Thanks all you guys,yes,a crazy project,a new house for a friend's daughter...
Not huge,28'x38',+8'x14' mudroom jogged out the front.
What are you using for wood? Species? Your logs look remarkably clear. Do you have readily available timber?
MOST regrettably,i had to advise the young lady to buy these logs...
...(totally chagrined about that,especially since many of them showed up rotten in places...
...but logging was out of the question,everyone capable is either working,or too old,or dead...alas,but the times when you filled your boat with beer and gas and chainsaws and all your ne'er-do-well friends hopped in and you went and spent couple weeks in the woods and got a set of house-logs are gone
..).
So these got shipped by barge,they're all White spruce from higher up the valley.
They we felled,then milled into this (abominable) "D-log" shape,then allowed to rot under that one round/bark side.
Logging our own was again not an option,and i could not advise to count on a rich drift run(way too superstitious to actually count on yet-un-manifested resource,and sho'nuff-the drift run almost entirely failed this spring...
...).
Practically All building i do is with mature White spruce.They reach about 24" at the butt when old,generally smaller.
The bottom section is often clear for about 20'(that's what this was,82 20'-ers,a mix of bottom and the next sections).
Above that,the usable 20'-40' have reasonable size/tightness of knots.I use a Makita 1002BA curved-base plane to strip the outer 1/2" or better of sapwood,and it does a nice job on what knots there are,smooth and level,so they're not that noticeable.
The flat,interior side,i ream with a Makita 1806B,it's a 6 3/4" wide plane with the base a couple feet long...
My back went to ground,sullen and cowardly,it knows that me and my bad brain are more stubborn,but it'll come out and revenge itself later,in the winter,and it will be lots of fun...
...But i said that i'll have tin on this by November,and i will,i've been a cripple for years anyway.
Fortunately i did get some drift,and may get more if ever the water levels raise.But i've enough to finish the 12 courses that it'd take to reach 8" wall height,(and hopefully a half-story on top),plus the lumber for the trusses.
The Tribe has bought a fancy new Woodmiser LT40 that i should be setting up for them soon,meanwhile i can flog a friend's old Norwood(that's the worst part,death to the lower lumbar region right there...
...).
These half-dovetails are fun,i do what cuts with circular saw i can and chisel out the rest.Definitely an axe-made joint,too bad i can't take my time and slowly work at it all by hand...
Those goofy short cross-walls cover up the joints,i'll brook no butt-joints in me walls...Later,i'll throw a beam clear across them to support the half-story,and they'll become structural columns,kinda like the cross you use under the Christmas tree..
Josh,any time you'd like a vacation in Alaska,i can easily work you to death here!
...But it Will be lots of fun,that's for sure...I love everything about carving spruce,it's Such lovely work...The workday,no matter how long of one(16's lately) goes by unnoticed...
I've an ancient Allis Chalmers 500-series to throw the logs up on the platform,and for now it's easy to move them by hand on there.Few more courses and the craziness will increase
