My timber frame build

[subarctic_moose]

Ah, good to know, that makes sense! We're just under 5k, but we have stands of old growth red and white firs right up the hill from us. 5-6' DF would be nice, mine are only 1.5'-3'. Glad you found a nice source of local lumber outside of SPI control that you can harvest yourself. 

It's amazing what the tree crews are quoting out after Caldor and Dixie. The local guys here wanted the equivalent cost of two new tractors for thinning 10 acres here. I don't blame them for cashing in, but I chose to buy one tractor and a CSM mill instead 

[Ljohnsaw]

Back-update 12/30/2021

The picture above was taken by my neighbor.  Apparently he has a drone and took the following shots.  I don't know if these are screen shots from a video or just stills he took but, in any event, way cool!
8)

Look close, I put some tags on there.  There is the shed (mill storage shed), pump & tank (at the west end of the driveway, you can see the 6" pipe with the solar panel on it, facing north!) and SkyTrak (the lump this side of the cabin).  Those sills are 10' above the rocks against the foundation walls.  That's a good bit of snow.  This is looking west and is just after sunrise on the 30th.



Looking south and slightly east.

Looking south-east.

East is up on this one.  Tagged the bath house (lower left), the tank and pump house (right bottom corner of the cabin) and the shed (upper right).

[RPF2509]

Ljohn,  I know you are aware of fire danger but your house will not survive when one comes.  You need to be clearing more space especially on that south side with the big trees if that is your property.  The little trees close by should go too.  You've put enough effort into the house now that its going to hurt to lose it.  

[Ljohnsaw]

In the first picture looking west - the trees in front on the left are all dead and coming down.  The big pine on the right will likely come down for a main beam.  The trees to the left (driveway area) will be cleared as I make my driveway wider there.  The trees behind (west) are about 50% white/red fir that are coming out.  There are 4 or 5 HUGE cedars that will stay and are about 100' down the hill.  All the little stuff around them will come out.  The trees on the right (north) behind the bath house will be cleared and the steep hill there is covered with brush (over boulders) that will also be cleared.  My goal is a minimum of 100' space around and maybe more on the down hill (west) side.

[RPF2509]

Glad you have a plan -  so many people are clueless

[Ljohnsaw]

Update 2/16/2022:

Took a drive up yesterday with my sister to just take a look around.  One of my neighbors on the main road got broke in and two TVs stolen.  No tracks around my place.   Nothing is visible from the road - there is a little hill between the road and me.  When my cabin it done, the top might be visible.

Anyhow, how it looks out there now:

After nearly 40 days of no precip (except for a light dusting Sunday night), the 8' of snow is down about half way.  Very crusty top, only punching through a little where the snow was mostly shaded all day and didn't develop a crust.


  The main goal was to retrieve the front left tire off my Ford.  It's parked in the left stall under the deck, you can see a bit of the left rear fender.  The Gannon box is under the snow.  I parked it just before Christmas with the front axle up on blocks so it was just a matter of using my DeWalt impact to pull the 8 lug nuts and lift the ~100 pound tire up the 4' bank of snow right behind the tractor.  I used a game sled/toboggan to haul it back to the truck.  It has an ever so slight leak at the bead - just enough to be annoying.

 
Snow predicted Sunday-Tuesday.  Maybe another next weekend.

[Ljohnsaw]

Update 4/20/2022:

In two months, a lot of snow melted.  Then lots of mini-storms that dumped about 6" in the last week.  There's about a foot in the sunny places and 2-3' in the shade.


 

 
Close to starting work...but another 1 to 3 feet predicted by Friday. :

I think there is a thread about bad tree form somewhere.  This one might be good in another 5 or 6 years to make some crazy slabs!

[Walnut Beast]

I bet your ready to get after it! Beautiful and neat tree 👍

[Ljohnsaw]

Update 5/27/2022:

Kept forgetting to post this.  Up a ways is a post about getting some logs from a fellow FF member, Billy.  Last of the snow on 5/19:


 
Snow finally gone and got a self-loader lined up.  Took the help of a big backhoe FEL to load the second one due to the reach for the self-loader.


 

The second log was 37' but we trimmed it back to 35' due to a messy end/fiber pull.  That left the "short" butt log of 35' which is 51" BED and 40" SED.  The trucker said the onboard scales said it weighed in a 20,000.  Took a bit of doing to get the second log on and he was worried that it would be too hard to take off.  We also tossed on a 17' and a 10' 3rd and 4th log from this one tree.  The rest of the top exploded when it hit the ground last fall.  Not bad, 90+' of saw log from one tree!  My SkyTrak picked up the far end off the log truck with no issues - the trucker was amazed at the strength of the forklift.


