Hello, can I ask some advice on cabin building?

[Scotswood]

Hello everyone,

I have been lurking on this great forum for a long time now and this is my first post.

I am in the UK and a couple of years ago realized a lifetimes ambition and finally scraped together enough money to buy a few lonely acres of forest in Scotland to call my own for the family to escape to. It has added £££ to my mortgage, but happy years to my life.

I will be building a 12x24 workshop/cabin which will also serve as a place for an occasional sleep over for us all. I have been reading and researching for a year as to the best design to use - I think I'm pretty well aware of the main options but don't have any experience or reference points to base a decision on.

If you ask about log cabins in the UK you get 2 inch thick tongue and groove sheds. You chaps seem to know your onions so I hope you can advise me! I'm not going to tell you what I plan to do, I'll tell you my situation and you tell me what you would do if you were me!

All input is greatly appreciated :

Large supply of Sitka spruce on site - must cut it myself, no good access for heavy machinery.

Trees approx 20 years old so still small - usable log lengths are up to around 9 - 10 feet, typically 6-8 feet. One or two are much, much bigger e.g. 18 inches at breast height. but they are not that common.

By usable I mean smallest diameter of 5 inches or greater. Many of the longer trees have diameters that run from 10 inches down to 5 or six inches.  A few have nice even diameter approx 5-6 inches that runs for 8 or so feet. I'm babbling - what I mean is size and quality vary.

Have a chainsaw, Alaskan type mill I made myself, 900w generator, power drill, jig saw, 4x4.

Can get dimensional lumber (e.g. 2x8 pressure treated) delivered to site ok.

Willing and fit but 69 year old father in law to help, who gets distracted by the wildlife! I'll be doing much of the work alone.

Site is remote and weather is Scottish.

Don't want to waste the logs, want to save money where possible.

I know that scribe/cope approach will be impractical.

Leaning towards a butt&pass approach ? but only mill the logs top and bottom because of the small size? maybe hybrid with piece en piece approach? Not sure at all.

With 2 young kids, time is an issue.

I'm looking forward to hearing what you think. Thank you very much. I'm glad to be here.

SW.

[Jim_Rogers]

SW:
Welcome to the forum.
I haven't had any experience in building log cabins, but others here have and they may give you suggestions for your project.

Good luck...

Jim Rogers

[pineywoods]

Here's a thread on one I built for my grandson, a little smaller than what you want, but the ideas still apply. I wound up with 6 inch D logs, but smaller would work just as well, just take more of them. With a little jigging, a chainsaw mill should do the job. I used freshly cut logs and forgot to allow for shrinkage which caused a few problems.
When you get started, take a camera. We like pictures.

click here
https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,20922.msg298008.html#msg298008

[jander3]

Welcome,

You might think about Piece en Piece.  If you make a jig to hold the log pieces, scribing and cutting goes pretty quick.   You don't lose as much wall height as cutting D logs.  However, it takes longer to scribe and cut the groves when compared to the time it takes to just rip the logs with a chainsaw.

Another option for full scribe with shorter logs would be strategically placing stub walls.

Small logs go toghether OK; however, they don't keep you warm in the winter.

If I had a large supply of smaller logs, I would give cordwood building a shot (http://www.cordwoodmasonry.com/Cordwood.html).  I think you could better insullation this way.  Keep in mind, I've seen a few cord wood structures and building a cord wood structure is on my list of things to do; however, all my knowledge on the topics is from reading, so I'm pretty clueless in what it might take. There seems to be quite a bit of information available via the internet, books, and classes.

[Scotswood]

Jim, thanks for the welcome.

Piney, I have been studying your own excellent construction for ideas for a while.

Did your shrinkage come about because of the tenon ends you used? I am leaning towards milling the log top and bottom, so the are all, say 4 inches, and then butt and pass them to even out shrinkage.

I do have concerns about the stability of the front and rear walls as they would be 24 feet long, each layer composed of 4 or 5 smallish diameter logs joined end to end.

Here's a question which you may not be able to answer! but it would help my planning - if you started Monday morning and kept on working, how long would you say it took to pull all the logs out of the woods, peel them and cut them?

What have you used for foundation? Concrete blocks on the ground?

Hello janders - piece en piece has its attractions, stability being one, and the ability to almost construct the cabin as a kit before assembly - but I would need to buy in the timber for framing at it would be taking the weight of the roof rather than the logs themselves.  In the UK it's expensive, although sadly getting cheaper by the day.

