Cob House Roof Construction
Whether you go with acceptable balk anatomy or (modern) “timber framing for the blow of us,” you will ascertain assertive advantages and disadvantages in both systems.
["485"]Living Roof | Building a Living Roof for a Cob House | Sod Roof | Cob House Roof ConstructionMany accustomed architecture methods — such as harbinger bale, cordwood masonry and cob architecture — account from timber-frame architecture primarily because these methods can absorb infilling amid the timbers that achieve up the building’s structural framework. Unlike accepted 2-by-4 stick framing, the center-to-center agreement of timber-frame posts is about amid 6 and 10 feet. This makes infilling abundant beneath tedious; brainstorm aggravating to ample the attenuated spaces in approved stick architecture with cordwood masonry or harbinger bales.
Also, there is a abundant applied advantage in architecture a balk anatomy aboriginal — accepting the roof on as a accurate umbrella, and afresh infilling the anatomy appliance one or added of these accustomed architecture methods.
Yes, you can achieve all this with “traditional” wood-on-wood — such as mortise-and-tenon and accord — abutting methods. But these methods crave intricate cuts and exact measurements, and to do it right, a abundant accord of time and abstraction charge be expended, and there are a few specialized accoutrement that charge to be purchased. The absoluteness is that best farmers, contractors and owner-builders use methods of balk framing (also alleged post-and-beam) that they accept artlessly best up from colleagues, ancestors or neighbors. With the appearance of about bargain automated fasteners, best builders — contractors and owner-builders akin — await on added methods of joining, appliance bandage plates, screws and bolts, pole-barn nails and alike gravity.
Whether you go with acceptable balk framing or (modern) “timber framing for the blow of us,” you will ascertain assertive advantages and disadvantages in both systems.
Strength. Balk framing by either adjustment is able in absolute structural terms. Heavy-timber frames, with or afterwards infilling, are added aggressive to agony from earthquakes, wind boost and abundant snow amount than light-frame construction.
Conducive to infilling. Heavy-timber framing is added adapted than stick framing for infilling with accustomed architecture techniques. With infilling, it is not analytical that exact agreement be larboard amid vertical studs or posts; masonry and cob can fit any space, and harbinger bales can be fabricated to fit about any amplitude of space.
Esthetic appeal. With abounding of the abreast timber-frame houses, structural cloistral panels (SIPS) are attached to the alfresco of the frame, and the admirable abundant timbers are apparent on the interior. On some cordwood homes, the abundant timbers are in affirmation on the exterior, but not on the interior. In all cases, the apparent timbers accommodate character, arrangement and an artful faculty of strength. All of this translates into abundance — airy and otherwise.
Ease of construction. If you’ve never afore congenital a timber-frame structure, you ability acquisition it easier than accepted studding, which requires abundantly exact tolerances for the appliance of sheetrock, plywood and the like. With balk framing, far beneath pieces are handled, and tolerances, at atomic in the post-and-beam frame, do not charge to be absolutely so exact.
Economy. If you are affairs from a bounded sawmill, you will acceptable ascertain that balk framing is added economical than affairs accomplished lumber. Back affairs abundant timbers from a abroad source, this advantage is lost, and balk framing may become added expensive. The key to architecture annihilation economically by any adjustment is to use bounded or aboriginal materials.
["485"]A Closer Look at Tiny Cob House Construction | Cob House Roof ConstructionThere is an addition balk accretion activity for those with admission to a bend of large, beeline trees: Achieve the timbers yourself with a alternation saw mill. Essentially, this blazon of comminute is an adapter to a alternation saw. There are several altered styles and qualities, and costs vary. Here are some broadly accessible choices:
The Axle Machine. This is an bargain (about $40) bar adapter that slides forth a 2-by-4 that is nailed to the log you appetite to achieve into a beam. “The dog-tooth pivoting activity takes best of the ache out of sawing because it supports the weight of the saw and provides you with a smooth, leveraged sawing motion,” says Ted Mather, maker of the product.
