Cordwood Log Peeling

I took the day off yesterday to celebrate my birthday and have some fun. Met some great locals, was given some locally grown foods, and the waitress sang me Happy Birthday! where I took myself out for lunch.


Today, I got right back in the saddle and set up for log peeling!


The draw-knife is the main tool, and the first log went much more smoothly than I thought it would. After reading "Cordwood: State of the Art," I was expecting an all out battle, and I can respect after thirty years of building Cordwood houses, that Rob Roy would certainly be going a little mad, but I found it much smoother than what I was lead to believe. Perhaps that is good strategy on behalf of our guru of cordwood - thank you Rob!

 

I also made a little demo video: 

 http://youtu.be/dwCDswKmfUo

I was kept well entertained today with Odin & MacKenzie. The snow is very deep, but the hot sun has us all falling through in surprise deep patches. I've been walking along numerous times and have fallen in up to my waste. The pups have a heck of a time to, especially without the advantage of Sorels(!) 

 

 http://youtu.be/XvD45ZLH0F4

Splitting Wood

I set out to do some work today on D&S's house site. They have a daughter M, but if I type in DS&M too much, I may get the wrong kind of internet traffic. So do forgive me, M... Please know that when I type D&S... I have M in mind too. :)

I am considering a cordwood home and will be testing my metal for the task with some upcoming log peeling. Every natural building method has at least one massive labour bottleneck, and certainly in Cordwood design, this is it. Today though, I got warmed up with splitting some birch for S&D's firewood stockpile.


I made some pretty tidy stacks, and began imagining my own cordwood walls. A person building with Cordwood has the choice of using round ends or split end logs. I anticipate using split ends, as this dramatically decreases the drying time needed. Also, the finished result looks closer to stonework in my opinion.

I made sure the base of the stack had some lift, so that the wood was not directly on the ground. Some logs were still way to wet for chopping, so I kept them for future chopping blocks, putting cedar bows below them.

I covered the logs with some cedar bows to better the drying time. Today was super snowy!! And I also stacked the poles D has fallen, keeping them layered as best I could with shorter logs in between for air circulation. 

I am thinking that the cedar bows may have an acidic effect to assist the drying wood. Can anyone confirm this for me?





D&S... have these foam blocks salvaged from the nearby tree nursery, and are discovering all kinds of building applications for them. There is a chemical coating, however, so this would not be ideal for a dwelling, but rather an outdoor shop. I used them for a base and cover today. The little holes for the trees are ideal to capture cement. Strapping layers of these together would basically be like building with lego.

I hope you have a wonderful day.

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