Blast from the past! Around 1995

Probably in all for the two cabins I had to hew about 12 logs.

I know I did 10 for the big cabin, shown in the background of the picture of me sitting.

For the blacksmith cabin, I did maybe four more. So I guess that makes 14 or so.

I did use a chainsaw to cut the vertical cuts, but an axe for the actual hewing.

Let the chips fall where they may.

The one I am sitting on is a sill log for the smaller blacksmith cabin.

By the time I had been doing this a while, after cutting down the tree and cutting it to length and de-limbing, I could hew two sides in about an hour.

I always had a couple of axes on hand and files nearby to keep them sharp

 

Found

My daughter was asking if I had a drawing pad she could borrow.
I said yes and went to find her one.
Found an old pad I had not used for a very long time.

Inside was this sketch I did of one possible configuration of what I now call the Pitt's Blacksmith shop.

Needless to say it didn't turn out anything like this sketch.

In this sketch it looks like I was planning on a very large wood shed.

Often when working on one of my building projects I will find time to do a sketch of what I hope it will look like. Sometimes I do this while taking a break from the project, other times it will be when bored at some other time in my day.

I have found I have done a sketch for most of my cabins.

This one dates back to about 1994 I believe.

My last sketch was for the Adirondack project.

Mysteries, Clues and exploration - It's more than just a pile of logs.

Well I haven't been able to explore any new old buildings lately, nor have I been able to work on any projects out at our places.
But I did get out there last night and took some fun pictures.

Taking down and working on old cabins is about more than just the logs and what it can look like when it is done. That is, if it is a passion, it's about everything to do with the old building, inside, outside and sometimes underneath.

It's also about the things you discover and find throughout the process. Some will confirm what you think you know about the place, while others will just add a little mystery.

 First off. I mentioned a couple of posts ago that I used a few of the old window jambs as hat and coat racks.

Here is a coat rack.

This one used for hats and other stuff.

 In every log building I have worked on I have found holes in one or more logs that have no explanation for their purpose.

 The hole in the above photo is the hole on the left in this photo.
With a matching one way right just below the knot.

Both have wood pegs in them.
But when I took this cabin down these walls were covered with siding. So at that time these holes were not being used for anything.
Was it a shelf at one time.

This is just to the left of the front door.

In about the middle of this photo you can see another hole. This is in a second floor floor joist.

Again, what was it's purpose?

 This photo shows two circular saw cut boards on this beam.

I do know what these were for.

When I took down this building it had a ceiling of bead-board, which was also covering the walls.

These boards were nailed on to level out the ceiling before the bead-board was attached.

This is kind of related in that these notches do the same thing as the two boards above.

In this case these notches were made so furring strips could be added to attach clap-board siding to the outside. While the logs were pretty level, in places notches would have to be cut out of the logs, or boards used to build up spaces to make the furring strips level.

In this photo, from the take down, you can see the furring strips.

In the photo I have circled where wood has been placed under the strips if the log was either not as wide as the one above or below it, or had bowed a little.

I don't remember where this board came from, but I saved it because of the nice hand made mortises in it.
The wood is worn and weathered and has square nails in it.

This is the an interior wall of the Pitts Blacksmith building.

In this photo you can see burn marks on the wall probably caused by the smithy leaning hot pieces of metal against the wall as he finished with them.

This piece, not displayed in it's original place, came out of the old building I call the slave's cabin.

After it was supposedly used as a dwelling it was then used as a small barn or grain crib.

This was used at the bottom of a grain chute to channel the grain into a bucket or something.
Somewhere I have the door to the chute also.
The chute was on an interior wall.

It looks like much of the work was done with a saw and chisel, instead of just by axe or draw knife.

This bricked in hole is on the back wall of the Pitt's building and I do not know what its purpose had been. It is a notch in the top of one log.

Was it also part of a grain chute?

This photo is to show how you can even save a fairly bad notch if you brace the logs well around, above and below the notch.

This may not be something you want to do on a really large building or one that will become a full time home.

But on smaller less used building I have found that this works just fine.

Right next to the logs, before it is chinked you need to make sure the logs around the bad notch are supported with bricks or rocks, so that the weight is not carried by the damaged notch.

 These next three are of some of the beautiful notches in various logs.

