This weekend it didn’t seem like we achieved much. Being a man down (Dad was out of town) it was a lot slower. Even so, we almost finished a complete course. Even more importantly, we had made some adjustments to the 10th course that worked out as needed. This was because when we measured on the ninth course it was a little off square. It turns out that we made the correct changes and our “box” is now exactly square. It’s a good thing, this course will be where the second-floor joists are attached. In terms of height to the top of each corner – three corners are within a 1/4″ of each. Unfortunately the fourth corner is about two inches lower than the other three. We realized, after the fact, why it happened. Should be something we can fix in the next few courses.
All in all, I’m pretty happy with it. Considering we are 12 feet off the ground at this point, building with 1500 pound logs that never seem to go together quite right…two inches in a single corner is O.K. We can fix it as we go up. As a friend told me recently “You’re building a battleship, not a Swiss watch.” Which is quite true. I am no longer concerned about messing up the house if I hit it with the forklift…I’m worried about messing up the forklift.
In the following picture, if you look closely on the right side of the house you can see the 2×4 we use to measure wall height. The top of the 2×4 is just over 13 feet high . . . just to give you some perspective of how high it is now.
The following pictures is of our friends the girder and girder support log. Rebar on the bottom and the top of the girder support log. In the following picture you can see one of the ends of the girder. There are three pieces of rebar in each end if I recall correctly.
And finally, to give you some more perspective. Here is a picture of the best log home builder in the world standing next to some of the lower logs.
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Mar.30,2010
