Positioning Wall Logs on a Back Wall?

kantuckid · September 12, 2020, 08:54:39 AM

Tell me a better way?
When I built the log home I'm sitting in, circa 1979-80 I hired a guy who had a long lifting pole that slid onto his FEL forks. It reached even the 2nd story wall tops and the gables I strong armed into position.
Fast forward to now and you have a worn out, 76 yr old man who's hardly the sturdy young guy who built the first story of my home without even a FEL off the back of his log truck and rolled the logs on poles into position.

My small, off-grid cabin build site has access to only three walls to place wall logs using my own FEL-yes I own one now! ;D
I'm trying to decide on a means to slide the logs over to the far end of the cabin as I build each layer? The cabin will be 20' long so whatever is used must help move the log that distance. I will not have much help on this so a two man situation at best to handle the logs.
I'd rather not have to build a derrick sort of thingy and looking for a way to simplify the issue.
One notion I've had is to locate a strong enough, but moveable "pole arrangement" that covers the cabins length, say ~22' long and place the far walls logs on the near end and slide them on that "pole" and another wall. Weight wise they are 6" thick "D" logs. The best self thought idea I've had is a light was possible 22" long, wood beam built of dry lumber that holds one end of each log as it's moved. Like maybe self-build a small plywood "I-beam"?
Ideas are obviously quite welcome!

Hilltop366 · September 12, 2020, 09:39:01 AM

How about a roller that is temporarily fastened on a side wall?

Lift one end of the log on to the side wall roller then slide off the forks on to side wall add a couple more rollers along back the back wall. Once the log is in place length wise slid into position.

Make the other rollers on posts (with braces) so the height can be adjusted for each layer.

Don P · September 12, 2020, 09:39:58 AM

No larger than that I think rolling scaffold running on "tracks" made of something like 2x12's laying across the floor. Using cribbing and then a couple of heights of sawhorses on the platform you should be able to accommodate the height changes as the building rises. I think screw caster jacks have about 18" of tuning. Roll the scaffold to the front wall, load the log a few inches above the existing walls, roll across the floor and unload an end at a time across the walls and scoot the last few inches into place?

doc henderson · September 12, 2020, 11:58:52 AM

how much does the material weigh say per foot. will the other 3 sides be up, or will they all have to go up together to alternate the joints. are there windows in the back wall so that not all the logs are full length. are any of the logs full length? is the back 20 foot wall, the longer or shorter dimension?

based on assumptions, the back wall is 20 feet from the front, but may be a shorter wall. If there are a fair number of full length members, and assuming D style "logs" (must mean a manufactured milled log). and assuming each side must alternate with adjoining walls log by log. can you fabricate a set of brackets to support a pipe for a trolley, then it can go up with each log section. would not work for the short logs. rollers on the underside of the logs.

doc henderson · September 12, 2020, 12:03:05 PM

or if the logs are full length with and over lap, can they be slid on top of the side wall. what kind of corner joint? or make a pully cable style "ascender" lift apparatus.

kantuckid · September 12, 2020, 12:26:29 PM

Clearer picture: 20x16 cabin using 6" thick x ~8" wide, "D" cross section, pine logs that are dovetailed at corners.
(See my dovetail jig post from today for how I'll cut my end joints.)

Both long sides & one end are approachable, ladder room only on far 16' end.
All 4 walls have cutouts for a window and one long side has a door too, plus this is a stack log construction using foam gaskets and spline so length will range (w/o looking at the plan I drew up) from say a few 3', few 6', and mostly 8,10,12,14,16'.
I have one of those cheapo small scaffolds on casters which I already considered as a rolling device for the loose log end and simply slide the other on the wall.
The only real hassle would be the height changes.
I see zero need for rollers for logs this size on that side wall log end.
Might make some sense for a Scandinavian log wall using timber sized large logs.
Yes- all walls go up in unison.
it's a small, remote "intimate sized" building site, up just below the ridgeline, where we live. Mucho rain (two years in a row now of 100 year rains!), garden and lack of help has kept me off the build site lately. I also had to remove a poplar tree I wanted to build around as it limited positioning of the cabin. It was a 5 log tree that's now part of my sawn list. Weather created the forest opening to begin with a couple years back when some mature Chestnut oaks fell from the thin soils up there.
I wonder what a portable, i.e., hand positioned, 22' long, glued up beam would support in pounds of log end weight? Sized as a pure guess: made from 2x6 top/bottom members with a strip of some manmade ply or strand board like 6-8" wide glued in between?
Google tells me a 2x6 SPF weighs ~ 1.53#'s per LF so 44 x 1.53=~ 70#'s plus the ply strip and your easily up to ~ 100#'s device to move a log.
Makes the scaffold height hassle seem better yet?

doc henderson · September 12, 2020, 12:39:13 PM

can all the far side wall parts be staged inside the perimeter on the floor and then mostly have to arrange for a way to hoist up on top. sounds like fun. will all the parts then already be manufactured before building. can you have a "barn raising" style event when the time comes? If off grid, might be out of the way, and I understand if you do not want to be beholding to a ton of folks. great project. cheers! doc.

kantuckid · September 12, 2020, 12:50:27 PM

Staging makes sense! :

I'll have the subfloor usable during the log wall build. When I was building our home I'd always build the far wall before the near walls. When I got to the top of the 1st floor windows, working solo I gave up that notion!

