Shiloh

The last few weeks we have been working on what are called the bird blocks. These fit between the rafters on top of the walls and the roof is built over them. We decided to go with 4 x 12′s since that is what we have for rafters. Of course I didn’t plan ahead and order them at the same time we ordered the rafters. That would have been too easy right? We have to do this the hard way! In my defense I didn’t realize that lumber yards didn’t actually keep 4 x 12′s in stock. Unlike the rafters these didn’t have to be 22 feet long as each bird block is around 40 inches in length. I thought they would at least have 10 or 12 foot 4 x 12′s.

I spent several days calling around to find out there was  exactly 17 feet of 4 x12′s in the area. This was one board milled from cedar wood so it was over 13 dollars a foot. We needed about 80 feet so it was both a little short and very expensive! Getting desperate I called a couple of local guys who run portable sawmills. I am going to have write up a post about portable mills, but  the short version is that a portable sawmill is exactly like it sounds. It is a mill that can be transported on a trailer by a pickup truck to a work site and used to mill up logs. Of course the logs can be brought to where the mill is as well, and that is often easiest. Even the best mills take 30 minutes or so to set up and another 30 minutes to tear down.

Paul (one of the local portable sawmill operators) ended up coming out to the site and took a look at our setup. It turns out he had a few logs at his place so we ended up agreeing to a price for him to mill up 80 feet of his logs. Cheaper and faster than getting it through a lumberyard. Yeah!

This was nine days ago. Paul delivered the new 4 x 12′s in two or three days. They look much better than our rafter boards that we bought from a “big box” store. Our only issue was with some carpenter ants who thought they were going to take up residence in my board but it was resolved with some wood treatment. Once this was done and the board were sanded it was time to start putting them into place. We stained the four inch edges of the boards before they were put into place. This left the two “faces”  of the board unstained. We did this because the moisture content of the wood was to high and they need to dry more before the final staining. The stain acts as as sealant and would trap the moisture inside causing bubbling of the stain and other nasty side effects. Much easier to just stain those two sides in six months or so after the wood has dried sufficiently.

Paul came out on Saturday along with one of the guys who works with him. We were able to install 14 out of 22 of the bird blocks. Putting these bird blocks into place actually resolved a previous problem that we had. A number of the rafters were warped — some quite a bit. The distance between two rafters might be 39 inches measured at the bottom of the two rafters and 38 inches between the two tops. This was because one of the rafter was twisted due to the warping and the top was kind of laying over some. The bird blocks were cut to the proper size as if the rafters were sitting straight as they should have been. Forcing the bird blocks into place would make the rafters sit as they should with an end result of a much better looking set of rafters. It was a lot of hard work requiring at various times wedges and a crow bar but the end result was worth it. Here is Paul and Kevin (his helper) putting in one of the bird blocks:

Next weekend we will finish the bird blocks with a couple of hours of work and then begin laying the tongue and groove decking.  Rachel has been working on the decking for quite a while now staining it and getting it ready for placement. There are only about 30 pieces of tongue and groove left to be stained out of a total of  around 250 boards. The contrast between the unfinished wood and the stained wood is quite dramatic:

Our friend Josh came out on Saturday and was a huge help with the staining. He had not been out to the house site since the logs were being peeled and I think he was little impressed with the changes:

While it is certainly impressive now, I can’t wait until the roof is on and the stain is put on the logs. I suspect it will be quite breathtaking at that point.

keith