What are you building with your milled wood? merged

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Excellent craftsmanship, CurlyBirtch. :clap:
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LOL, Dan, at first there I didn't realize you were just reposting his pics from an earlier post and I hadn't seen those before, so for a minute when I saw the first pic, I was thinking you had called the Amish in for a barn-raising on your project or something; couldn't figure out how you'd gotten it to that state already! Then I noticed what was in the background through the door and clued in.

Agreed though, excellent craftsmanship indeed.
 
Incredible barn work. That is some of the best joinery I have ever seen in timber framing, and I have worked on many houses that were timber framed for rich folks up here in the Thousand Islands. Great work. Nice to see the pegs being used. Believe it or not, but the pegs will last longer than metal, the metal rusts and lets moisture in and tends to rot the wood around. Great work again.
 
Here is a Trunnel peg I took out of a brace from a barn that was built in 1733. Hickory no doubt. I say it could be used again.
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got everything I needed to build the barn except the..... shingles for the roof
Around here, they'd bring in a portable circle mill to saw the lumber on site to build a barn. Instead of buying shingles, they'd make their own shingles out of douglas fir, since there is no cedar in the area. They tell me the doug fir shingles worked well enough.

I see very few Western barns with quality timber frame construction. I'm guessing because westerners were isolated (few neighbors to help raise heavy timbers), had few tools, and -- just like me -- they were racing against time to get a roof up before winter shut down construction.
 
Barn

Thanks for your kind words. Believe it or not......this was the first "Timber frame" project I had every done. Read a couple of books and went to it. It did help that I am a mechanical engineer by trade. My pegs are hard maple, and I believe that they will last longer than any of the nails that I had to use.
 
Thanks for your kind words. Believe it or not......this was the first "Timber frame" project I had every done. Read a couple of books and went to it. It did help that I am a mechanical engineer by trade. My pegs are hard maple, and I believe that they will last longer than any of the nails that I had to use.

You might have already said, but how long did it take you from start to finsh. I'm talking from milling to the end. Heck even your research in the beginning. At some point in my life I would LOVE to do the same. I'm only 25 so I got a while (lord willing). Main thing I'm concerned about is loosing intrest or will in the middle of the build. Also any idea on how much ya got into it? I guess the first thing to do is to do a small barn or shed.
 
Barn Build

From the time the first Tree hit the ground to the last gallon of stain being applied it took about 18 months give or take. That was mostly only working weekends and holidays though. Also, I did all the mortise and tenon joints with hammer and chisel, so you could probably speed that up with a mechanical mortise machine and a large beam cutting saw. I figure I have about $6K into it, that includes site prep and concrete. Not too bad for a 24' x 36' barn. If your like me, once you get started doing this, you cant wait to get back to it. I am already planning my next one I enjoyed it so much.
 
From the time the first Tree hit the ground to the last gallon of stain being applied it took about 18 months give or take. That was mostly only working weekends and holidays though. Also, I did all the mortise and tenon joints with hammer and chisel, so you could probably speed that up with a mechanical mortise machine and a large beam cutting saw. I figure I have about $6K into it, that includes site prep and concrete. Not too bad for a 24' x 36' barn. If your like me, once you get started doing this, you cant wait to get back to it. I am already planning my next one I enjoyed it so much.


Thanks for the answer. Maybe one of these days when I'm older I'll try my hand at building one.:chainsaw:
 
Tree house

Well, I used the wood for this from the 60 small red pines I milled last year on my father in-laws norwood industries mill. I used 8"x8'ers for the base/platform. Used a birch tree for my 4th post (one I cut down and used the 1st 10') put it in the ground like a post! I bought a few studs for the actual house part. I used plexi glass for the peeks to let some light in.I just have the front window to finish, and a few other little things. Kids love it and have made it their own on the inside! Railings I had to put in as my girls are 4 & 6. Still looking for a 12-14' slide to add!
 
Nice treehouse, Deevo. I loved tree houses when I was a kid. Building them was more fun than using them.
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Yeah, I'd have to say it was fun, I did everything myself..... except my framer friend helped me with the actual house part! I used up a lot of the wood I milled which is good as my wifes been after me to get rid of it all!:cheers:
 
I haven't kept track, but let's make an educated guess.

The saw averages about one gallon per hour of run time, and it's logged 50 hours this year alone, so let's say 50 gallons of 2-stroke mix just this year.


Thanks MtnGun,

That's a lot of gas, but look at all the fine wood you have saved from just rotting in the forest.

I've been wanting to get out with my mill, but I pinched my sciatic nerve in my back and it is effecting my right leg. It's doing better, but I'm not going to force the issue by trying to get out and mill before the back is better. Looking at what everyone has been milling is just killing me!!!!

Great job on your shed and all the great info on your chain comparisons.

jerry-
 
I've been wanting to get out with my mill, but I pinched my sciatic nerve in my back and it is effecting my right leg. It's doing better, but I'm not going to force the issue by trying to get out and mill before the back is better. Looking at what everyone has been milling is just killing me!!!!

That's too bad Jerry, I hope it clears up soon.

I've got a week to got before I can get the splints off my fingers but even after that I know I have to take it easy as the knuckles are still sore and swollen.
 
Retaining Wall

No work today (or tomorrow either, from the looks of it) because we can't get any logs to the mill due to the rain. In 23 years here I can't remember once having breakup and not being able to haul logs in the fall. But the powers that be say we can't... :censored:

So I took advantage of the extra time to get started in on the retaining wall project I've been milling square timbers for over the last couple weeks. With all the rain, it was a heck of a muddy mess digging out and doing the prep work. But it's gotta get done before things freeze up, so I had to just put up with it. I didn't work IN the rain, but things were still awful wet from the last couple days.

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This is what I started out with. Well technically, I started two years ago when my brother and I ripped out the broken-down stone-and-concrete wall that was there; what remains in the foreground is mostly just a dry stone wall but it'll be going as well.

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Got the trench dug for most of the wall; my hands and arms got a really decent workout from swinging the pick and shovel, not to mention carrying those blocks around and moving the beams by hand! I'm glad most of the digging is done now though. Just going through and leveling and aligning the blocks here in this pic. I'm putting one row of Allen blocks in the ground as a base, so I don't have to put the base timber in the ground and leave it exposed to moisture. No matter what I treat it with, it wouldn't last long that way. Also, if it looks like the row of blocks is grossly misaligned with the existing wall, it is. The old one was about 3' off-square from the foundation of the house at this end, which is 25' away from the house. Since I plan on building stairs up to the deck (likely a next-year project), I wanted to have everything square with the house; the only downside is I'll lose a little bit of driveway space. . This suits me just fine because I'll be able to just bury the remainder of the old concrete wall and pack the loose stones away.

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Put one of the 12' 8X8s into place to get a good eye on how things are lined up. Everything looks straight that far, and once I get it into place it'll be a lot easier to line up the last half. I'm putting a layer of tarpaper between the bottom piece and the blocks to keep moisture from wicking up through the bottom, and it'll also be all along the backside as well. I will also be treating the wood with copper and/or zinc preservatives before I put it into place permanently with some rebar.

At the end of the beam that's in place, there will be a small step/platform that will go back to about where the old wall was, maybe 24-28" deep by 3' wide or so, then another square platform that goes back to about where the D handle of the short shovel is, where there will be another smaller retaining wall. I might possibly put one more built-in platform before the staircase, but that'll depend on how the math works out for the stairs.

More pics tomorrow, most likely.
 

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