lengths, with some smaller pieces here and there. This goat barn was old, but this wood is in excellent shape. It needs to be sanded and maybe even passed through the thickness planer once or twice, but its gorgeous. There is still straw and hay and even dung compacted in the grooves. I love it! Talk about wood with an interesting story (and patina)!

Here is my trailer, loaded to the brim with two 400 square feet of the flooring:

The thickness of the flooring is great, because it means that I can kill two birds with one stone: Subfloor + finished flooring in one package. This wood is old, back when 2x4 was closer to a true 2"x4" than it is today. This stuff is about 1 5/8 thick and 3 3/4 inches wide.

The flooring was blind-nailed through the tongue in each board at about a 12" spacing. Therefore, there are no nail holes on the tops of the flooring. The picture below shows boards from both the top (no visible nail holes) and bottom (visible nail holes).

`

A pass on the planer and the belt sander for each board and a treatment of oil or wax, and this will be one gorgeous douglas fir floor! Some pieces will need to be culled, but this wood is in surprisingly good shape.

2008-06-07T10:04:00.000-07:00

The time has come to build out the floor and stick frame the exterior.

The weather in the Pacific Northwest has been cold and rainy. Its still too muddy for me to comfortably drive the jeep + trailer up to the cabin site. It may actually be July until I can get materials up there! . This shortens my time window for building somewhat. It just started raining again, as I type this. Unbelievable. Discouraging.

Floor System:

Currently, the cabin floor system is comprised of massive 9x9 sill plates, with 11' dimensional 2x8 douglas fir joists spaced on 16" centers. These joists are connected to the sill plates with a combination of classic mortice/tenon joinery as well as contemporary metal joist hangers. I need to insulate the floor between the joists. The plan is to infill between the joists by laying furring strips along the lower, inside portion of the joists and then placing sheets of plywood down as a lower cover/support for insulating batts. The plywood will be secured to the furring strips, probably with small screws or nails. I'll staple 1/4" hardware cloth along the plywood bottoms to keep out critters.

Below are the 2x2 (extra large) "furring strips" that will connect to the floor joists and support the OSB sheets that hold the insulation batts: About half of these 2x2s are pine and were recycled from an old stage set for a local community play. The other half were ripped on my table saw from either rough cut 2x stock that Jon milled for me or from 2x8s which I recycled from my mother-in-law's old garage extension. I didn't buy any 2x2s.

For insulation, I am using 5 1/2" thick Ultratouch batts, which are made, essentially, from recycled blue jeans and other cotton fibers. I'll get a respectable ~R-20. I'm hoping to use this insulation for the walls as well, but our local distributor has run out and does not plan to carry it anymore.

A square sample of the Ultratouch batts:

The current plans then are to place thickness-planed 2x8's on diagonal as a subfloor over the joists. Then a vapor barrier. And then douglas fir flooring. Or, I might save money and time and lay a 1/2" thick plywood subfloor with planed and joined dimensional lumber as a a poor-man's hardwood floor. And maybe add a different hardwood flooring later, if I decide I need to.

Exterior Frame:

The exterior frame is a non load-bearing frame which only really provides space for insulation and windows. This frame will be conventionally framed from 2x4s. The first step is to heavily bolt 4x4s around the bottom edge of the cabin, into the 9x9 sill plates. This provides a shelf on which the rest of the frame will rest. I will either use large lag bolts or very long carriage bolts, spaced 24" apart.

The 2x4 framing members will be oriented vertically to take advantage of the horizontal placement of girts, tie beams and top plates. I'll use some combination of straps, toe-nailing, and brackets to attach the 2x4 frame to the timber frame through the 3/4" thick pine planks covering the cabin. While the exterior stick frame will be secured to the interior timber frame, everything will ultimately be resting on the 4x4 ledge at the bottom in order to prevent eventual frame sagging.

The windows will have a pair of framed 2x12 headers. The headers are conventiently located opposite tie beams and collar ties, so I can ultimately nail these all the way through to the timber frame for extra stability.

I'll infill the vertical frame with 31/2" x 23" insulation batts (hopefully use Ultratouch again).

I will then nail/screw on horizontal 1x4 furring strips to the exterior frame, placed on 24" centers. The final layer of vertical board-and-batten siding will screw primarily into these 1x4 horizontal members. The 3/4" space provided by the 1x4s will also add a little more air space. I'll staple 30lbs felt paper outside the furring planks and then cover with vertical cedar board-and-batten siding.

Man, I have a *huge* amount of work to do. And I plan to defend my Ph.D dissertation in September. I wish it would stop raining.

2008-05-28T07:21:00.000-07:00

I got a new tool: a Woodmizer LT15 bandsaw mill!!

I picked it up near Helena Montana with my trusty jeep and trailer. The trip itself was exciting, but that is another story.

It has a 15HP gas engine. It can cut logs up to 28" in diameter. I got an additional bed extension, so this thing can mill timbers up to about 17' long. I can add an arbitrary number of bed extensions in the future, and I'm already thinking of ordering one more bed extension to get me to about 24'

Peter and I wasted no time and took it out to Orchard Farms, north of town. We still had about 8 large elm logs to mill. Since we were both a little tired of chainsaw milling, we were happy to try out something a lot more efficient.

I think that either Peter or Nils once told me, "Life is too short for chainsaw milling". While chainsaw milling has its place, I tend to agree with them. Cuts that took 20 minutes, 1 tank of gas, and 3/8" of wasted kerf now take 20 seconds, almost no gas, and less than 1/8" of wasted kerf.

We mainly milled more 3.5" thick slabs. The idea is that these slabs can eventually be used for knee braces or furniture or something. My shop is now overflowing with stickered elm slabs. I hope we can find a good use for them.

We cut a couple thin flitches, maybe 1/8" thick or slightly thicker (just because we could). The one below turned out looking like a dolphin or whale. Peter took this one home.

In addition to cutting slabs and flitches, we also gave stab at milling a large beam. It was super simple and super fast. I think the final beam was like an 8x10, and was pretty darned square. It turned out enormously heavy and incredibly beautiful. Makes me wonder if we should not have cut more timbers and less slabs, but I don't really have a current design/project to use these timbers. I'm not sure how badly this elm will warp out of square before I would need to use it. In my experience, elm warps a lot. I can always resaw both the timber and slabs later if necessary.

But man, the grain and color on this beam! Not to mention its inherent strength! Out West, hardwood is hard to come by, so to see a nice hardwood beam like this is great.

There are a lot of forces at work inside the elm cant below. Look at the slab bending upward, all on its own. Every cut releases a lot of internal tension in the wood, and outer cuts tend to immediately bend when released from the cant. Alleviates the need for wedges while milling, I suppose.

Ultimately, I am very happy with the LT15. Its about all I could afford, and it exceeds my expectations. Woodmizer is very customer-oriented, and this thing is built like a tractor. This mill can be operated by one person. I like the idea that I can take a tree or log or piece of wood and mill it however and whenever I want to. It opens up a lot of possibilities. If used enough, this mill will quickly pay for itself and then some.

The biggest challenge with this mill is going to be moving it around. The mill is 1000 pounds, and 13 feet long. Most Woodmizer mills are integrated onto trailers that can be towed around from job site to job site. The LT10 and LT15 mills are manufactured to be essentially stationary, but moveable.

I bolted some large casters onto the mill bed sections, and that worked up until I tried to winch the mill back onto my trailer (and the wheels got mangled). I need to be thinking about heavier-duty solutions. I bought a load-assist kit for the LT15 which includes one pair of heavy-duty wheels, and is meant to load the LT15 onto a tilt-bed trailer. Peter's got me thinking of building a custom trailer frame and welding it to the bottom of the mill. I might end up doing something like that.

2008-04-21T18:18:00.001-07:00

The 2008 Timber Framers Guild Western Conference was a total blast. It was hosted just up the road in Coeur D'Alene Idaho. I am incredibly glad I went to it.

Some highlights:

Joinery With a Chainsaw
I took a day-long workshop on cutting timber frame joinery with a chainsaw. The instructor was so skilled with a chainsaw that he was able to quickly cut out perfect tenons and clean them up with a chainsaw such that the finished tenon felt like it has been planed. Seriously.

By contrast, my first chainsaw-cut tenon was ugly as hell. We cut tenons, mortices, and even compound angles. We milled beams free-hand with a chainsaw and even tried our hands at carving pendants. I eventually realized that a chainsaw was a perfect and efficient tool for certain kinds of cuts, especially cuts which involved angles which would require a special jig with a circular saw. Cutting joinery with a chainsaw is also ideal when out in the backwoods without a power source.

Stress Testing Joinery (Engineering):

I attended a fascinating lecture about joinery stress testing. The engineer rigged a large hydraulic press to literally pull massive timbers apart at the joint. The results were fascinating. It took about 5,000 pounds to pull apart a tie-beam attached to a post with two pegs. The type of failures were surprising, too. No only did the pegs fail in some cases, but tenon relish failed. The most unusual failure was a complete separation of the face of the post straight down the grain. Amazing.

SketchUp + TF Rubies (Clark Bremer)
I met Clark Bremer, owner of Northern Lights Timber Frames and the author of the TF Rubies extensions to Google SketchUp. Oh. My.