This one is the pin hole in a top plate log.

 This is a different kind of notch also in a top plate log.

All done by hand.






















If you really love working with these old buildings, or just being around them, you will develop a passion also for all the things associated with them. And you will make some wonderful discoveries.

Pitts Blacksmith shop - Spring cleaning.

Saturday was a day out at the cabin. No big projects going on just yet so I decided to do a long overdue spring cleaning at the smaller cabin, the Pitts Blacksmith shop.
Over the years I have intended to use this cabin as first a workshop, then it ended up being used for storage. Then I was turning it into a Girl Scout cottage, then guest cabin, now, at least for a little while, storage again.

Although a lot of work, I was able to clean out the bays on both sides of the cabin. The most fun was re-discovering things long buried over the years.

Found lots of tools I had not used in a while, including this old wooden handled shovel.

 Came across several old door and window jambs.

In this photo are two door and two window jambs.

I have held on to these as teachable moments if anyone asks, and I have used a couple as coat and hat racks in the main cabins.

In this picture (of the main cabin), just above the piano, you can see one window jamb being used as a hat rack.

Just to the left of this photo would be another I use for a coat rack.

 Here is one with a square peg in a round hole.

And you can see some square nails in this jamb.

A slightly closer look.

Here I am holding one so you can see that it is actually a square peg that goes into a round hole.

A square peg would fit tighter than a round peg when hammered in, making a better fastener.

Here is one of the window jambs with a fine tenon that would have fit into a mortise on the bottom side of a log above the window.

Mortise and tenon jambs would have to be planned for during construction, and not added later.

 This window sill or window head (I don't remember if this one was the top or bottom, there were two) came out of the Pitts Blacksmith shop and at one time had square wood bars like a jail cell.

Although they would not have been strong enough to keep a man in, they must have been used to keep some animal in or out of the building, while still allowing for air flow.
  Or maybe just a little security to protect tools, knowing even though they could be broken, it would make a lot of noise doing so.

And, well, since it was a blacksmith shop, if they needed metal bars, well . . . they could have made them.

You can also see at the top of the piece where the jamb would fit into the sill notch.

 A closer look and the square mortise work.

Another tenon.

This one you can see my numbering written on it.

Which means if I wanted to I could go back and find which window it went into at one time.

 Circular saw marks on some old lumber.

 These are some log dogs a blacksmith friend made for me about twenty plus years ago.

 The well weathered look of a half dove-tail notch.

If you protect the logs after a rebuild, you can save some pretty worn looking logs if they are solid otherwise.

 Glass insulators for lightning rods.

These came off of one of the buildings.
I also saved some of the rods and the bracket that held the rod and a glass ball at the top of a roof.
None of the glass balls were intact however when I took the cabins down.

 Some of the metal punch-outs I used for my numbering system to tag the cabins before taking them down.

 Only time I have seen this.

On a double-pen dog-trot cabin I took down, the outside was covered with the metal siding in about 2x4 foot panels.
Each panel had a brick patten stamped into it.

I saved several of the panels to hang up, once again to be teachable moments.

An early version of siding.
I have seen stamped tin siding with large stone work patterns stamped into them (usually for commercial buildings), but never a brick pattern.

 Another panel.

Once again, the occupants wanting to get away from the image of living in a log home.

It would prevent some air drafts, and somewhat protect the logs also.

 This is one of the original doors from the Pitts building.

I just had to save this wooden latch.
And it is still used every time I go into the cabin.

A friend actually copied the pattern to make a latch for a basement bathroom that had a rustic look.

 Here you can see some of the axe marks in one of the jamb boards.
Even the jambs and sills were made by hand, as were the pegs used to hold them in.
In the original build very little, if any, sawed lumber would have been used.

Here is one of the square nails in one of the jambs.

I am going to carefully pull this one out, next time I am out there, to see if it is hand wrought or an early cut nail.

(Do you know, at one time nails were so valuable that Virginia had to pass a law making it unlawful to burn your house down when you moved  to get the nails. Often times abandoned houses would be burned down to get the nails.)

 One of the notches from a top plate log.

Spring flowers were out.

 One cleaned out bay where you can now see the old Ford Tractor that helped me raise the logs.

 Made enough room near the entrance of the other bay to hang a swing.

All cleaned up.