» Next Entries

Category

Log building

Gabriola, Log building, Sketchup
Logging and blogging
06.07.09 | Permalink | 1 Comment

This is the building we are in the process of creating right now. We have two weeks left to finish it. I think we are ahead of schedule. We won’t be adding the doors and windows, but I threw them in because the rendering looks boring without them. I need to still model the roof rafters and put an entire roof system on, but that’s not really important in this course, and it would probably take me a lot more time than it’s worth. It’s going to be a nice little building when we’re all done. I think I’d like to build one for a hot tub or sauna or something one day.

I’ve spent most of the morning working on that rendering and a bunch of my log notes. I’m going to have the best notes ever! I would like to get together with some of the other guys this week and compare notes. Not to brag, but just in case I missed some important things while trying to model what James is describing.
Gabriola, Log building, Random
Gay-bull
06.04.09 | Permalink | Comment?

Today was supposed to be a record breaking day as far as temperature goes here on the island. I’m not sure exactly how hot it got, but it was brutal to work in the sun. Half way through the day we busted out the hose and regularly sprayed ourselves and the logs we were peeling until it just got to be too much. My partner, Dave, and I finished our gable plate today. That’s it pictured above. I was really pleased with how it turned out, except for a few spots I’ll need to do some finish planing, or possibly sanding. I did a large portion of the layout, and got basically everything right the first time. I think it’s mainly due to the fact that I’ve been spending so much time doing layout for things like this in Sketchup for the last few months. Plus, I’ve already modeled the entire building, so I have a much better understanding of what goes where, and how it all looks in it’s different phases of completion. Last time I was here I made several mistakes in my layout. Luckily, I caught all but one before it was too late.

Hopefully tomorrow isn’t as hot, and I don’t feel as shitty in the morning. Today was brutal at times.
Gabriola, Life, Log building, Sketchup
Cobras can’t drink
06.04.09 | Permalink | Comment?

Yesterday I spent the day making a gable plate (a gable plate is that top piece with the scarf joint) with my partner Dave. It is coming along nicely, and today we’re going to make a template for the scarf, then we should be able to finish this piece! So far I enjoy working with the logs and chainsaws. I’m not sure I’d like to build with logs for a living, but I could definitely see myself doing it for maybe a few years – long enough to master the basics.

After school a couple guys asked me to teach them Sketchup, and I said sure. No one actually came when they said they would, so I finished modeling the log building we’re making, then around 9pm 3 guys from the course showed up and invited me to the Surf. The Surf is one of the island’s 3 bars. It’s got the nicest view and location, but it’s a terrible example of log building, that looks like it could fall apart. I rolled a couple joints, drank a few beers, then we went down there to see a Scotsman I just recently met named Blaire, recite a 12 minute Scottish poem about a drunkard who witnesses an orgy of Satan and witches in a church, whilst stumbling home trashed with his horse. The witches and Satan chase Tam (the poem’s protagonist) and before he can reach the keystone in the bridge where he’ll be safe, they manage to cut off his horse’s tail. It was very entertaining, and even better when twice he forgot lines and had to have someone shout them out to him to get him back on track.

I love going to the bars here. Everyone is so nice. Some don’t wear shoes. Some bring their dogs. Most get up and sing or play guitar or something. Either way, it’s always a good time.

I can’t wait for Holly to get here, so I can kidnap her and make her live here with me.
Gabriola, Life, Log building, Random
Cobras don’t have feet, or hands… zomg who’s typing?!?!
06.03.09 | Permalink | 2 Comments

My poor sleeping habits feel like they are catching up on me. Maybe it’s because they aren’t compatible with all the exercise I’ve been getting. Peeling logs isn’t tough work, but it’s a great work out. It reminds me of being on a rowing machine. Not to mention just lifting these fucking things. All the logs we are using are recently fell, so they are sopping wet and probably twice as heavy as they would be if dry. However, if they were dry, I would hate peeling logs. One thing I’ve learned when it comes to peeling is, the wetter the better! Anyway, I was late getting to school yesterday by about 10 minutes, but luckily James was about 5 minutes late himself, so I didn’t miss much of his lesson. I didn’t sleep at all the night before, and debating not going at all yesterday, but I’m glad I did. I left there shortly before three, and came back here intending to sleep all afternoon. Instead, I smoked a joint, talked to Holly while she drove to Toronto to see Nine Inch Nails and Jane’s Addiction, then had a couple beers with David while we had deep conversation. When David and I got too hungry to talk anymore, I went and made some dinner, then worked on my log notes for hours. I had to force myself to go to bed around 11:30, just to make sure I didn’t feel like ass again all day today.

I woke up feeling good today, but I still want to just stay here, wait for Canada’s Worst Handyman to finish downloading, then listen to the Bakertons all day, while doodling.