I've been using SketchUp for quite awhile, and I thought that I had become quite proficient at using it. Clark's TF Rubies extensions are a revolution in timber framing design. It creates shop drawings and timber schedules very, very easily. In addition, I just learned about a zillion shortcuts to using general SketchUp which make things super, super easy.

There are powerful CAD programs out there, but I am now convinced that nobody needs them if you've got SketchUP + TF Rubies.

Rob Hadden

The keynote speaker was Rob Hadden from Castlemaine, Australia. Rob is truly an artist. A student and lover of old, authentic English timber frame buildings, Rob is entirely self-taught and has been constructing some truly amazing timber frames for many years. He does this work on a shoestring budget: donated logs, chainsaw mill, and other recycled building materials. When he can't find or afford a building material, he often makes them: leaded windows using recycled glass, traditional ledge and batten doors with wooden hinges, slate roof, stones, wide pine floors. He scribes everything, and includes very unsual, twisted timbers in his frames. He infills his half-timbered buildings with wattle-and-daub, and lime. The guy is a genius nut, and I love his work. I got a chance to talk with him, and he's great. Rob submits articles on his work to The Owner Builder Magazine as well as TF Guild periodicals.

In addition to all these cool things, I also ran into some other regional timber-framer, some of which do very interesting work. I met some local suppliers of salvaged wood, and I got to personally meet the people who mix and sell the Landark oil that I use on my projects.

In general, I learned a ton. I had a blast. I met some good folks. I came away with a better understanding of what is possible with timber framing.

In particular, while I won't entirely abandon square rule layout, I think I am going to start scribing more... :-)

2008-04-07T11:57:00.000-07:00

Obviously, I will need some way to get to the loft in the cabin. Since this cabin is so small, any kind of stairs or ladder or whatever will take up quite a bit of space. As such, the stairs/ladder should be as beautiful as the frame and keep with the timber frame aesthetic as much as possible.

I've been thinking for awhile about this, and I ran across a Missouri lakeside cabin in Timber Homes Illustrated (June 2007). The frame was built by Woodhenge Timberframes. This cabin has a loft area and a set of custom-made stairs where the treads were constructed from hickory with carved joinery and fastened with walnut wedges. Just amazing.

And so...my ladder will be made of 2x12 Douglas Fir or Pine stringers, 1.5" thick Tamarack treads, and Black Locust wedges. The treads will be housed at least 1/4" into the stringers, and a diminished through-tenon will extend at least 1.25" past the outside face of the stringers. The locut wedges will be 1.5" wide, 3/4" thick and will secure the treads to the stringers.

At the top, the left stringer will attach directly to the bent 2 post, probably with countersunk lag bolts covered by an oak plug. The right top stringer will attach to the railing post (not pictured).

Imagine what this will look like when its done and with a fresh coat of penetrating oil!

I'd like to build this entirely from rough-cut lumber that I harvested. I may be able to do this if I use pine instead of fir for the stringers, as my sawyer cut me some very nice large pine planks. Yet to be decided.

Stay tuned.

2008-03-18T22:22:00.001-07:00

Now that I've got a good handle on which windows I'm going to restore and actually use in the cabin, I took some exact measurements of the window dimensions from the existing windows. This allows me to play around with window placement on the cabin walls.

The Northwest face, opposite the side with the loft, will have three large windows. This will provide some excellent views of the mountains, woods, and sunsets. This will also be the side of the cabin that gets the brunt of the wind and rain. I'll have to put shutters, storm windows or something on these windows.

The Southwest side (the side with the door) will have a large picture window which will bring in a good deal of sun.

Here is a view of the cabin in X-Ray mode, which allows one to see all of the windows and frame simultaneously and get a better sense for how these windows will open up the overall space.

Below is an interior view of the window placements as one faces the loft space. I suspect that the cabin will feel very open with these windows in this configuration.

Lastly, here is a view to the Northwest from atop the loft, looking downward. Again: windows, openness, and scenic views to the mountain in the Northwest. This is all the effect that I am pushing for.

I'd like to put the woodstove in one of these western corners. That way, I can keep an eye on it from atop the loft as well...

2008-03-15T22:01:00.000-07:00

Its window restoration time!

A few years ago, we remodeled our house and I saved all of our old windows (circa 1940). They are mostly double-hung, all-wood, single-paned windows. All of the windows have exterior white paint on them. Many have interior white paint, and some are simply stained a dark brown on the interior.

Most of the windows are in excellent shape, while some have some rot to deal with.

Unfortunately, I know nothing about restoring windows, dealing with paint removal, glazing, etc. I am officially way over my head.

However, I did pick up a copy of Working Windows by Terry Meany to keep me company during this process.

Below is my sacrificial "test" sash. I tested various methods for scraping paint, removing caulk, putty, and nails. In the process I broke a pane, scratched another one, wreaked havoc on the wood frame, and generally created a big mess.

In addition, the windows almost certainly have a layer or two of lead paint/primer to deal with.

Ideally, I would remove every last paint molecule, refinish the interior and exterior wood surfaces, and treat the frame, probably with some kind of exterior polyurethane. The underlying wood is largely in great shape...it would be nice to show that off.

However, after spending an hour poking at these windows and considering my options, I think I am stuck with paint, at least on the exterior.

2008-03-14T00:09:00.000-07:00

The door is finally finished!

I applied two coats of Landark interior finishing oil onto the inside surface of the door. I really laid it on thick and let it soak in. I ordered some Landark exterior oil which contains a mildewicide and UV protection foo. I'll apply that to the exterior surface ASAP.

I'll probably apply a couple more treatments of oil before I eventually hang the door.

Just let it sit and soak in for an hour or two and then wipe off excess! Simple.

I like the look of the oak plugs. Below is a picture of where the fir brace is let into the tamarack ledge. The oak pugs show up dark, especially with oil.

The oil just brings out the natural wood color and grain in a dramatic way. I love the stuff. And, it smells like oranges!

I also just ordered another matching strap brace from Horton-Brasses.

The door is heavy, and I can barely maneuver it around by myself. Having a third hinge will help distribute weight and keep the door from sagging. The pintles will be screwed into an Engelmann Spruce door post, which is a very soft and easily deformed wood. Adding a third brace will relieve weight strain on that post as well.

I've got to pick out a handle, latch, and locking mechanism for the door.

Yay!

Then, its on to restoring some old windows...

2008-03-10T15:58:00.000-07:00

The Cabin Door, Part II.

The handmade cabin door is coming along. I've got all the battens tongue-and-grooved and cut to length. I built a little router jig and cut a v-groove between each batten. The edges of everything have a nice 45 degree chamfer. I bolted strips of cedar on the top and bottom with long stainless-steel, counter-sunk lag screws. I plugged the counter sink holes with 3/4" hardwood plugs.

I've got one ledge bolted-in, and I cut a shallow mortice for the diagonal brace. One brace is also cut and bolted and counter-sunk and plugged in a similar way.

The three ledges are all Tamarack, as is one of the battens. Everything else is Douglas Fir.

I'd say the door is about 3/4 finished. I'll get last ledge and brace installed this week, make sure the exterior face has flush edges (so the door can close effectively), and then really soak oil into the whole thing. While I was going to use Spar Urethane on the exterior, Peter convinced me to use oil.

2008-03-10T11:13:00.000-07:00

The time has come to mill some elm. Not for my cabin, but for some yet-unknown future project.

Here in Moscow, the elm trees in parks and neighborhoods are, unfortunately, dying from Dutch Elm Disease.

Last July, the city felled massive. beautiful elm trees from the city park as a stop-gap strategy to save the remaining uninfected trees. We arranged with the city to take some logs. We had to rent a forklift to move the massive logs around, as the largest log probably weighed in at around 5,000 lbs. The forklift could barely manage! We hauled the logs to a friend's farm outside of town.

Our goal with this elm is to mill it into 2"-4" thick slabs and let the slabs season for awhile. The slabs will be fantastic for cutting hardwood braces or even for making fine furniture.

We borrowed a large Sperber chainsaw mill from Nils Peterson, and set to work. In order to get a straight and level first cut, we strapped a ladder to the logs with NRS straps. Subsequent passes with the mill just sat on the flat surface of the previous cut.

Little did we know, it turns out that back in the dry summer, we dropped these logs right in the middle of a seasonal spring runoff "creek". What a mucky mess! It was actually somewhat comical, as our feet sank into the wet muck as we worked. It will be good to get this wood out of the water ASAP.

The elm is beautiful, especially right after milling. The dark heartwood and the grain patterns make it worthwhile!

We brought the elm slabs back to my workshop. They will sit and start drying. The rule of thumb is 1/2" per year for hardwoods, so it will be awhile before these slabs are stable enough for furniture, but they will probably be ready for cutting braces within the year.

There is a lot more elm milling to go in the coming weeks. Its hard, slow, work. Yet, I am sure we will be able to do some fantastic things with the gorgeous elm in the future. Imagine the fantastic (and strong!) knee braces you could carve from these slabs...

2008-03-01T22:00:00.000-08:00

Time to seriously tackle the cabin door.

I looked through the rough-cut lumber that I had milled alongside my timbers, and I found some great pieces of Douglas Fir and Tamarack. I will use this hand-harvested lumber for the battens in the door. I ran each batten through the thickness planer and got them down to a consistent thickness of just under 1.5 inches. This is going to be one thick and heavy door!