I saw a thread about using angle iron and cutting the groove in the logs with a chainsaw for speed. The stub wall idea has also floated around my head - I could get away with 2x6 rather than 6x6 for that.

I accept I will have to chink, so if I'm chinking anyway it might less work to stack the logs round with no milled top and bottom if the frame can help keep them in place.

I have also considered cordwood, and it is a nice simple approach but have heard horror stories about the effects of shrinkage! My logs will be green - cut, peeled and used straight away.

Regards.

[pineywoods]

Scotswood, I got into trouble with shrinkage because the logs shrank, but the window and door frames didn't.  I should have cut the frames a little bit short so the logs above the windows and door could settle when the ones below shrank...Even with the shrinkage, the splines between the logs sealed up the cracks. The only place I have any chinking is just a small amount in the corners. The thing is practically air tight. Have a wood stove in there, but haven't used it yet. suspect I'll have to leave a window open 

Spliced log's shouldn't be a problem if you stagger the joints and use splines as long as you can make them. I'd try to save back enough long logs for the top run..

Where in scotland ? My dad's folks came from Dumfries way back in the 1600's

[Scotswood]

Hi,

I was going to use 6 inch self tapping screws driven in from the top of one log across into the other at 45 degrees to join the butt ends, like toe nailing but with screws instead,  and then pin either side.

We're just a bit east of Dumfries - north of Coldstream, in the southern uplands.

S.

[okie]

SW, I would highly reccomend you get the book "The craft of modular post and beam". If you are going to build with logs, regardless of the approach you take, there is a lot of info in that book. The book tells, as far as I know, all the little details you should take into consideration to allow for the logs shrink. I know a man that made a D profile log house and joined 8-12' long logs to produce a long wal of 56'. He butted the short peices end to end, but he cut a 3/4" groove in the ends 3" from the inside face of the log and placed 3/4" plywood splines in the groove. I beleive each groove was 1 1/2" deep so 3" splines were used. Personally if I were using 5" tip dia logs I would not mill the logs top and bottom. I would take the peice en peice approach and do a quick scribe job with your chainsaw and chink the rest. I do'nt think you would have to buy any timbers for this as there is ways to use round logs for your posts. At most for a 12x24 building you would only need 12 posts and that is over kill @ 6" spacing if you use any kind of top plate at all.
I look foreward to your progression on the build.
Morgan.

[WAGZ]

yes I would agree, go out and find yourself a copy of "the craft of modular post and beam" by author/instructor James Mitchell, its a great read no matter what type of log building you end up doing. I personally attended his building with logs course in the spring of 08' and I'll tell you, that method of piece en piece that he does is a real slick way of doing things.... you can build your whole structure in component pieces right in your backyard, with the use of a simple self made jig, then assemble it on your site whenever its ready....

remember, you shouldn't rush log building......take the time, do it right, and you'll be proud of it for decades to come!

[TW]

If you want to use a log building method native to Europe then you can go for the scandinavian method. Saw the logs on two opposite sides to 5" thickness and off you go. It is much easier than it looks.

Here is a link to an old tread: https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,27608.0.html

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,27608.0.html

[Stephen1]

remember, you shouldn't rush log building......take the time, do it right, and you'll be proud of it for decades to come!

I agree with WAGZ & Oakie, it was one of the 1st books I read, I then read all of B. Alan Mackie's books on Scandinavia scribe, that is what I went with. I am now working on a timber frame, and will spend a year or 2 researching and reading.
For every foot of wall height your wall of stacked logs will shrink by 3\4 of an inch over a 5-7 year time frame.
Pappie & S. bishop built log cabins using logs cut on 2 sides. here is a link to S. Bishops  photos https://forestryforum.com/gallery/index.php?cat=13469

Do a search on FF to see what some of the others have built.

Remember to have fun building, and don't forget the pictures!

[Scotswood]

Chaps, thanks for all the help and advice so far. I have finally obtained a copy of The craft of modular post and beam which is a technically very detailed book, just what I was after.

The more I read, the more I firm up my ideas, but it's also generating a load more questions but I'll start a new thread for those when I get them into some sort of order.

I need to start felling the trees I'll be using now, even though they'll just lie there with their bark on a for a few months.

In sunny Scotland this week - the Roe Deer still have their winter coats, no shoots have appeared on the trees, the bracken still lies dormant, but the midges have decided that's as much of a summer as they need and have emerged with a vengance to seek me out :(