logcabinfromscratch

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The raising of the ridgepole(RP) was fairly uneventful…and that is good unless you are filming for a reality show and the producer is hoping for some drama.  We put up good rope guy lines to beef up the lifting poles before we started lifting.  We also measured and cut the height of the two outside ridgepole posts to give us the 5/12 pitch of the roof we wanted.  Then we cut ‘cups’ into the posts to ‘cradle’ the ridgepole as we set it down.  We used very long…24” x 5/8” lag bolts to secure the RP to the post.  Big Red in the center of course gave us the most work.  Rob had to use his 30” chainsaw to cut a 6” hole in the middle top of Big Red to fit the post into.  Big Red was 3’ shorter than our other post so we had to extend it by using the post.  We will hollow out a large DF(Douglas Fir) and wrap it around the post for looks later.  It seems since the day I saw and bought that big tree its been testing both my patience and my wallet.  The cost of the tree was nothing compared to all the other expenses it has incurred.  Building the footing $700…cement $600…lifting it into position $300…top post to stretch it up to the RP $250.  Sheesh…a 16”x21’ DF(Douglas fir) would have cost me $75!  I sure hope we get lots of memories over the next years because of ‘ol Big Red.  So now the RP is up and we can start to work on the wall logs above the loft.  Cool.