The next step was to add tongue-and-groove joinery to the variable-width battens. With a little home-made fence on my new router table and a 1/2" router bit, I was in business:

I planed a piece of 1x4 pine down to 0.5" thickness and used it as a guide to set the router bit height on the table. Below, you can see the piece of pine placed temporarily inside of the groove of one of the battens. Snug fit!

Below, you can see a number of joined T&G battens. Only two more to go!

Humidity in the workshop is hovering around 70%. By contrast, the summer humidity around here can be extremely low. I am trying to be mindful of this as the door width will definiately expand and contract with changes in humidity.

Humidity is high enough in the workshop that I am worried that my wrought-iron strap hinges and pintles might start rusting. Below, you can see that I applied a coat of linseed oil to the iron to protect it from rust.

Stay tuned for more. On the door.

2008-03-01T21:13:00.000-08:00

My cabin rocks!

This last week, I've been harvesting rocks. The idea is to make a small, dry-laid non-structural skirt at the base of the cabin with stones that I collect myself.

This region of Northwestern Idaho and Eastern Washington is known as the Palouse. It has some unique characteristics, including its geology. The Palouse is comprised of a bunch of silt dunes which were created after the Great Missoula Floods. These dunes are nutrient-rich rolling hills which are amazingly productive for wheat and dry peas. And since they are dunes, there are virtually no rocks, stones, or even pebbles mixed into the topsoil!

At lower elevations, volcanic basalt rock sits below the topsoil. At higher elevations, you can find granite outcroppings which were not covered by basalt. The cabin site is surrounded by granite outcroppings. In fact, the cabin foundation piers were poured directly onto a massive granite outcropping.

Where roads or rivers have cut through the topsoil, one can find exposed basalt or granite. I've been collecting stones here and there (mostly basalt). I've been gathering ones that have fallen onto or near the road after rain and snow. These are not only convenient, but nobody cares that I haul these away. I also didn't have to dig or excavate these "windfall" stones.

Considering the size and weight of some of these boulders, its going to be a slow, long-term process to collect enough and haul them up to the cabin site!! The plan is to take a few everytime I go up there with other materials (lumber, etc.) Eventually I will build up enough to be meaningful.

I'll mound the rocks loosely under the sill plates of the cabin. While the stones will be non-structural, I think it will have a nice aesthetic effect. Currently, the cabin seems to just float there on round piers. It will look great once it appears to be sitting on large, heavy stones.

There will be other benefits of this stone skirting. It will keep larger animals from dwelling under the cabin. It will also act as a wind barrier, and help prevent the wind from rapidly sapping heat through the floor on cold and windy winter nights.

2008-02-16T15:51:00.000-08:00

I decided awhile ago that I wanted a log bed in the cabin.

Originally, I planned to harvest the logs myself from thinning small-diameter pine or cedar trees on my property, learn how to cut mortise and tenons into logs, and construct my own bed. While I was passively pondering this, I discovered that a co-worker's husband (Jonathan Rush) builds custom log furniture as a side business. Among other things, it helps him pay his way through school.

Instead of building the bed myself, I decided to commission Jonathan to build my bed. Its a full-size bed, which should fit well on the loft. It is also a simple bed, entirely made from Western Red Cedar, harvested personally by Jonathan from his grandparent's property on Moscow Mountain.
I instructed Jonathan that, in order to mesh with the timber-frame cabin, I didn't want any metal fasteners in the bed frame: only pegs and perhaps a little wood glue.

He got to work figuring out a good system for this.

Ultimately he came up with a great system which employs braces and oak pegs (not unlike the cabin itself)!

I could not be happier.

Ordinarily, Jonathan finishes his beds with a couple coats of polyurethane. While this makes for durable and good looking furniture, I decided that I wanted to finish the bed with Landark Oil instead.

We'll see how that turns out!

The bed turned out beautifully. Jonathan provided detailed instructions on assembly, and I can't wait to get this bed into the cabin this summer. Its going to be fantastic.

I'm thinking of doing something very similar to this log-furniture technique to create a railing for the loft. More on that topic soon.

2008-02-02T17:48:00.001-08:00

Snow, snow, snow!!!

This area of the world, known as the "Palouse", has so far received the most snowfall in a decade, and the snow is not done falling yet. The governer declared a state of emergency for our county, and the kids had 4 snow days last week. Its snowing now as I type this.

Here are the kids in the backyard, playing in a quinzhee. You can see the stick-framed playhouse I built for them in the background, and the crazy snow load on the playhouse roof. :-)

I decided to snow shoe up to the cabin site to document how well the cabin and the site is dealing with heavy snow. I'd say that there is an average of 5' of snow everywhere, with drifts getting as high as 8-9 feet in some places. It was an arduous trek, because the top 2-3 feet of snow was pure powder, and my snow shoes sank at least 12" with every step. This same hike was much easier last week.

Here is the trail up to the cabin:

Here is the snowy southern view from near the cabin site, which sets atop a hill.

As always, I was glad to see that that cabin is still there:

This is the most significant snow load that I've seen on the cabin roof yet. Its about 10-12 inches, which actually not too bad at all. Considering that at least 2-3 feet of new snow fell recently up there, and the ground has about 5 feet of snow (up to 8-9 in some drifts).

It was impossible to open the temporary door to the cabin without a snow shovel, since the snow drift and berm (to the left in the picture below) blocked access to the door. Surprisingly, the larger drifts are on the South and East sides of the cabin. Since the wind blows predominately from the west, I figured that the western and northern sides would get bigger drifts.

These big drifts make me realize how important a porch is going to be.

I can't wait to get the Tyvek off of this thing and install windows, insulation, siding and a wood stove. It would be a *great* snowy hideout for the whole family this time of year.

Progress on the cabin is slow. Obviously, just getting to it is hard and there is no way to bring up materials. This snow won't melt entirely until April or May, and I won't be able to drive on the land until close to June.

Time to finish the door and windows in my shop and maybe make a little furniture while I wait for the spring thaw...

2008-01-02T09:52:00.000-08:00

The family spent a couple weeks in Europe this year, mainly in Munich Germany and Zurich Switzerland.

I wanted to see some great, old timber frames while I was there. Unfortunately, we really didn't have the opportunity. Hopefully next time we will visit the Swiss Open-Air Museum, Ballenburg.

However, I've included some pictures below of a couple half-timbered buildings and some closeups of braces and joinery.

This first building was near "downtown" Basel, Switzerland. I was able to get up close to the timbers to see that they were of a hand-hewn hardwood. Most timbers in half-timbered buildings are coated with literally centuries of paint or oil to protect the timbers. This one was relatively exposed, enough to clearly see the broad-axe marks on the timbers.

The braces look like half-lap dovetails, let-in from the outside and pegged with square pegs. Its possible that the pegs are round and the ends are left square. Interestly, the craftsmen left the peg ends proud by about a 1/2 inch. The brace fits so perfectly here. They undoubtedly used scribe-fitting and probably shaved the brace to fit during raising. The infile material is flush with the timbers where they meet, but then stick out another 1/2" with a nice ornamental stripe.

This building appeared to be a residence in Zurich, Switzerland. The pictures quality is not high due to the relative darkness at dusk. The most interesting feature of this frame are the gable-end rafter braces, which appear to be largely ornamental and not structural.

2007-12-27T08:04:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking a bit about doors. Well, a lot, actually.

After much deliberation, I've decided to make my own cabin door in the old ledged-and-braced fashion using personally harvested, rough-sawn 1.5" douglas fir battens with 1.5" tamarack ledges and stump-tenoned braces. (Peter is probably going to balk at me for not making a lighter door using cedar)

The ledges and braces will be attached to the battens with authentic rose-head wrought iron clinch nails.

The door will swing inward on long 28" long, 1/4" thick hand-forged iron pintle strap hinges that are mounted using iron lag screws directly to the timber door post. Below, you can see the pintle strap hinge I will use.

The door is going to be very heavy at 39" wide and over 7' high, but I think the combination of large and long strap hinges and the use of stump-tenoned ledge braces will keep the door from sagging. I might get a middle strap hinge, although it is probably not necessary.

In order to preserve the wood and iron, I will treat both sides of the door with oil (exterior: spar varnish, interior: Land Ark). I plan to periodically treat the wrought-iron hardware with linseed oil.

For handle and latch, I'm considering a hand-forged iron Norfolk or Suffolk latch like the one shown below. I'm not sure, though. I'll have to think some more about it.

2007-11-25T08:56:00.000-08:00

The time has come to get ready for the work of next spring and summer. That will involve adding the exterior, non load-bearing "frame" and installing doors and windows in the cabin.

I have most of the windows already: we renovated our house last year and replaced most of our old double-hung windows with new double-hung windows. I saved the old sashes and intend to use these wherever possible in the cabin.

Here, you can see them loaded up in the trailer, as I moved them from my garage to my workshop. They are 60 year-old windows, but they are in pretty good shape. One of the larger windows has a bit of decay in one corner. I need to determine a good way to replace/repair or at least brace it.

In addition to stripping paint, I will need to come up with a good way to frame them. The sashes were in a double-hung frame with counterweights. I no longer have the weights. I really have no idea how to make these into double-hung windows again.