Somewhere above is a post with a picture of my camping trailer. Camper Pad  The quick spot I made was tight, if you tripped coming out of the camper you'd fall down the hill!  Spent some time messing with my new tractor and my old backhoe to pop some mini-boulders out to expand the pad.  Heading up tomorrow to finish setting up so I can get at it!  Temps still dropping to freezing overnight.

[Magicman]

It's good to see you "extracting" both your building project and this topic.  8)

[Cornerstone]

Wow! John, your face must be in the dictionary when people look up "Jack of all trades". You clearly have a multitude of skills, and a boat load of talent. Incredible place you have made for yourself sir. If I could manage the time I'd offer to spend a week or two helping you on your timber frame cabin build. I think it'd be an awesome experience in one of the most beautiful places on Gods green earth. 

[Ljohnsaw]

Update 6/20-22/22:

Among other fun tasks, using the Roust-a-bout to place the 5x9x12' floor joist timbers.



 

Placed all 5.  Four in this front most bay (need one more) and the 5th in the next bay back.

 
Completed the front 8x12 post joints and cleaned up one corner post I did last year and started on the other corner post.  Once that is done (4 brace pockets to go), then I cut the 8 braces to make ready to set the front and final bent in place!

Then on to tackle the big logs and make beams!

[Walnut Beast]

Looking great!!!

[Magicman]

It's good to see this progress.   8)

[Ljohnsaw]

Update 6/28-29/2022:

Over the weekend I had a day and a half so I finished up the last of the brace pockets on the corner posts and cut 8 of the 10 braces (actually 3 were "extras" from last fall). 

My son volunteered to come up to help all day Tuesday and half day today before he has go to work.  So yesterday morning I cut the braces and had him try out the slick to finish up the cuts.  He did ok for the first time trying it.

Then we went upstairs to test fit each of the three posts in the sill with their braces.  First one was tedious but the other two went quick.  Then to fit them into the beam.  Those cuts were from last fall and took a bit of trimming to make them fit again.  Had that all set up ready to go about 6pm.  My son was a little disappointed that I wasn't going to push through and set it up last night.  I knew better ;)

So we went out for dinner and called it an early evening.  Hit the wood again at 8am.  Had it up by 9:30 or 10 after I did a last adjustment to the middle post to beam braces.  Then a bit of hand nailing of the straps - 200+ nails.


 
Have a few more straps to do on the left post.  That's NOT a big check running down the beam.  Had a rope on there to keep the end post from slipping off.

Probably going up tomorrow to finish securing.  Later in the evening, I'll set my laser level up top so I can mark a level line and see how close my posts are in height.  I adjusted nearly each one a bit so I'm hoping pretty close now.

On to the beams!

[samandothers]

Fantastic! Great progress and time with the son.  I really am enjoying your build.

[Ljohnsaw]

Update 6/30-7/2/2022:

Used a come-along to pull the post onto the beam while tapping it with my persuader.


 
Then on to putting the big log on the mill, one end at a time is all the SkyTrak could handle:


 

This tree was on a STEEP hill and had a bit of a lean.  I saw where Billy was caught off guard.  There was a cut on one side maybe 12" in.  On the other side was maybe a 24" cut.  The between 18" or so was just broken/torn with some serious fiber pull.  I cut off about 18" off the butt and you can see the pulls.  Another 12-18".

 
The only problem is when I set this log on the mill, two supports sunk down a good 6" into the ground.  I was able to level it up fairly close and took a slice off the top.  But I needed to fix the foundation.  So out goes the mill and scrape down to the dirt.  Spent all day on 7/1:


 
Maybe a little more:


 
Then I put down some ties made from my 5x9 loft joist rejects and put the mill back.


 
For some reason when I raised the head all the way up to get the first slice, the drive side ended up about 2" higher.  So I spent the morning resetting it.  The slice I took off the day before I milled down into 9 4x6x8' girts/brace stock.  Found this little gem:


 
Then back up with the log flipped over:


 
Raising the head up I saw it getting wonky again.  Looking into it, I finally saw what was going on.  My  ACME "nuts" are bronze rod about 1.5" long and 1.5" in diameter.  I mounted them in some 2" 1/4" wall tube with Allen screws on all four sides.  I used cup end screws and tightened them up good.  But, they were slipping on the idle side allowing it to lag going up.

