Soft Wood for Log Home

[Log Cabin]

I'm looking for white pine, tamarack, hemlock etc for milling my own log home. I can either pick it up or can have it delivered. The home site is in Truxton, NY, or if anyone wants to sell stumps of the above I have the equipment to cut and haul out of your woods, will pay a fare price to land owner. Thanks

 

[plasticweld]

I have tamarack, some really nice stuff, no idea where truxton is, log job located in Spencer NY, I will sell roadside or delivered.. email me at [email protected]

 

[Log Cabin]

What is the price per board foot, what scale are you using to measure? Thanks

 

[zogger]

You might want to think on type of wood. Carpenter bees will drive you nuts with the wrong wood. Boss has a log home and a log party cabin here, mostly white cedar with some poplar ridge poles. Nuts. cuckoo, all that work to make a bug banquet.Even with yearly insecticide sprays (nasty) it still gets eat up, then the woodpeckers come and look for bee grubs and just constant racket. Tearing it up.

If it was me, east coast, red cedar all the way, nothing else. Bugs don't touch it.

I pulled all the supports for the second story porch he had one at a time and replaced them with fresh cut red cedar logs/poles. The whole porch was just gonna fall off with that other wood he used.

I wouldn't mess around with pine or anything else, use the wood that lasts for years and years, natures free pressure treated, red cedar.

 

[matthew sparks]

I have been through a lot of training with log cabin building. People make mistakes on using pine because they allow bugs to get in by not getting the bark off. If you go to a log cabin course they may teach you to cut trees in the winter and knock the bark off in early spring. I have built a cabin out of pine and have nothing boring out. If you operate in a window of time at certain times of year then you will not have bug issues. A lot of people don't understand these bugs enter when your logs are laying on the ground and they wont come out for 5-50 years after they bore in.

If you cut in March-May, get the logs off the ground within 24 hours and get the bark off within 48 hours of cutting your bark will come off easy and you will not have bugs chomping away on the bark.

If you cut them in the winter and you go out that spring you can probably hear the bugs chomping away and yes the bark will come off easy. Because the bugs, that you don't want, are loosening it for you.

You can also cut in the summer months and the bark will come off easy but the wood will turn black from all the moisture in the wood. I don't care if you get the bark off in 5 minutes of getting the tree cut, the wood will still turn black. I have tried bleach and a pressure washer to help this but the moisture content just seems to darken the wood so if you cut too early the bark won't come off, if you wait to late it will come off but you better plan to dark stain it.

Jan- Hard time getting bark off
Feb-Hard time getting bark off
March to end of May- A spud can clean a tree in a few minutes, a large tree. For every hour that tree sits I feel it adds a minute to getting the bark off. If you are cutting your own trees and can get off the ground and peel in the landing zone then you will be able to get the bark off easy on every tree.
June-Sept.- The bark will still come off fairly easy but it will turn black in almost all circumstances.
Oct.-Dec- If you cut a tree and try to pull the bark you may spend 4 hours on one tree debarking instead off 5 minutes.

If you choose to debark any time of year you should experiment. If you cut a log and lay it on the ground for a few weeks and then debark it you will see where bugs have bored through.

Also take a junk log and peel a foot within an hour of cutting the tree, 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours, etc and you will see a difference in how well they peel when cut vs after allowing the sap to turn into an epoxy.

As far as ordering logs and not being completely hands on I can not tell you what the end result will be. However, if you are able to do your own quality control on the logs from start to finish pine logs are my building choice. Especially with the loblolly we have here.

I am sure a lot of people here have had the Las Vegas classes and won't agree but peeling the right time of year and getting these logs debarked and off the ground quickly is all it takes to make a great home out of pine, which is very cheap here compared to any other wood.

 

[zogger]

The big bumblebees/carpenter bees care naught for when the wood was debarked, if it is pine or poplar or white cedar, they will chew their way in.

Debarking ASAP any species is good, but..there are different insects out there, too. Maybe some places pine will last, around here you would have a mountain of bee chewed sawdust within a year with just plain untreated pine.