I may try to do something like hinge the window sashes instead of hanging them as double-hung. That way, they would swing up or swing left or right. That would certainly be much easier, but I also absolutely need screens on all windows and doors to keep out insects in the summer.

2007-11-20T15:27:00.000-08:00

Snow has arrived in Northern Idaho!

I took a peek at the cabin in the snow, to see how the roof looked/worked with snow on it. Alas, with a 12:12 pitch, I am happy to report that the roof sheds snow efficiently. With even a little melting or wind or vibrations, snow just slides off in clumps. I probably won't have to worry too much about snow load with a slippery metal roof with a pitch like this.

I was working inside the cabin today and, every once in awhile, you could clearly hear a large clump of snow slowly slide off. It was a neat effect, and I look forward to the day when I can warm up the woodstove on a cold day, sit back, and listen to the snow gently slide off the roof...

2007-11-07T18:56:00.000-08:00

Well, the tarps are finally gone! At least one tarp has been hanging on the frame since raising day, and now there are none. Truly, a day of celebration. :-)

Here is a picture of me in the doorway, which is now looking more like a doorway...

The larger bay on the south side is the last side to get pine planks installed, so I took some pictures before I got started raising the planks into position.

Without windows, I'm afraid that the cabin interior gets light only from the small doorway. Alas, the cabin is going to be a horribly dark and cold place this winter.

Next summer, I'll have the walls built out and windows in place, and it will cheer things up a lot.

The picture below seems really funny to me. The building always looks tiny from this camera position, and it looks like a gift-wrapped cabin (Tyvek wrapping paper)!

I should attach a large bow to it and give it to myself. Or something.

2007-10-21T19:00:00.000-07:00

I have finally finished making all of the pine ship-lap planks for the interior wall. My new router can rest now. :-)

I also finished two more loft floor joists and placed them between the tie beams. One of joists had twisted enough that I need to do some work on-site to get it to fit. Man, they sure do look nice, though!

Here are some higher-quality pictures of some of the joinery, now that the frame is enclosed:

I've got only part of one wall to finish now. Its going to be dark in the cabin soon, and since I won't be adding the exterior framing and windows until next year, I'll need a battery-powered light to do any interior work.

Here are a couple shots before I enclosed that Eastern wall and immerse the space into darkness:

Progress is slow, but steady. I won't be able to get my trailer up to the work site anymore. The ground is too muddy. Soon, the only way I'll be able to work on this is to hike up with tools in a backpack. :-)

2007-10-15T11:29:00.001-07:00

For the interior walls, I decided to go with horizontal wood planks instead of drywall or plaster. I prefer the natural qualities of wood instead of drywall or plaster. Properly painted drywall against timbers can look fantastic, but drywall seems somehow out-of-place and synthetic for a little primitive cabin like this. I've seen some pictures of nice timber homes which used painted horizontal wood planks for the interior, and it can often look great. So, I decided to go that route.

Originally, I wanted to go with 1x10 or 1x12 cedar ship-lap siding planks, but I could not find any place in town that sells ship-lap wood siding anymore! I could custom order it online, but it would not be cost effective to ship it for a tiny cabin like this.

I decided on 1x10 #3 pine planks. I bought a hand router and a single rabbit bit. After some training from my friend Joe, I was making my own ship-lap pine siding in my shop in no time. Since this is the interior wall, I don't need to worry about exposure of the pine to the elements (untreated pine siding wouldn't last long around here).

The idea is to enclose the cabin with the pine planking and then cover it with home wrap. That should hold up to the elements throughout the winter and spring and keep things nice and dry. I'll come back in the late spring when things dry out a bit and build-out the walls and windows and exterior siding, etc.

I sanded the interior face of the planks before bringing them to the site. They are quite whitish compared to the frame in front of them. Ultimately, I'd like to apply paint or a whitewash stain to the interior walls to increase that contrast.

I've got the cabin 75% sided now. I also (finally) cut a loft joist and placed it in the frame between the 2nd and 3rd tie beams as shown below. Only 4 more to go! :-)

If I can finish the interior walls and wrap the cabin, things should winter well. Its already mid-October.

The clock is ticking before the snow settles in...

2007-09-30T20:36:00.001-07:00

The metal roof is essentially done!

Just in the nick of time, too. The forcast is rain, rain, rain for about 10 days. It has felt like a bit of a sprint these last weeks, trying to get the roof up. I am *so* happy that it is finally up.

Compared to just about everything else regarding the roof (vapor barrier, frame, insulation, plywood, tar paper), putting the metal up was surprisingly easy and only took a little more than a full day of work.

I think it turned out pretty well. Now on to temporary walls and siding...

2007-09-22T18:40:00.000-07:00

I've been making some good progress on the roof today.

I actually finished almost all of the roof frame and even got some insulation and plywood up today! I would have gotten farther, but both of my drill batteries died. I've been using screws in many places...I've found that it helps to use 9x3 outdoor wood screws to make tight joints with blocking on warped 2x6 rafters, for example. I think tommorrow I will bring out the generator just in case.

I made a miscalculation on the gable overhang distance on the East side of the cabin, so my plywood sheathing isn't lining up well with the rafter spacing. I'm going to have to do some custom plywood cutting on the gable ends of the roof to get everything lined up. Its stuff like this that makes things go slower than I'd like. I'd like to get at least all the insulation and plywood up tomorrow, and hopefully the felt and the metal roof on top of that.

Once I get the initial piece of plywood cut and lined up, I think sheathing the roof will go fast.

2007-09-20T15:23:00.000-07:00

For the first time in my life, I'm afraid of rain.

As I am only working on the roof on the weekends, I am at the mercy of the weather. My greatest fear is for a downpour before I get at least the plywood sheathing and felt paper up. Right now, I've got the 6mil plastic protecting the pine ceiling, but of course it has some holes in it here and there. It would be somewhat catastrophic for the ceiling to sustain heavy water damage (mainly warping).

Needless to say, I've been a slave to weather.com and wunderground.com like never before.

So far I've been lucky. If the luck holds for one or two more weeks, I should be in the clear.

:-)

2007-09-11T16:40:00.000-07:00

(not actual buck)

Today, when I was working on the roof of the cabin, I glanced down the jeep trail leading to the cabin site. Standing there at 50 yards and staring at me was a large 5x5 whitetail buck. We stared at each other for about 5 minutes before he finally sauntered away, unafraid.

It was cool, immensely cool and I wished that I had my camera. :-)

2007-09-10T09:41:00.000-07:00

The roof is going on. Its a slow process, but my friend Jason graciously volunteered to give me a hand this weekend. That was great, because the roof is far further along as a result.

The first order of business was to finish aspects of the ceiling which would be hard or impossible to do once the roof was up. That ended up taking all of Saturday afternoon, but the ceiling looks absolutely fantastic now. No gaps whatsoever in the tongue and groove pine ceiling.

For this work, I bought a rock climbing harness, a belay device, and some climbing rope from Hyperspud in Moscow. Jason is a rock climber, so he brought his gear as well. Being clipped into the rope and harness made this work relatively safe.

Next came the vapor barrier, which I used black 6mil polyethylene that came in a 12x100 sheet. Jason climbed to the peak of the roof and we stapled the polyethylene sheet into place, overlapping some at the peak.

Next came the rafters. We pre-assembled the 2x6 rafter pairs on the ground and hoisted them up via rope. But we did this only after crafting a moveable work platform/roof ladder (Jason's excellent idea).

The rafter overhangs the top plate by about 3 1/2 feet.

The next steps will be to add 2x6 ventilated blocking pieces between the rafter pairs and then add the cantilevered supports to allow for the 2' gable overhang. There is probably at least a full day of roof framing work involved before I can start laying out insulation and plywood sheathing on the top. Then comes the metal roofing above that. This roof is taking about 5 times longer than I expected, but I want to get it mostly right...and its going to look great when its done!

2007-09-02T21:08:00.000-07:00

The ceiling is essentially in. I think it turned out wonderfully!

I used 1x6 tongue & groove pine with an interior finish of water-based poly urethane. The light colored pine against the red oiled fir rafters and purlins is exquisite. The dark oiled tamarack looks great too.

I used Land Ark oil for the timbers. It is a mixture of Linseed oil, tung oil, beeswax, pine rosin, and citrus extract. It smells like oranges! It really brings out the color and grain in the wood, especially the darker woods.

The ridge seam is imperfect, but that is by design. I'm going to put a dark 2x2 moulding piece across the ridge.

The picture below doesn't do the sight justice, but when the sun starts to set, the rich colors on the ceiling are amazing. I need to make sure my western wall has big windows!

A view from the outside. The tarps are to keep the sun out as much as possible until I can the cabin enclosed. Looks pretty ghetto right now from the outside. :-)

2007-08-26T22:01:00.001-07:00

Raising Day!

The raising went very, very smoothly. The weather was perfect. Surrounded by friends and family and trees.

So many people to thank. I couldn't have done it alone, and I couldn't have done it better with any other crew.

I'll let the pictures say the rest.

2007-08-17T18:14:00.001-07:00

Dovetails.

They are one of my favorite joints. They are simple in concept, and surprisingly easy to cut once you've figured out the tricks of using a bevel and and a couple circular saws (one left-handed, one right-handed) correctly. Yet, when done correctly, dovetail joints help to hold a frame together very tightly.

