Shed builds using home made band saw

[cathead]

Well, the day went pretty much as planned and I took a few photos of the progress. Sure enough there was
a standing dead pine so I hauled that back to the sawmill and squared it off. The ridge pole weighs in at
about 100 pounds so it was all I could do to set it up on the vertical pillars by myself. At any rate, it is up there to stay
with a few nails to hold it in place along with a couple temporary braces. I sawed up several 12 in diameter poplar to
make the rafters and got them all installed. I think I will add some plywood gussets to the rafters tomorrow to beef it
up a little. The next session will be to apply the roof boards and lay down some 30 pound felt for a temporary roof
until I can get some steel roofing material.
This is the ridge pole log on the saw ready for trimming up.

Well, it's not perfect but certainly good enough for the intended purpose.
I was glad to have the ridge pole up there all nice and pretty. Several temporary diagonal braces were added
as the structure was a little unstable. It's amazing how just a couple boards added stiffen it up so one can safely
stand on the top of the sill plate
Here it is with the raftering supported by the ridge pole. Ridge poles are great but require machinery and booms
if the building gets much bigger than this. I did a log structure with a 20 foot log ridge pole a few years ago and
we really had to struggle to get a 1000 pound ridge pole mounted on top of some 4 foot vertical logs using a skid steer
with a log boom on it


I put all the 6 foot lumber for the roof under cover in case it rains and tomorrow I will be working on that. It's a stickered
pile of poplar and fir of various widths so expect it will take a while to apply the roof boards. The rafters were set a little less than two feet on center so the 6 foot boards will easily fit with some trimming. Plywood would be easier of course but
would be more expensive. There will be some waste and resawing involved but that goes with the job I guess. I have a
14 inch wood vertical bandsaw that will be a big help in dimensioning the width and a table saw to cut stuff to length.
One could just do purlins of course but at least on a small building it is nice to look at a roof of solid wood. All the waste
will be used for kindling so it will not go unused. Also, the slab pile is now up to about a cord so will have to cut that up to
lengths to use in the wood stove for this winter.

One other thing I forgot to mention was the horizontal 2x4s half way up the wall. They are needed when applying the
vertical wall board as they need to be supported top, bottom, and in the middle to be skookum.

 

[cathead]

Well, it was another strenuous day on the books and the shed is starting to look like one. Today it was installing roofing felt
and vertical side wall boards. It can rain now and the inside is fairly well protected. Here's a couple photos:
It was damp and a little slippery up top but managed to apply the roofing felt (tar paper) and get it stapled down.
Installing the vertical boards looks simple enough but one has to be careful to do a bit of measuring so that the last
board ends up vertical and fitting. Slight adjustments are necessary due to imperfection in the rough sawn boards.
I had some old tarp material so applied that before putting on the boards, kind of a generic Tyvek I guess. I'm in no rush to
install the battens as the boards and somewhat green and will still shrink some. Tomorrow I hope to attack the back
wall and start work on the door end.

 

[cathead]

I made up an eccentric saw dog some time ago and it is the best of what I have tried. First I used a threaded rod with
a sliding dog and that worked to a point but not the best. The saw dog is a log holding device to keep the log steady
while sawing.

It is mounted on a piece of 3/4 water pipe and slides back and forth easily. Once it slides up to the log, a simple
rotation of the eccentric holds the log firmly. One thing I like about this is that it can be rotated to any elevation
on the work making it a good holding device for wide boards while doing resawing. For clarity of this photo,
you are looking vertically straight at the ground, the pipe being mounted between the rails.

 

[Barncat]

Also out of curiosity, I am wondering if anyone has built their own chain saw mill and could post some photographs possibly.
I can see where something like that might be useful to pare down big logs into cants. A cant in sawmill terminology
is a log sawed on all four sides so that there is no bark remaining.

Home made band saw photos would be fun to see too!

here is my scrap pile supplied chainsaw mill. It is pretty basic, throw the ladder looking thing on the log, screw it down, set depth of cut and go. Set up logs so you can cut downhill. I have thought about making more of a frame for the chainsaw that rides on an extension ladder, but never did it. The mill part is bolted to the bar. I probably have cut close to 1000 board feet with it, but really don’t like it. It is a lot of work and a lot of breathing in 2 cycle fumes. I would love to build a band mill someday.

 

[cathead]

On my band saw, a boat winch is used to raise and lower the saw and lifted with a steel cable. I was careful to lift from the
center of weight so that the saw would lift straight. That part is fine. I did learn something yesterday that made board
thickness more uniform. Apparently there is a bit of settling going on after setting the height, maybe sawdust gumming
up the works, I don't know. My revelation was that if you lower the saw below where you want to cut and then raise
it to where you want, then rev up the engine and make sure the blade is where you positioned it, the boards came off
just about perfect every time. Sometimes the saw settles a little when revving the engine before the cut requiring one
to raise the winch a click or two.

The other thing I am paying particular attention to is clearance to the vertical posts while sawing. It's essential
to have the posts "up" on a large log or a thick board but if you are lowering the saw with each cut, The blade
gets closer and closer to the posts. So, after I do the above blade height setting, I ALWAYS check for clearance
of the blade against the vertical posts. It only takes one slip up to render the blade junk.
Don't ask how I know this.

Today I will finish up the building enclosure and maybe start on the door or doors.

 

[f350ca]

I used one inch pipe for the back posts, can get about a third of the way through one before the blade gives up. And Ive checked it more than once.
I used roller chain for the elevation. No stretch, so I get uniform cuts. Geared it so one revolution of the handle is one inch of travel. Then stole the concept of indexing plates from the rotary table. Drilled a 32 hole circle around the plate, so each hole is 1/32nd of an inch. The blade seams to cut 7/32nd kerf. Made a set of fingers for the plate, set them 7 holes apart. Drop a turn plus the finger space and get 1 inch boards every time.
Think I had it set in the photo for cutting shingles.


Greg

 

[cathead]

The fall colors are here and the maples are absolutely breathtaking right now in Minnesota.

I did get some work done today even though it was really windy and starting to spit rain as I was getting
ready to cash in. Today I installed the battens on the back wall and cut up some used roofing steel to size
and fitted it and screwed it to the roof. Used steel is a pain as one has to fill in every existing hole
with a screw and then add more to where they are needed on the new application. It's not perfect but
good enough for what it is intended. Today was the ninth day since I started the build.
It still needs some battens, a roof cap, a door, and some stain/linseed oil to be called done.

 

[cathead]

Greg,

The shaft on the crank is horizontal. How do you turn the vertical pair of threaded rods? I'm guessing some bevel
gears or something. That's a very nice set up you have.

 

[f350ca]

I used roller chain in place of cable. The slack end of the chain has a lead weight on it to keep it on the sprocket.

Theres a jack shaft in the gear train to get the ratio correcct.

Greg

 

[cathead]

Edit: removing duplicate post...