Cutting floor support logs with saw mill

Up at David and Sarah's property. Here David is moving one of 4 logs that needed a flat side cut with the saw mill . The logs were used to support the second floor flooring.

Cutting in the flat. Tony helping his Dad.

The saw mill is a band saw type. I'll be using is to make some siding lumber from left over logs from building the walls of the cabin.

Tony balancing the log as I take a picture before loading the cut log onto a trailer.

Putting up Logs

This post is a work in progress.................

The following shows the progress over 4 days of hard labor, a day of rain and then days of blessed sun.

This stack of logs were set up on the floor with a Bobcat and moved around by hand by David (my Brother) and I several days before we started putting them in place. This allowed us to get a couple of rounds in place without renting the expensive equipment I would have to rent the next day.

The morning of August 6th. Lots of rain. I had made this tent the day before but it came down at the edge of the floor. For us to work on the walls we had to hoist up the tarps along the sides. This was our creation. It worked while the rain came down. It was slow going that first day getting the first logs in just the right place. And then I had to run to town to get a different kind of sill seal. The foam type I had bought was not compressing enough. So I got some made of fiberglass.

The end of day 1

The late morning of day 2. On this morning I was up at 6 am to go to town and pick up a zoom boom, a fork lift with an extendable boom. As I was driving to the property, about a 7 mile drive from the rental place, I got a call from Wendy Shiffler that he would be headed my way to help out. What a blessing. It was going to be just David and I that day. With Wendy and his wife Judy's help we went from 2 rounds up to 6 rounds up. Thanks so much Shifflers, for the help and the food!!!

End of Day 2

Start of Day 3

The Zoom Boom in action. This job could not have been done without it. A gin pole could have been used but it would have taken much more time to use it. With the end of summer soon upon us this was the best option. Log tongs were used to grab onto the log. The tongs have needle points, so it is very hard to balance the log perfectly. Using only one tong allowed us to rotate the log easily when placing it.


Moving a log.

Lowering log into place.


While I got the logs ready (squared off seam ends, routered the chamfer, and determined exactly where the log would be placed, David and Wendy would put down the sill seal, have me put the logs in place with the zoom boom and fasten the logs in place with log screws.

End of Day 3

End of Day 3

Looking South

East. Door going to future covered porch. Kitchen window over future sink.

North. Main door coming from a future Arctic entry way.

West. To the left will be the ladder/stairs to the 2nd floor. A wood stove will be located against this wall or in the foreground. A small oil stove (back-up heat) will be against this wall.

Logs arrive and get peeled

On Friday nite, July 27, this semi-trailer arrived with a load of logs (81 in total) from Dry Creek a sort of commune located 20-30 miles from Delta Junction, Alaska on the Alaska Hwy. Over the next 3 days the logs were peeled and moved to the building site, which is about 100 yards down the hwy. As you will see in the following pictures, these logs are, what is called, 3-sided. This means 3 sides have been milled flat in a saw-mill. What will be the outside part of the log is left round to give that round log look to the cabin. Inside you get a flat wall.

Last bundle. There were 3 stacks but I forgot to get a picture when we started. Doh!

The scene on Friday nite after the 2 hour un-load, using the Bobcat in background.

Different angle.

The scene around the middle of the second day of peeling. On the first day, I peeled about 25 logs. Fortunately only one side needed peeling. When we built the lake cabin with full-round logs, I was lucky to get 7 to 8 logs done in a day. My Mom, who was up visiting for 2 weeks came by on Sat. evening and peeled a few logs with me. She turned 60 a week before. "I could peel logs all day", were her words! And she could.

My friend Lee giving me a hand on Sunday. Her help was greatly appreciated and made it so I my last day of peeling went much faster.

Poser

Peeling the last log. Quite a pile of bark shavings on the ground there. The logs had been dried in a kiln (the folks at Dry Creek use the waste saw-dust and other waste wood to fire the kiln) for about 5 days. This dried out the bark and made it a bit harder to peel as opposed to the logs being wet and the bark coming off much easier, sometimes like a banana. But with the monster draw knife (borrowed from a friend of David's), as seen in this picture, the process went pretty smooth. I had sore arms and upper back but a day after the last log was peeled I felt fine.