The only downside to dovetails, in my opinion, is that they invariably get covered up with flooring or roofing or whatever. At best you see the underside of a dovetail joint, but that misses the point. So, I took a lot of pictures of my dovetails as a test-fit my principle-rafter/common purlin roof system. I think the dovetail joints turned out well.

I purposely undersized my dovetail tenons slightly, to make the raising go well. The trick is to pound wedges alongside the dovetail tenons after they are joined in order to pull the frame together very tightly.

This last picture shows the open mortise/tenon joint where the rafters connect. They will, of course, not connect at this angle when the roof is raised, but I had to lay out the whole roof flat on the floor to test fit the roof frame. This shows a douglas fir rafter joining a ponderosa pine rafter.

I love that big check running right up through the tenon on the fir rafter! Of course, you won't see that check once the frame is roofed.

I made a decision early on that I would make a hybrid floor system, using real sill timbers but 2x8 joists. I'm now lamenting this decision: In retrospect, a dovetailed, fully timber-framed floor would have been relatively easy to cut and certainly would not have required any compromises such as metal joist collars. Sigh. Next frame!

2007-08-11T21:35:00.000-07:00

I finally got the floor timbers up to the property and onto the pier foundation!

Although these pictures don't tell the whole story, it was a major ordeal getting the very large sill timbers to the site. They are 20' 9"x9" green tamarack and douglas fir. I had to use my Jeep winch and pull myself up, anchoring to trees, to the steepest part of the access trail. It was painful, laborious work. Hopefully I won't have to take my trailer up to the work site many more times! It took about 2 hours and 6 different trees/anchor points to crawl up to the top! My winch is plenty strong enough, but I'm afraid I need a new car battery to keep up.

The sill timbers fit well on the piers. Things were not quite as level as I had hoped, though. I ended up having to shim under the plates with different sizes of pressure-treated boards. I had always intended to put a 1.5" layer of pressure-treated wood between the concrete piers and the plates, but I had to customize the thickness of the pressure-treated layer a bit. I used a 2" chisel and mallet and a hand plane.

Once the sill plates were reasonably level and square, I tightened them to each other with rachet straps and then pegged them. Those timbers are now forever joined.

Since I did not have a power drill out at the site, I used my old-fashioned boring machine to bore the peg holes. It was fun and worked really, really well!

The 1.5" mortises spaced 16" O.C. are for the 2x8 floor joists. These mortises are 4" deep, and the original plan was to cut 4" deep tenons into the joists and just let them into the mortises. This "hybrid" floor framing method which uses traditional sill plates but conventional dimension lumber for joists is described in Chappell's book (page 13, I think?)

Peter, however, recommended against leaving only 4" of support at the ends of the joists. My brother-in-law, Jeremy, pointed out that the joists, supported in this way, might eventually split with the grain, weakening the entire joist.

To play it safe, what I will do is cut the 4" tenon into the 2x8 joists and let it into the mortises and then use conventional joist hangers to support the bottom of the joist as well. After committing to hangers and nails for the joists, the mortise/tenon portion of the floor system seems superfluous. However, I've already cut the mortises.... :-)

Overall, the floor timbers turned out well. There is some minor warping and checking and a minor level mismatch in one corner, but overall the floor frame is solid. The timbers are way oversized, but I like the pure strength in these timbers! Each corner has two 1" oak pegs. If I build the joists and subfloor correctly, this will be a very solid floor.

The tie-down straps will screw into the side of the sill timbers and the posts, firmly connecting the frame to the foundation so that a monster wind doesn't throw the cabin around. The cabin site is generally exposed to heavy winds, so this is an important consideration.

2007-07-22T18:42:00.000-07:00

I've (re)finished all of the braces finally. The only pieces left to cut are the roof system (rafters and purlins).

Its time to test-fit the walls and bents, draw the timbers tight with rachet-straps and drill the 1" peg holes.

I finished fitting what I call the "East" wall. Peter came over and helped me square and measure the wall and fine-tune it. I tightened all of the joinery as much as possible using rachet straps, and Peter and I laid out and drilled the 1" peg holes.

My new 1" ship auger bit was roughing up the timbers a bit, so we switched to using the bit that came with my old boring machine. That made a huge difference. The peg holes look great!

When I was finished, I detached the straps and the frame relaxed. Now all the peg holes look like they've been draw-bored, which is exactly what you want.

There are 1/2" to 1" discrepencies with how the posts are going to line up with the sill plate. I think some of these are related to how some of the timbers have warped slightly. We can easily compensate for this on raising day.

2007-06-25T12:08:00.000-07:00

While the frame is not yet finished, it is time to pour the small pier foundation for the cabin. After two years of searching and waffling back and forth, I finally decided on the precise spot and orientation for the cabin, which, it turned out, was the exact spot I had originally decided on when I first hiked on the land prior to buying it. Funny how it all worked out. The location is not without some drawbacks, but I think it is one of the best locations possible on the land.

After some planning and measuring and staking out the location of the piers, I spent a couple days digging the holes. I wasn't sure what I'd find, but based on the granite rock outcroppings, I figured that I'd hit bedrock quickly. I was right.

This made things easier and better, since the piers can be poured right on bedrock, making a very, very strong foundation.

I bought about 4,000 lbs of concrete, some 12" sonotube, and some #4 rebar for the task. Since there is no water source at the cabin site, I brought about 80 gallons of water in a plastic rain barrel, a 20 gallon trash can, and misc. containers. Hauling this to the cabin site obviously took several trips my trusty Jeep. :-)

My daughters helped me haul up all of the stuff. They liked the pier holes!

I created short batter boards using stakes and 1x4 scrap lumber. I used this to layout the center of the piers over the top of the holes. I then offset everything by 6" to the outside. This created nice square intersection of the lines for the outside of the frame.

Lynne stopped by with Walden and helped me make some final measurements and adjustments to the line layout. Some parts of this project are just really hard to do alone, so I really appreciated the help!

The piers are oriented in the holes such that they barely touch the lines. We used line levels to assure that the piers themselves were level.

Here, you can see the formation of the rebar and wire mesh that Peter recommended to re-inforce the piers. I liked this setup, especially the bending of the #4 rebar and the way it was worked into the wire mesh.

Peter and his family dropped by. Fortunately for me, Peter stayed several hours to help. Mixing a bag of concrete with a measured amound of water in a small tarp really was a time-saver vs. using a wheelbarrow and shovel!

Sadie and Willow even helped mix concrete for awhile (while Lisa took some photos).

When the pier was mostly poured, we buried the metal tie-down strap into the concrete. It has a 45 degree bend in the bottom 1/3 of the strap that gets mixed into the rebar and wire mesh. This strap will get nailed to both the sill plate and the principle posts, and will really secure the frame to the foundation.

Below is the finished foundation. All six piers finished in one day. There is no way that I would have had this done so quickly if Peter hadn't offered his help. I would have been lucky to have finished 2 or 3.

I'll put small sections of pressure treated wood plank between the concrete piers and the larch sill timbers. This will serve two purposes: keeps the sill timbers from directly contacting the concrete foundation (and rotting prematurely), and it will allow me to plane the pressure treated pieces as necessary to get the sill timbers to be perfectly level.

I can't wait to see the timber frame on this foundation!

2007-06-09T07:49:00.000-07:00

Okay, fast-forward to the end of the first week in June and I've got a lot more done. I've finished all three of the bents, both top plates, and most of the girts and I've started in on the rafters!

I'd be further along, except I screwed up the layout of the brace mortises. Unfortunately, I noticed this only after cutting nearly all of the brace mortises and 11 of the 14 braces!!! (you can see the beautiful finished but too-short braces up on the shelf in the picture) GRRR.

So I need to cut another 14 braces from scratch. Which is, like, a lot of work.

Below, you can see the posts, beams, girts, and even a couple of the loft floor joists.

My daughters have been tremendous helpers. Here you can see me teaching Annie to cut a mortise on a top plate while Linnea does some layout.

2007-06-09T07:15:00.000-07:00

Its been awhile since I've added anything. I've been too busy cutting my frame!

These pictures show the state of things around the last week in May, 2007. I've actually gotten much further since then.

The first thing I did when I got back from Grand Oaks was build me some nice framing ponies. I used Engelmann spruce, primarily because it is lightweight and yet relatively strong. The pegs are birch:

The first timbers I cut were the six principal posts. I cut all six from 7x7 Pondersosa pine. Man, that pine is nice to work with and turns out looking gorgeous.

Next, I cut the tie beams from 7x9 doug fir and tamarack. You can see one on the ponies being worked on.

By the end of May, I had basically all of the principle posts and beams finished:

Oh, and by the way, here are my safety cheerleaders:

2007-05-18T06:29:00.001-07:00

In late April, I attended a timber framing workshop at Grand Oaks Timber Framing near Paris, Tennessee. Along with 9 other students from around the country, we learned a ton, cut a whole 14x16 frame from oak, and raised it by the end of the week. Grand Oaks is owned and operated by Scott Stevens, an excellent timber framer and an excellent teacher. The experience was amazing, and I got everything I wanted to from the workshop. If you want to learn the basics of timber framing, I cannot recommend Grand Oaks more.