Edit-Upon further thought staging the longest logs while man-handling the short ones might be logical.

Barn raising? When the Amish were doing our new metal raised seam roof in June/July that particular group was building a 2nd school and they'd rotate off of my job and back from the school. I cannot get one!, uno, person to work! One would think that in one of the actual poorest counties in the entire USA there would be people who'd want work? I had a kid lined up who's on virtual school now and never got him one day all summer. Between covid Momma worries and fact he got a job cleaning rental cabins nearby it never happened. The medium sized commercial sawmill down the road from me uses Mexicans for labor, local as the head sawyer, maintenance and truck drivers, log peeler/loader/truck/log mover/log grader/lumber grader. One married a local girl and lives here the others families in Mexico.
I see these guys who get beer labor on other forums, not seen that near me. When I was still working in tech schools I could hire adult students and did so. Our 3 adult sons live inTN,AL & TX, neither of us is from this county & me from KS, thus no relatives to pull on either.
20 yrs of retirement and we are aging out on land...

doc henderson · September 12, 2020, 01:12:23 PM

what is you time window? getting this before winter? a few more details, maybe some labor on the forum, or know by the forum members. are the logs on site? how far off grid, town how far away?

kantuckid · September 13, 2020, 10:53:55 AM

Quote from: doc henderson on September 12, 2020, 01:12:23 PM
what is you time window? getting this before winter? a few more details, maybe some labor on the forum, or know by the forum members. are the logs on site? how far off grid, town how far away?

Time window-that's a good one! I've been trying to prep the site via clearing and leveling then a tree removed for a couple of years! Lately I've been sawing again on my pattern and next sawn will be the 6 x 10 oak beams that forms my foundation on the concrete piers. My rough thinking is that this year I'll get the foundation piers, beams mounted and subfloor down on joists before winter shuts me down. Off -grid in this case means about a 1/2 mile back into our land and maybe a 1,000 ft higher just below the ridge top. yesterday (before the rains came yet again most of last night & still raining now as I type) I moved rocks that I'd piled from leveling the site. Hard work for what's left of me to place FEL bucket near my pile of ! 8 tons of various sized rocks and place them on slope of the fill corner of site. I have maybe two buckets left as the humidity had me rocked out.
The turkeys have moved into my site as it's a source for dusting since lack of vegetation it dries out unlike everything around it.
This county has ~ 5,000, (Co has had 14 covid-19 positives and we do have one nursing home) a small county seat of ~ 500 people and our land, one fence line adjoins whats a city limit of not much of a town. No fast food, no red lights, no jobs, one market, never has been coal here or a factory. Logging and if you teach is about it as those who work travel to nearest cities with jobs.Walmarts a 50k RT, biggest city is Lexington, KY 1.5 hrs west. We are next to the RED River Gorge Geologic Area.
My electric lines to our home is 6 pole spans from the pavement and ~ 150 yds above my shops service line so it would be a very expensive proposition to extend to this small cabin project.
I'm thinking a small solar setup for 12v LED lights and 12v ceiling fans and bed fans, wood heat, and the same Honda 2000 generator I have now and will build with.
Logs: In two years past there were ice storms in the eastern USA that ranged down into the Carolinas-one year was 1993, the other I forget? I had many pines then but also wasn't thinking a cabin as our 3 sons were still in school, so on. One old "bench field" as they're called in Appalachia, had all poplar & pine. Story line is that the ice built on the pines and they toppled.
I have a limited number now left and thinking is I'll saw them, peel the "D" edge and douse with solubor/borate which I have now to mix. I could easily come up with lots of wall log sized poplar but dislike that they split to the heart badly. Pine is far more agreeable for my type of build. I am using polar for the 4x6 beams that will make my truss assemblies and poplar for joists along with pine thats too big for wall logs. The rest of the pine for walls I'll buy locally.
I know many folks who work in logging & all in milling here and they don't hang out on forums here or elsewhere on web that I'm aware of.

Jeff · September 13, 2020, 11:16:21 AM

lifting a beam. - YouTube

kantuckid · September 13, 2020, 01:29:00 PM

Video= Lazy boys and their Chinese? tool toys? :D

Honestly me thinks my best bet is to manhandle the shorter back wall logs and sit the longish ones across the corners of that back wall with the FEL, then massage/manhandle them carefully into position.

trimguy · September 13, 2020, 03:24:21 PM

I used 2 - 24' telephone poles to set 2 of these trusses. It's mostly green pine all 8 x 8's . It's 23' plus overhang wide , 7' tall. Should pick your logs just fine. When I built my shop I set 40' prebuilt trusses with this setup . Except I had them all the way out to the end. The poles go over the bucket and under the cross brace between the arms.