So, I ground four flats on each nut (four nuts total) and put everything back together.  It was getting late today so I just did the opening cut on the second side.  Can't really tell here but the extra bit of widening I did paid off.  There was about 1" to spare on the idle side and 2" on the drive side at the butt:


  It's actually flat, just had the camera not level.  All clear, no knots!

[Walnut Beast]

Looking pretty good! Wow! You we're getting things squared away. Hopefully you will get some good wood for the payoff! 💪

[firefighter ontheside]

Looking great John.  Here's to a summer of great progress.

[kantuckid]

I would sure love to "borrow" some of the weather out there :D it's a killer here for now.

[Ljohnsaw]

Update 7/4-6/2022:

Hit the log hard.  I had the top and bottom "opened" and I decided to take one more 8" slab off the current top.


 Stack it somewhere out of the way.


Not many knots!

 
Time to rotate 90°.  First get it off the mill and rotate on the ground.


 
To get it back on the mill, I have to raise one end as high as the bunks so I can set the other end on the mill.  Use an OSHA-approved jenga tower...


 
After the opening cuts (pieces on the ground).

 
And the next 8" slice.



Stack getting bigger.

 
Time to flip again.  This time it's light enough for the SkyTrak to roll on the mill.


Remove the top and there's a nice 8x15x33' ridge beam (half) with some great blue stain!

 
To be milled tomorrow:


Final stack:


No place level to stack/store so up on the deck it goes.

 

 
In there somewhere are two 8x8s, three 8x10s, three 8x12s one 8x15s, three 2x8s and one 1x8 (all 33' long), fifteen 4x6x8' (girts/brace stock) and one 5x9x12 (final loft joist).  I calculated  2,573 bdft.  Not bad from one log!  Would have been a little better but I messed up trying to squeeze the most out of the log and had to downsize a couple timbers when I messed up.  Made a pallet stack of firewood about 4' square and over 6' high.

If I use the toolbox, the log was 33'6" with a butt of 43" and a small end of 39".  I plugged in 17' length and two small ends of 39 and 41 which gave me a total bdft of 2,757 so maybe I did ok.

[Walnut Beast]

AWSOME 👍

[Ljohnsaw]

Update 7/9-17/22:

I managed to "process" two of the 8x12x~30' beams to be the north half of the east and west wall beams.  Not a great picture but shows the scarf joint and some of the post mortises and brace pockets.


 
So on to loading the second log from the big tree.  39" x 35' so some serious weight on this one as well.  Was able to push/roll/push it to get it lined up to load.  Built a much better Jenga tower and set the one end up on that.


 
Unfortunately, my forks were in just the wrong spot to set it on the mill (right on a log bunk).  So another tower to set it down and reset my lift point.  Note the safety 2x4 to keep the log from rolling off the right tower.  Actually, the tree round was doing good job of holding it.

 
Half way on the mill.

 
Ok, on the mill!


 
Take an opening slice (2-3"?) to target a 17" (small end) to ~25" near end surface.

 
Then pull a 12" (13" to account for pushing my mill past it's limits and producing ¼" waves) on this 38" wide cut.

 
Flip the remaining piece and got another 8" cant.


The first cant became a 8x15 and a 2x8, the 12" cant became four 8x12s that had to be resawed to flatten the face that was the original 38" face (top and bottom) that had waves.  The final cant became a 8x12 and an 8x8.

Net result was five 8x12s, one 8x15 (center beam half) and not shown an 8x8 and a 2x8 all 35' long.  A total of 1,984 bdft.  This one took two days to process including cutting up and moving out the firewood.

 

Three loads of this.

 
I think my best day ever was just over 1,000 bdft and that was with help so not bad by myself!

[doc henderson]

where did you get or what is the intended purpose of the long handled scraper in pic # 7.  looks handy

[Ljohnsaw]

Good eye, Doc!  That is an "ice scraper" and was used to pop floor tiles up (I think it was wood parquet tiles) that someone was giving away on CraigsList after they were done with their project.  So basically brand new.  They are also used to remove asphalt roof shingles.  It has a fiberglass handle so I am very careful NOT to use it as a pry bar!  It has some weight to the head and it works as a hatchet on some tough bits of bark. The edge has a slight bend in it so you get a good amount of leverage under the bark with very little effort.  That big log had to be debarked and I spent a hour or so on that before loading on the mill.  Pine bark make a good road bed!  I leave it on the dusty road and the SkyTrak turns it into micro bark chips rolling over it after it has dried for a day or so.