While at Grand Oaks, I stayed in a little timber frame cabin by the pond. I shared the cabin with Michael, a guy from Alabama. The cabin is shown below. This cabin is very close to what I want my cabin to be, and that is primarily why I wanted to stay there. It is about the same size and overall frame design as my cabin. I literally spent hours looking at the frame from the inside, deciding how I might alter my own cabin plans.

Below, you can see RJ starting to cut some dovetail mortises using a Makita chain mortiser. That mortiser is a fantastic tool! It saves considerable time (I now own one). :-)

Below, Scott is checking some measurements on a timber. Remember, measure 22 times before cutting! :-) The timber frame workshop in the back was beautifully done.

Below, you can see RJ, Michael, and Scott helping to assemble one wall of our frame using commanders and tow straps. Once the wall is made square and brought tight with the ratchet tow straps, we drilled peg holes. A convenient and effective alternative to draw boring, in my opinion.

The owner of the frame that we cut has property very near Grand Oaks. The owner had a nicely constructed pier foundation made, and ready for our sill timbers and floor system (below). This kind of foundation is exactly what I have in mind for my cabin.

We actually raised the frame a whole day early. We had some guys on the team with some construction background and could wield circular saws with speed and accuracy. Below, we are raising the common rafter roof system.

Here is the completed frame! A 14x16 frame. Simple and beautiful!

More pictures and details from my fantastic week at Grand Oaks here:

http://www.grandoakstimberframing.com/April2007.html

The most important things I came away with from the workshop:

Knowing how to use some of these tools properly
The confidence to actually start cutting my hard-won timbers.
Meeting a great group of people from all across the country with a similar interest in timber framing.

The first thing I did when I got back to Idaho was frame a couple of timber framed sawhorses from spruce. Pictures are coming...

2007-03-25T16:14:00.000-07:00

Rob (left), whom I met through my friend Jason, owns property southeast of Moscow. Rob graciously let me park my trailer in a corner of his land. During our winter windstorms, he lost several ponderosa pine trees. Some uprooted, while others simply snapped. His sparse pines are particularly exposed to the winds. Anyway, Rob knew I was interested in finding some logs, and so he contacted me and offered his fallen trees, if I could come and get them.

I called up Peter and Matt, and we headed out on a rainy and cold Sunday morning. Matt and I will share the logs. Peter just came out for the fun and to be supportive.

Peter and Rob cut the fallen trees into logs and cleaned up some of the slash. It was slow and tedious work.

While they did this, Matt and I skidded logs using my Jeep and series of chains and tow straps.

Here is Peter, limbing a fallen ponderosa with his trusty Husqvarna chainsaw. Peter is the chainsaw master.

Matt is pictured here, moving chains around. There was a lot of chain hauling, and after awhile, those big chains felt pretty heavy!

Here is Peter again, cutting some "ramps" to help us guide the logs up onto the trailer. You can see in this picture, many of the decked logs from the day.

Matt is the local Volkswagen nut. He brought his super-deluxe diesel 4x4 volkswagen van and pulled a ~16' double-axle steel frame trailer that he borrowed from Mike Forbes, another palouse local who is hand-building a beautiful post-and-beam home.

This trailer rocks. Many thanks to Mike for allowing us to borrow it! It has a carrying capacity of 7000 lbs, and I bet we loaded it with 4000 lbs worth of logs.

We cut most of our logs to be about 18' long, which meant that they extended beyond the end of the trailer, causing a low backend and a high front end. It caused Matt's VW van to fishtail wildly at speeds greater than 35mph.

It was fun to watch!

The picture to the right shows Matt pulling his full load with his van.

It was a rainy, windy, cold morning and that meant mud and grime and misery. Of course, by the end of the day it was warm and sunny.

Typical Palouse spring day.

The weight on the trailer made the tires look dangerously low on air, so we added air to the tires in Troy.

Here is a better view of the load on Mike's trailer, as pulled by Matt's van.

Although not pictured here, I also hauled 3 or 4 shorter logs to the mill in my trailer, pulled by my jeep.

Those ponderosa pines should mill nicely!!

We loaded the first large pine log onto the trailer using a come-along. After that took 20 minutes, we realized that we had 12 more decked logs to load. We needed something faster.

Since we had two vehicles (Matt's VW and my Jeep), we rigged super-fast method for loading logs. We attached a large block-and-tackle (thanks, Sean!) to the front of the red trailer, threaded a steel cable through it. We attached one end of the steel cable to the log and the other end to the back of my jeep, which was facing away from the trailer. As I drove away from the trailer, this pulled the log in the opposite direction and right up onto the trailer. We used the ramps and a plank borrowed from Rob in order to slide the logs up onto the trailer. It was super-fast indeed. Definitely the way to go.

You can see Peter on the right, holding one end of the steel cable as I drive away, pulling the log up onto the trailer thanks to the block and tackle. Matt helps the logs navigate the ramp using a peavey or lever.

When we finally made it to Jon's mill to drop off the logs, we did the two car trick again. I removed my trailer and backed my Jeep up to the rear of Mike's trailer. We quickly pulled the logs off, at one point pulling three logs off at once.

Altogether, we brought in 13 ponderosa logs. Probably 2 or 3 might be too small to do much
with, but the remainder were large and straight enough to mill some nice posts or beams.

Once I get dimensions from Matt, I'll head back out to Troy and mark which logs belong to whom, and provide some instructions to Jon for milling.

Rob probably has 2x or 3x this many logs still lying on his land. We'll head out there again some weekend and see if we can harvest some more.

Although it is sad that Rob lost so many trees to the winter windstorms, its nice that instead of this wood rotting in place, its going to be custom milled and used in some nice timber-frame structures where it will be admired for a long time to come.

2007-03-16T09:04:00.000-07:00

Our good friends and neighbors, Steffen and Nicole, have a set of large and beautiful trees behind their home. They are in the process of remodelling their home and decided to remove four of these trees, which are about as old as their house (~100 years old).

Steffen and Nicole graciously agreed to give me whatever logs were recoverable, and they hired Caleb for their tree removal services. All four trees are fir: 3 douglas fir and one grand fir.

Below is Caleb's old truck for hauling away limbs:

Below is Caleb, doing what he does best: risking his life on a daily basis!

Below is a picture of Caleb felling the first douglas fir tree. The goal was to drop it onto the concrete pad which was the foundation for the old detached garage that was recently removed to facilitate the home remodel.

Below are the logs, lined up along the edge of their driveway.

Below is Steffen and Blake, helping my little winch get one of the shorter logs onto my trailer.

Because of the species, size, and convenience of these fir trees, I decided to try and keep the butt ends of the trees as logs that were at least 20ft in length. This would allow me to use these logs as continuous 7x9 top plates. This introduced a whole new level of complexity into moving and transporting these logs: their incredible weight and long length proved to be too much for my little 14' aluminum, single-axle trailer. After loading one such log onto my trailer with a rented forklift, I drove it to the saw mill very slowly on gravel backroads. I could not travel faster than 25 mph pulling the log, since my jeep would start to fishtail wildly back and forth. Needless to say, it was a bit scary. My trailer sustained significant damage from the whole fiasco, and I'll be visiting an aluminum welder here in the coming weeks to get it repaired.

I called up Nils, who happens to own a large diesel truck with a 16' steel bed and an articulated boom with a winch. I helped him get a load of recently felled logs at the Washington State University campus. Below shows a picture of Nils controlling the boom, and lifting a large log onto his truck. That boom truck is a beautiful thing. The logs we recovered from the WSU campus were some kind of exotic japanese hardwood. He plans to mill it into flooring.

After I got back to town with the boom truck, I dropped the hardwood logs into my trailer and went to Steffens and Nicole's to get my logs. That boom truck turned an otherwise nightmarish and intractable problem of transporting huge, long, heavy logs into something very simple. I delivered the logs to Jon for milling.

Below you can see me loading the largest log onto the back of the truck. How trivially easy with a truck like this!

But before I borrowed the boom truck from Nils, I tried loading the large logs into my trailer with a rented forklift. The forklift could easily lift these massive logs, but my poor trailer has some serious issues with the weight and the size. :-(

2007-03-04T22:32:00.000-08:00

On my 35th birthday, my friend Peter gave me a commander mallet that he made himself from an 8x8 piece of western larch and a hardwood handle. Below, you can see me holding the commander while standing next to Peter.

My dad also sent me some really cool tools: a complete set of 3 very nice calipers: interior, exterior and a point-to-point. He also sent me a nifty centering ruler for quickly finding the center of a timber. Thanks, Dad!!!

Below are some pictures of my workshop. You can see that I haven't stacked all of the timbers on stickers yet. I'll probably get to that next week.

Jon has been doing an excellent job milling, and every week or two I've been picking up 10 or so freshly-milled timbers. Immediately below you can see a pile of hastily-stacked timbers, mostly 4x7s of various species, including a couple doug fir 7x7s.

Below, you can see a hand-made carving bench made by Nils Peterson. I've been making pegs from Birch and Tamarack using the carving bench. Here, on the bench, you can see some roughed birch pegs that I am about to shape with a spokeshave.

Jon has been making nominal 2x4 and 2x7 boards and planks when he mills. Below, you can see them up on stickers in my shop:

Jon has been doing a great, great job milling these timbers. Below, you can see some 7x9, 4x7, and 7x7 fir and pine timbers on stickers. The ends of these timbers are a bit grimy, since I didn't cover them properly when I transported them from Troy to Moscow, and they got road funk on them. I have since learned my lesson, and have employed tarpology to protect them from road grime.