Marine Tech job

Here are a few photos from previous cruises that the person working in this position took to try and explain what a part of my new job will entail. I will be making sure the instruments I am in charge of are ready to be put in the mooring string and are ready to collect data. The moorings are often in place for up to a year at a time. Our instruments are at a depth of 30 to 500 feet. Other instruments, from other researchers, are also on the mooring string, typically.

The instrument, at bottom of picture, (a spectrophotometer that uses an ultraviolet light source to measure how much nitrate is dissolved in the sea-water) and the battery pack to power the instrument, at top of picture.

The frame that holds the battery pack and instrument.

Loaded frame.

Deploying the mooring.

The rail car wheels that anchor the mooring to the bottom of the ocean. The orange buoys in the string keep the instruments in a straight line (sort of. strong currents can cause the mooring to tilt)

A small mooring string. The yellow tube is a remotely controlled release mechanism. When it is time to take the mooring out of the water a radio signal is sent and this thing releases itself from the chain/train wheels keeping the whole string of instruments under the water. The orange buoys you see above the release mechanism bring the instruments to the water surface.

Putting in the Floor and some logging

The following work took place over the last week of June thru the first week of July. Now I am ready for the logs to arrive. That should be the middle to end of July.

Foundation logs from David's property and milled on his bandsaw sawmill. Very heavy green logs!!

Wood I-beams going in.

All in and mostly square.

12 inches of insulation.

3/4 inch flooring on and first coat of paint on. Paint was salvaged from the transfer station! The shape is just from running out of one color and going to the next. When I looked at it later I thought I should have gone for a Ying Yang design! Next coat will be all white, again free from the transfer station. The paint is just to protect the floor from water during the log stacking process. In the end the floor will be covered with carpet or something else.
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Some photos of hauling logs on July 5th from David and Sarah's land out on Chena Hotsprings Road. I cut down 5 trees, 4 to serve as floor joists for the second floor of my cabin and one for a ridge pole.

Tony, David's oldest (12), backing up the log hauler (built by David). The log tongs grab the log and you use the winch to lift that end up off the ground, allowing a pretty small machine to pull logs that weigh in excess of 500 lbs.


A surly pre-teenager

Floor joist logs being peeled so they can start drying a bit before I use them later this summer

New Job training in Seward

June 4-15 I drove to Seward to spend 2 weeks training for my new job. The first week was rainy, typical for this coastal town. My first weekend and the following week was sunny, but windy so it didn't warm up much. By the end I was missing the warm Interior weather, but you can't beat the scenery in Seward.

View of Seward from Mt. Marathon.

Panoramic from the top of Mt. Marathon

Mt. Marathon from the parking lot of my hostel. You can see a trail going up. I took a less steep path on the way up that went to the right thru the forest and then left along the whole ridgeline you can see, going from right to left. When I came down, I took the steep path. Every July 4th, there is a race up the mountain (the steep path) and down again. It is 1.5 miles up (about 3000 feet) and the same down. This year was the 80th year of the race. The winning men's time was 46 minutes and the women's time was 52 minutes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Marathon_Race

View of Mtns across the bay from Seward



Exit Glacier about 8 miles from Seward


Grooves in the bedrock next to Exit Glacier carved by the ice. Very cool.

Cement pads

After a couple of days of moving rock around to make the berms wide enough in the right places and getting the grade level (thanks to a laser level from David) the forms were ready to be put into place. The wood for the forms came from the nearby garbage transfer station about 3 miles down the road.

55- 80 pound bags of cement were mixed 2 bags at a time.

Cement mixer with totes of water hauled from a nearby "pond" of water in the road ditch.
A growing wood pile in the back ground.

Cement pad with steel wire to re-inforce.

Cement blocks filled with cement to make them more stout. They will serve to get the cabin further off the ground.