Dowel vs settling - scandinavian log house

[Iommi]

Hi Guy,

Do you think it is a good idea to add wooden dowels between each logs with the full scribe scandinavian building method, wich is saddle notch at the corner and lateral belly groove under the logs ? I think dowel will  prevent logs to check real bad during shrinking, but my concern is these dowel may be an obstacle for the logs to settle one over the other, thereby creating  gaps  between logs after drying is complete.

What do you Guys think ?

[barbender]

Dowels will have no effect on checking. The dowels will settle with the building. They are used to give the log wall lateral stability.

[Iommi]

Dowels will have no effect on checking. The dowels will settle with the building. They are used to give the log wall lateral stability.

Thanks for this clear answer. So, since dowels will settle with the house, logs should stay tight over time ? 

[jake pogg]

So, since dowels will settle with the house, logs should stay tight over time ? 

Iommi,i'm not sure just what you mean by "dowels".

As in how tightly they fill the hole,what species/if same as wall-logs,moisture content of either,and so forth.

Neither do i know much about the subject,unfortunately.

I'm presently using 1 3/8" square pegs in a 1 3/4" round hole,and hope like h*** that the logs won't hang up on them.

The pegs are half in bottom/half in top logs,countersunk several inches,and go in kind of tight-the idea being to compress the fibers vs crushing them.

They're same species as the logs,White spruce,and both are green.

Never done this before,my only experience prior to this was round pegs-shaped with an axe out of smaller spruce poles,in putting together firewood rafts.
These Seem to have a tendency of fostering(if not causing)checking,but i may easily be wrong about this.

[hawkins111]

Jake, Do you have any pictures of your log raft using dowls. I've thought about using dowls or pegs on mine because spikes are a PIA. Roping cross braces together works to, but we use spikes because they are fast.

[jake pogg]

Hawkins111,hello there,good to hear from someone from Bethel!:)

No,Sir,i don't,seem to loose a comp with all my photos every other year or so...

Pegs are nice,if you don't mind hand-augering them holes(or own a lineman's gas drill:)),no connection more secure,in every way.

I don't like spikes,they can break under some severe shear forces,and are a nuisance to deal with later,when the raft needs to come apart.

You're very much right in that cross-,or diagonal braces are the thing.
Ratchet straps,the cheap 1" sort that come in packages of several,can do one heck of a job on those vs the real lashing.

Here in Galena we have a weird,kinda unique resource:Nylon strapping 10" wide by about 1/4" thick.
Used by the Air Force as the replaceable part of that arrest gear for landing jets,it's said to be 100 000 lbs test:)...They abandoned rolls and rolls of it here when the base closed down.
When not going far,and not needing a particularly stiff raft(or any other excuse to half-ass it:)),i just nail through that strapping with 16d duplexes.
Sometimes people do the same with old net cork-lines or seat-belts cut out of junked vehicles.

Unfortunately it's rare nowadays to see a pegged raft.
Long ago,i remember seeing some gorgeous ones...Really bright ones,of dead-standing with no bark on,or sometimes ones with really big trees,small ends all forward,and two cross-braces,a peg in each log,the rows of pegs bright and visible... 

[hawkins111]

Our last line of defense is a com-a-long X to the outside logs. You can never have your raft come apart. All that work is way too much to lose. Hardest work I have ever done. Once it's put together, it's a 36 hour trip at 6 knots down to Bethel. My biggest raft is 60 logs. My friend brought down 100 from Sleetmute.

[jake pogg]

That's excellent-pushing a raft home is SO satisfying,with all that work behind you now.

Sounds like you go quite a ways...(never been to Kuskokwim,would dearly love to check it out some day...there's an old overland portage(that even was a narrow-gauge rail at some point,somewhere...above St Mary's?...it's only about 40 miles at that spot...).

I rarely push a raft more than 24 hours,usually the green building logs,from the islands at the mouth of Nowitna,108 river-miles above here.
For firewood i use drift,and let it come down on it's own,easier to catch it once it gets here.
Most years the drift,after break-up,is pretty good.This summer however it failed almost entirely...And was so early that there was still a lot of ice mixed in with it,making it tough to tow logs around,but them's the breaks,it's just how it goes sometimes.