Below, the unstacked/unstickered timbers to the left are the most recent. These were made from the spruce that we recently removed in our backyard. The timbers are beautiful, although a bit knotty. Spruce is light: light in color and light in weight. Its amazing how insubstantial a spruce 7x7 is compared to fir and even pine.

2007-02-27T10:17:00.000-08:00

We had a windy day in mid-February. When I was out back one evening, I walked past one of our large spruce trees in our backyard. I happened to glance over at it and noticed that it was swaying way too much at the lower trunk. The more I looked at it, the more concerned I got. The soil around the base of the trunk was actually swelling 3-6 inches everytime there was a significant gust of wind.

I called Caleb, a local licensed/insured tree pruner/remover whom I've hired in the past. He came out immediately. The prognosis was not good: the tree was about to uproot. We guessed that it lost some root support during the major windstorms in November and December and now that the soil was warmer and wetter, it was just a matter of time. It would probably fall that night, if the wind continued to pick up. If it fell on its own, it would most likely fall to the east...right into a major powerline, a couple fences, and the neighbor's house!

However, since it was already dark outside, Caleb could not remove the tree that night. So, he tethered the spruce tree to an adjacent spruce tree with a large rope and called it good for the night. We all called it an evening and hoped that the wind would die down. The tree was leaning noticeably to the East.

Nils Peterson, a local timber framer, happened to be over for dinner with his family that night. I think it was fun for him to witness the whole thing, especially Caleb trying to stop the inevitable with a piece of rope.

In the morning, Caleb returned with some help and started de-limbing the tree. It was still somewhat windy, so he had to climb up the tree with a chainsaw and cut off branches while the tree swayed unpredictably in the wind. I think he was somewhat scared (I wouldn't have done it), but he kept on it until it was done. I joked that I hoped he had life insurance... He didn't think that was so funny. :-)

Of course, I wanted whatever usable logs I could get from the tree. So, he felled a 24' log into my backyard. We all miscalculated, and it took out the phone line which ran from the back alley to our house. The phone company fixed it right away, so it was no big deal.

The picture below shows Caleb lopping off the top of the tree. High up in a swaying, dying tree, right above some nasty power lines. This is something I wouldn't have done, but he did a great job.

At the base of the trunk, where Caleb felled the butt end of the tree, it was clear that this tree was dying. There was a 8 foot long vein of rot in the trunk of the tree running up and down, and carpenter ants rushed out of the newly-felled tree. I don't know if the ants caused the rot, or merely took advantage of an already sick and dying tree, but IT WAS ALL BAD!

Once felled, I had to cut 6' off the butt end of the log to find healthy usable wood. Then, I had to cut the log in half to navigate out of our backyard.

In addition to a 6' log that Caleb lopped off up higher in the tree, I ended up with 3 small-length spruce logs. I used a come-along, a peavey, and a timberjack to navigate the logs out of our small backyard fence and into the back alley and ultimately onto my trailer and to the sawyer.

My daughter and I dropped these off at Jon's for milling today. I'm hoping to get these shorter pieces milled into a couple posts and a couple girts and possible a few joists or rafters. Spruce apparently has a fantastic strength-to-weight ratio, but I think I'll use this spruce for posts and non load-bearing timbers.

Well, the cabin will have some timbers taken from our home. That only adds to the unfolding story...

2007-02-24T22:13:00.000-08:00

In early February, my friends Sean and Darol and I made an early-morning trip to the woods and collected firewood and logs. Sean needed firewood, and I needed logs, and Darol (shown below) just wanted to come along for the fun of it.

I found two recently fallen fir trees and a western white pine log. Sean felled a dead standing grand fir tree and filled his trailer with rounds for splitting into firewood.

The conditions were sketchy. The snow was high and the roads were slippery. Obviously, those conditions become even more questionable when you are pulling a trailer loaded with one ton of firewood. Sean's Toyota got stuck a couple times, but nothing too serious.

As a matter of principle, I really don't like ATVs. That said, I've been known to use them on rare occasions. We brought Sean's ATV, which is equiped with a winch. It proved to be nearly useless, though. Its weight is too light in comparison to a large log, and with the road being so snowy/icy, it just could not get sufficient traction. Thankfully, we all learned to leave it behind next time.

After the trip, I dropped off the three logs at Jon's (to be milled) and I picked up the first batch of milled timbers. They turned out beautifully. More on that next time...

2007-02-02T15:11:00.000-08:00

I've been brainstorming some joinery possibilities for connecting the common rafters on the shed (lean-to) to the top plate. I put them all into one example. I think the tusk tenon is the winning candidate at this point. In the first picture, I've widened the top plate from a 7x9 to a 10x9 to better accomodate the rafter joinery. While this might not be necessary, I could enlarge this plate...and this shows how that would look.

NOTE: The last picture shows the most recent revision, which is much more simplified. I believe it solves a lot of obvious problems with first designs.

2007-02-01T23:42:00.000-08:00

As far as design goes, its time to flesh out a couple of joints that have been troubling me. I really like the idea of using common rafters on the lean-to section of the roof (the roof covering the porch). The main cabin has a roof pitch of 9:12, but the lean-to roof is shallower than that. My design shows these common rafters attached to the continuous top plate, but I never drilled down into what the joinery would actually look like there.

My initial thought is to use an angled, shouldered dovetail tenon on the common rafters. The whole tenon is 3" long, and the shoulder is 1" long. The rafter tenons would join with mortises cut from the top of the top plate.

Any thoughts?

2007-01-22T10:28:00.000-08:00

Logging and milling are all on hold right now. The weather conditions are still prohibitive due to snow pack and associated road conditions. I am also waiting on Jon to have time to mill, probably sometime in February. The mill has some kind of minor hydraulic leak as well, which is also troublesome. Although I feel somewhat frustrated by these delays, it is probably all for the best, since my shoulder is still bothering me. I must have suffered a minor sprain or shoulder separation. I also need to be working diligently on my Ph.D dissertation, which I want to finish up this spring. :-)

In the meantime, I've purchased a portable 12V DC winch to help move logs. My goal this week is to mount the winch on my trailer. The winch is capable of being temporarily mounted on a standard hitch ball. If I can securely attach a receiver hitch to my trailer, I believe I should be able to mount the winch there conveniently as needed. While I don't strictly need a winch (a come-along works nicely), a winch will speed things up and maybe preserve my shoulder. :-)

In further news, I've leased a workshop space here in town for the next year. This workshop will allow me to store and work the timbers here in town without having to travel to the cabin site. While I would love to work joinery outside and on-site, being able to work closer to home will help with my busy schedule. I also like the idea of keeping my timbers protected from the weather for as long as possible. The workshop space is relatively large, so I should be able to assemble and nearly raise the entire cabin *inside* the workshop space. How super convenient!

2007-01-08T10:18:00.000-08:00

I recently used Google SketchUp for the first time. It is a tremendously powerful, free, and easy-to-use CAD system to model the cabin design. I was able to master the software within an hour or so.

After really staring at the basic cabin design for awhile, I decided that the cabin really needed a porch of some kind. We have an 8x12 covered/screened porch on our house here in Moscow, and we really enjoy that space, especially in the summer. I think some kind of outside porch is critical to the value of a cabin like this. Someplace to sit and drink a cup of tea in the shade, leave snowy boots, or just listen to the night. I have visions of being up at the cabin in the rain, and sitting on the porch enjoying the rainfall while also being outside and staying warm and dry...

Anyway, I've been toying with how to add a roof and a porch to the cabin. With these images, you can see the working design. I do believe that I've finally settled on a complete design (as shown in the first picture).

I need to work out some of the joinery details, but I think that this design is essentially complete.

NOTE: For perspective on scale, the man in the drawing is approximately 6' tall, and the bench on the porch is approximately 6' long.

2007-01-04T09:26:00.000-08:00

I now have 26 logs waiting to be milled. The weather has changed for the worse in recent days, and the access road that I've been using is essentially snowed in. In addition, my left shoulder is really bothering me lately. I must have tweaked it when I was harvesting logs by myself.

Needless to say, I'm going to take a hiatus from getting more logs until my shoulder and the weather/road conditions improve. I need to focus on finalizing the design details of the cabin frame and get the timbers milled. Jon told me that there is some kind of minor hydraulic problem with his mill, so I am waiting to hear back from him on when the mill will be repaired.

In the meantime, I constructed a 1/16th scale model of the cabin frame using dimensional balsa and bass wood found at a local downtown craft store. The design is based on a cabin frame designed originally by Scott Stevens at Grand Oaks Timber Framing, where I will be participating in a timber framing workshop this April.

The model is very basic and hastily assembled, but I wanted to get a tangible idea of perspective and scale.

After staring at the model for awhile, I've already changed several things with the cabin design. First and foremost, I've increased the dimensions of the main beams from 7x7s to 7x9's. While 7x7 is probably adequate, the 7x9 timbers just have a better aesthetic.

I've also added four additional braces to the design. I am debating whether to increase the top plate dimensions from 7x7 to 7x9 as well. I probably will.