Also, my fucking foot is retarded right now! I tried to get a picture of it, but my camera is crap these days (I think it needs a major cleaning), so I’ll just have to tell you about it Mr Blog. It’s swollen and itchy, and it’s bright red all around where I got stung. I’d say it’s like 2 inches in diameter at least. My little piggy who had no roast beef doesn’t want to move at all, but maybe that’s because he’s hungry, or possibly bummed that his one buddy took off, while the other one refuses to share his dead cow with him.

Oh! I also went swimming in the ocean for the first time ever on Sunday! It was pretty neat, but very salty. There were topless ladies at the beach!

I<3BEWBS!!
Gabriola, Log building, Sketchup
Cobras take better notes than hu-mans
05.30.09 | Permalink | Comment?

Yup, my notes kick ass. I have so far managed to do almost all the work in class, but at times I find it hard to keep up so I end up asking some questions. People are impressed, and I like that.
Gabriola, Log building, Timber framing
Post post.
05.30.09 | Permalink | Comment?

This is a mid-post I made for the log building we are working on. The joinery is much the same as timber framing, as far as layout and dimensions go, but the cutting and tolerances are much different. All the rough cuts, and even some of the finish cuts are done primarily with a chainsaw. Because the building we’re making is fairly small and basic, it has only a few mid-posts, so we decided to make them in pairs, so everyone got to do at least half of one. I paired up with a dude named Dave, from Ontario. He’s the only other Ontarian in the course, but that’s not why we paired up – we were both just ready to move to that phase at the same time. Our post was peeled by the instructor, and he also milled the two flat parallel edges, using the Wood – Mizer portable mill. Because the faces must be perfectly parallel, and because we can’t operate the mill, we just had to watch while James did the work. I did basically all the layout and we shared the cutting.

Once we had the joinery laid out and cut, we had to route a dado groove down the centre line on each flat face. This is to accept a spline that connects the log in-fill stacks to the posts. After that all we had to do was cut it to length, and finish plane the sides so it looked nice.

Dave over-cut his routing, but mine was sweet. Unfortunately I didn’t snap a picture before we flipped it over.

Another neat thing we did was see a demonstration of James’ new rig he designed. Basically it cuts a huge stack of logs perfectly plumb, which makes our in-fill logs the perfect size and on the perfect plane. It’s an old setup, improved upon greatly. It took less than four minutes to cut about nine logs, perfectly plumb with each other. If we had to do this without his setup, it would have taken a lot longer, and been far less accurate. I took a video of it in action, but I won’t put it up on the youtubes until I have made sure James is okay with me doing so.
Gabriola, Log building, Photos
Notcho’s
05.28.09 | Permalink | 1 Comment

Above is proof that I rarely get things perfect the first time, but if I practice and don’t give up, I can usually achieve something I’m proud of. Starting from the right, there is my first attempt at a practice notch. Beside that (in the middle), is the third attempt, after the second went terribly wrong, terribly quick. The last one on the end is my fourth notch (technically). I was very pleased with it.

My first notch was just ridiculous. I made my notch far too large, and didn’t have good control with the chainsaw. I decided it was good enough for a first attempt, and moved on to practice another.

This one went crazy! I over-cut my line accidentally, because I’m still getting use to the chainsaw, and how to use it to just braze the edge of something. I tried using the back of the bar to do most of my cutting, because I thought I would be able to control it easier. I quickly discovered that the opposite was true. The back of the bar felt more comfortable to me, but because I was trying to focus on where the back of the blade was, I lost track of what exactly the tip of the bar was doing, and then before I knew it I had buggered the entire notch up. I asked James if there was any way of correcting what I had done, but since it was a practice piece, he said to just forget it, go onto the next one, and try not to repeat the mistake.

This was my final notch. I was really proud of it. I think I did it pretty quick, and I managed to keep most of my pencil line visible, as well as having no splintering from over-cutting my score line. After I made this one, I’m much more confident with using the saw in the manor necessary to create a nicely finished notch. It’s tiring on the arms (mostly because we’re using smaller saws with no wrap around handle), but it could also be that I don’t hold the saw tight enough to my body sometimes, and then I force my arms to carry all the weight. I’m just still a little nervous around the chainsaws I guess.

Below are some photos of what I spent the rest of my day doing. Me and another guy paired up, and peeled and flat surfaced this log. It’s going to be one of the sill plates (first course), and it weighs a fucking ton. James demonstrated a few different methods of flat surfacing, and we decided to go with free-handing it. Some of the jigs take too long to set up, so we figured if we were both planing afterwards, we’d save time in the end, even if we had to plane as much as 3/4″ off.

Today we begin stacking logs to create our four generic corners, then we will cut the whole thing into quarters.

» Next Entries