Page Two

I always try to get the unique photographic angles on my projects, so here's an aerial view of the cabin site as I scaled a tall and narrow pine with no limbs. Hope that you appreciate it!!

Stacking logs one by one. I tried to get them to fit as tightly as possible by shaving off knots and high spots.

Cutting down the trees, loading and hauling to the building site, and skinning them is always the hardest part of building a "raw" log cabin from the good earth. But I can't imagine doing it any other way!

Finally 8 logs high and around half way done. Notice the gap in the rear wall that I intentionally left which will later make it a bit easier to cut out the space for a window.

This and the following photos reveal a distinct change in construction. Can you find it? That's right, the lighter colored logs on top were from my second batch of logs which were cut smooth with a chainsaw. Although the first half of the cabin was built proudly with just an ax, I just couldn't resist buying a tiny 10" Homelite XL chainsaw when it went on sale for just $79.95!! Believe it or not, that same chainsaw is still running today almost 18 years later! Now that was a good investment!

The Gable Ends

These next three pictures show how I did the gable ends.Once I had reached the desired wall height I nailed a small pine sapling directly on center on both of the side walls, then continued stacking logs on only these two walls. Yes, at this point I had to spike the logs so that they wouldn't roll away and since notching no longer provided strength and stability.

I then ran a piece of twine up to the apex of the sapling then secured each end as a guide to exactly where I wanted the pitch of the roof to be. Quite simple.

Once both gable ends were laid then I put the center ridge pole into place and popped a chalk line on the pitch of the roof (note black line) and sawed the logs off smoothly on that line.

Here's the center ridge pole before I trimmed the ends.

For your viewing pleasure, I scrambled up that little pine tree again to snap another aerial view of the rafters. It's now time to get a roof on this baby!

See the roof go on and the finished cabin... by clicking on to page 3!