The other added benefit of building this scale model is that I've finally received some input from Jenny. After seeing the model, she wonders if the door placement needs to be reconsidered...or perhaps a side door needs to be added. She also provided some input on where she thinks a porch should go.

Next, I will probably experiment on where to put the porch and what it will look like. I will also start covering portions of the frame and get a better idea of where I will place the piers that the sill plates will rest on. In addition to determining window placement, I will also start to get a better idea of what the roof will look like and how I will construct it.

Here is my daughter sitting next to the model. What a punk!

2006-12-26T12:09:00.000-08:00

We had a second severe windstorm in the Pacific Northwest. This windstorm was much more severe, and caused over a million people in the NW to lose power for a long period of time. In fact, my family and I lost power for several hours during the storm.

The picture above shows my friend Peter standing by some larch logs and the trailer. Peter is holding the log carrier in this picture.

This windstorm felled a lot of trees...not just in town but all over the rural countryside throughout Latah county. Many trees were uprooted, some were snapped at the base. Some are still leaning precariously.

I've become very serious in recent days about collecting these "windfall" logs. With the help of my friend Peter, I've collected 17 logs in a two-day period!! I've collected ponderosa pine, grand fir, western larch, and lodgepole pine. Armed with a couple of Peaveys, a wood-handled log carrier, and a come-along, we managed to brute force and finesse 17 logs of different weights and diameters onto my trailer and ultimately to the sawmill. I instantly went from being horribly behind in my log-collecting status to being comfortably on-schedule again. I estimate that I now have about 35% of the total logs that I will need for my cabin. The wood is all very good quality...the sheer number of downed trees has allowed me to be picky.

To the left is my friend Peter who is marking 14' sections on two felled Ponderosa Pine trees which were uprooted in the windstorm.

I would like to get some more larch and douglas fir. I've now got plenty of spruce and pine, which will look good but have less than terrific mechanical properties. For my tiny structure, it shouldn't matter much.

My 4x4 Jeep has peformed very well as a logging truck. It's capable of hauling logs and a very loaded trailer on top of snow and ice.

Here is a picture of me using a come-along to slowly pull a log onto the trailer. The come-along is the key to manipulating larger logs or putting logs on top of other logs where there is much more friction. I'm now convinced that with a come-along, a block and tackle, and a large lever one can do almost anything!!

To the left is a picture of our first full load of 5 logs. 2 larch, 2 ponderosa pine, and 1 grand fir. I am really curious how much all of these weigh and how much my trailer can truly support..

To the left is a picture of me using a come-along to pull a large log onto the second layer of logs. This kind of situation is the most time consuming due to the height difference and the extra friction of bark on bark.

To the right is a picture of me atop the largest load yet....7 logs! We picked up some lodgepole pine at the last minute...

To the right are the 20 logs waiting to be milled into posts, beams, rafters, joists and flooring planks!

2006-12-23T22:04:00.000-08:00

On or around November 13th, a tremendous windstorm hit the Pacific Northwest during the night. The following morning, Jenny (my wife) called her mother who lives literally just down the street. Apparently, a large spruce tree in my Mother-in-law's front lawn was knocked down by the wind.

LUCKY ME!

The Spruce tree fell down across Lincoln street. It hit a house and a car across the street, and yet did surprisingly little damage to either. I rushed out the door with my overalls and chainsaw and immediately got to work!

It took all day, but I managed to limb the tree, and cut it into two sections. City workers provided only minor assistance by carrying off limbs in their trucks and helping me roll the logs off the street. Altogether, I managed to get three 14' logs from this spruce tree.

With the help of two other guys, I was able to maneuver one log onto the trailer by hand. The heavier logs had to wait until the following day... I rented a forklift from a downtown equipment rental company, drove it on city streets all the way to my mother-in-law's home, and quickly loaded the remaining logs onto my trailer. I hauled the logs to Jon and Hannah's to be milled, probably into posts and joists.

Altogether it took 2 full days of work to fully deal with cutting this fallen tree into logs, loading them into my trailer, and transporting them to the mill. I can't wait to see how well this spruce will mill up.

Because of the species of tree, the spacing of the growth rings, and the abundant knots, I will get weaker timbers from the tree. Sufficient for posts and the occasional joist...

The best part of this tree, aside from its girth, is the story behind it. It will be fantastic to see posts and joists in the cabin and know the interesting story behind it...

I guess others find the story somewhat interesting. The Lewiston Tribune (local newspaper) published a picture of me dealing with the logs in their story about the windstorm and related damage.

2006-12-19T10:38:00.000-08:00

I've very slowly started collecting logs for the cabin. In September, my friend Sean and I claimed two 14' long douglas fir logs while harvesting firewood. Originally, I intended to use these logs for posts, although now I think will use them for beams and flooring planks.

I purchased an Alaskan Mark-III mill and my father and I attempted to mill these logs into 7x7 beams. After spending a day struggling with the chainsaw mill, I decided to abandon that course. My Stihl MS260 chainsaw simply is not beefy enough to efficiently mill logs of this diameter (12" or larger).

Fortunately for me, our neighbors immediately to the east of our property own a woodmizer mill, and have offered to mill our logs for a reasonable cost!! What amazing luck!! Later, I found out that Jon and Hannah, our neighbors have some considerable experience with timber framing and have framed large homes (they are currently building a beautiful log home).

I also purchased a 5x14 aluminum trailer to move around logs and timbers. It has come in handy indeed!

Here are pictures of Jon (neighbor) helping me mill these logs. The woodmizer mill did such a terrific job, that I won't even consider chainsaw milling again, except for extraordinary timbers (extra long or curvy).

2006-09-07T10:42:00.000-07:00

I have started collecting the tools that I will need for timber framing. I am now the proud owner of the following:

Framing Chisels - 2" and 1" Barr chisels and a 1" corner chisel.
Framing Slick - A heavy slick with a 2.5" blade.
Sawmill - A 24" Granberg Alaskan III portable chainsaw mill jig.
Boring Machine - An "Ajax" brand antique boring machine with 2" and 1" bits (shown below).

There are some obvious things that I am missing before I can really get started. The first are sharpening and honing stones for my chisels. I am not sure yet what to get there.

I also need a mallet, and I am trying to determine what, exactly, I need. I suspect that I will go with a couple wooden Barr framing mallets. But, perhaps a plastic dead-blow mallet from the local hardware store will work, too. Yet to be determined.

2006-09-06T22:00:00.000-07:00

We just had dinner with Nils Peterson (the local timber framing guru) and his family. He showed me two structures: A 12x20 toolshed and a 20x30 timber frame barn with a beautifully finished interior. Both were impressive buildings in their own way.

The 12x20 "shed" was particularly interesting, because it is fairly close to the exact design that I intend to use to build the cabin (again, based on a design in Sobon's first book). Sobon presented plans for a 12x16 tool shed and Nils made it longer at 12x20. I intend to extend the plans further to make my cabin a 14x24. Nils hand-hewed the posts and beams in this shed, which obviously gave the shed a nice, rough-hewn look. This was the first timber-frame structure that he ever constructed, sometime in the early to mid-1990s.

The barn was impressive in its size and beauty. Notably, it used three bents with crucks! It has a partially cantilevered sleeping loft upstairs. The timbers were different sizes, and the roof was very high at 20' from floor to ridge beam. The crucks are the dominant feature of the barn, and Nils paid special attention to them (that was undoubtedly unavoidable, I suspect!). In particular, for the crucks in the middle bent, the loft allows you to see and feel both sides of the bent.

I think Nils will be a great resource. Not only is he a great guy, but he is very passionate about timber framing and he seems very willing to help. And I think I will need all the help I can get!

2006-09-06T16:25:00.000-07:00

Background

I have wanted to build a very small cabin in the woods for more than a decade. My interest started after reading Thoreau's Walden in the spring of 1996, and then rekindled after reading Michael Pollan's A Place of My Own sometime after that. I don't just want an existing pre-built cabin or a cabin from a kit. I want to build a cabin with my own hands and my own mind. I think that at least half of my fascination with a cabin in the woods is in the building of the cabin itself. The other half is in using and enjoying the cabin for decades later.

In 2004, my wife Jenny and I purchased some timbered land near our Moscow, Idaho home with the intention of eventually building a small "weekend retreat" cabin. While my wife fully supports my interest in building the cabin, she admits that her true passions lie elsewhere (mainly quilting). Part of me wishes that she was as excited about the cabin as I, but part of me enjoys the freedom to make design and construction decisions without committee.

Why Timber Frame?

One of the key decisions was to construct the cabin as a timber frame structure. I considered traditional stick frame, log cabin, and timber framing methods as well as others (straw bale, etc). But when I picked up Jack Sobon's books on timber framing, I was hooked. The simplicity, durability, beauty, and honesty of timber framing convinced me that timber framing was the way to go. I was also inspired by the fact that many of the posts and beams could be harvested and milled by hand from trees on our land. It was also so simple to see how building a timber-frame cabin is a problem which is easy broken down to small, manageable parts and can be done by one or two people. I also liked the idea of having a frame raising party at the end of the process. The community aspect of an old-fashioned frame raising gathering in the woods sure sounds like a lot of fun.

Overall, I have finally decided on several key things:

1) Location on property (this was very hard!)
2) Construction method (Timber Frame)
3) Dimensions

There is a lot of learning and work left to be done. This will be exciting