Build a log cabin with your hands for almost free – Video

Small Log Cabin

Watch these 3 videos below!
The Man below didn’t build 1 log cabin he built 20! Well not exactly 20 but it sounded cooler. He built 2 on YouTube and possibly 18 more not on YouTube? Hard to say… Eitherway these are some of the best log cabin videos I’ve seen since they take take you through the whole process of making a cabin from scratch, almost entirely from the forest. He used the first cordless tools aka hand tools and a few battery powered tools that he hauled up the mountain to his remote building site. The captions really help to understand what he’s doing, hope you like the videos as much as me! I wonder where he is located????

Cabin On a Hill

From the builder: This is one of the few spots that I can build a log cabin on the upper section of this land so it seems like a challenge to me. As you may have noticed from the video, this is a one man construction project, hence the size of the log cabin but it’s nice that I get to make all of the creative decisions on the cabin design;) Though, the downfall of that being that I can really only move up to a certain sized log by myself, and if anything is to be carried up to the cabin (it’s quite a hike up the mountainside) It’s on my back. So far I’ve put about 13 weekends into this cabin as well as $140 in spikes, rebar, nails, mortar and plumbing parts as well as 9 trees and about 17 saplings and a burned out old cedar stump (used for the shake roof).

What’s interesting is that it’s actually quite therapeutic for me to just be out in the forest working on this log cabin project. I tend to find myself feeling very refreshed after a weekend of doing this sort of thing, I think maybe that I like the creative outlet that this project provides to me, dunno for sure. Though I have to admit that there are times when I really think that building a log cabin is a challenge to anyones limits of perseverance. So since it’s snowing now at this elevation and it’s really hard to work with frozen logs and cold fingers, I’ve decided to stop working until things warm up a bit. I guess I’ll just go back to my regular therapist until then.

First Cabin he built to gain skills

From the builder: I know this log cabin is small, but it was more of an experiment in remote shelter building for me than anything else. It took about 3 months of weekends to build this log cabin, which was about 100 hours in total. All materials used were found on site or packed in on my back up a small winding foot trail. It took 5 fir trees and a handfull of sapplings plus a bag of screws, a few bags of morter, various concrete blocks and some thick poly for the window and a zinc strip on the roof ridge. The log cabin has had 6 feet of snow last year and the cedar roof held together nicely. This log cabin sits on 4 large rocks, one at each corner of the log cabin and the floor is made of dirt. The wood heater/stove doesn’t actually work all that well, but hey it was my first attempt. I think the notching is called a half notch, and it was chosen for it’s simplicity since this was my first attempt at this sort of thing. The notches require a hand saw an axe and a few sharp bangs from a mallet to make, they were very simple and quick compared with a saddle notch style, though the downside of this style is that they had to be spiked at each corner to keep them secure. Sorry for the lack of tunes, it’s my first vid or should I say slide show.

Tiny Prefab eBook

Notching logs for cabin with saw and ax

 


You may also like...

4 Responses

  1. Ann says:

    I’m deaf so when I watched the video on how to build a log cabib I’m suprised it didn’t show the person demonstrating how to build it lke how to cut shingles or how to make a latch hook lock etcetera

  2. Karl Gercak says:

    Way cool, great site!

  3. Wow! This is such a cute little cabin! A little nook in the woods, exactly what a cabin should be! Great videos!

  1. March 3, 2011

    […] Build a log cabin with your hands for almost free – Videos « Solar … […]