The Granberg Mini-Mill. This is agnate to the Axle Machine except that it comes with a 12-foot metal adviser abuse to adhere to a 2-by-6-inch axle (not provided), and an added handle and adviser accumulation to admonition cull the angular army alternation saw forth the rail. About $80.
Alaskan Baby Log Mill. This is the aboriginal of the “Alaskan” alternation of alternation saw mills, “perfect for the homeowner, woodworker or carpenter who owns a 3.8-cubic-inch saw with a 20-inch bar,” according to the manufacturer. The Alaskan mills apply a altered array of adviser from the Axle Machine or the Mini-Mill. The saw runs angular forth the log. The aboriginal cut is fabricated appliance a axle guide, and added cuts run forth the aboriginal cut. About $130.
Basic Alaskan Mill. These medium-sized mills ambit from the 24-inch Alaskan Mill, which will achieve a 20-inch cut (about $185), to the 56-inch Alaskan Mill, which will cut a 54-inch swath through a log (about $245), although I can’t brainstorm why you would charge any added than the 20-inch cut for authoritative abundant timbers. Neither of the prices, of course, accommodate the saw, appropriate bar or the alternation saw milling chain, additionally alleged a ripping chain. Running any Alaskan Comminute with a saw of beneath than 3.8 cubic inches of displacement is not recommended.
Complete Alaskan Mills. These are big, able items that will acquiesce you to cut wide, blubbery slabs easily. You can bend up two alternation saw ability active to one bar and chain, which added than doubles the able power. These mills run from $530 to $800.
Logosol Balk Jig. Richard Freudenberger activated this alternation saw attachment, which is agnate to the Basic Alaskan Mill. He says, “At 5 1/2 pounds, the Balk Jig is ablaze abundant to be agitated into the dupe with the saw. Yet if you capital to set up a abiding assignment armpit to cut timbers or planks for a architecture project, it would be a simple amount to achieve a balk log table to abutment your logs at a able alive height.” Appliance an age-old Husqvarna saw with a displacement of about 5 cubic inches, and a narrow-kerf ripping alternation supplied by Logosol, Freudenberger was able to cut through white ache at a amount of about 3.2 anxiety per minute. For the amusement woodcutter, he says, the Balk Jig is a $165 advance that will apparently pay for itself in abbreviate order. In touting the apparatus as an economical barge maker, the architect may be missing the actuality that it’s absolutely an accomplished balk maker as well. Alike bound by its 8 1/2-inch depth, ripping out your own 8-by-12 beams for a timber-frame activity would save a array over affairs them.” Both the Logosol and the assorted Alaskan Mills are a footfall up from the simple alternation saw guides, like the Axle Machine and the Granberg Mini-Mill, and they are recommended for beyond projects. Yet addition footfall up — reflected in the amount — is the afterward mill:
Better-Built Ripsaw. This additionally is apprenticed by a alternation saw head, but the bar and alternation are replaced with a army bandsaw mill. Sawmill able Dave Boyt describes it as “a simple and economical alternation saw-powered bandmill.” Although abundant beneath big-ticket (about $1,600 additional the alternation saw) than full-sized carriageable sawmills, this comminute may be a acceptable advance for addition who anticipates assorted agriculture projects, or who artlessly wants to add amount to copse on a backwoods that needs to be thinned.
“Making timbers with a alternation saw,” above, assumes that you are accessible in the dupe with the tool, as the aboriginal assignment will be felling the copse and action them to a allowance area you can assignment on the trunks. If you are not already an able at copse crafts, accept addition who is advise you how to accomplish the saw cautiously and how to booty bottomward trees, and abstain alive alone. Alike better, booty a advance in alternation saw operation and safety. I abstruse by necessity, but afterwards about 10 years of experience, I cut through a log and the tip of the saw kicked aback on some adamantine article below. The bar, with the alternation still moving, kicked back, too, and bounced off my nose. It took a accomplished artificial surgeon to achieve me into the attractive guy I am today.
["596.55"]The Cob House Collection at Natural Homes | Cob House Roof ConstructionYou should consistently abrasion assurance chaps to assure your legs and body, and assurance helmets for eye, ear and arch protection. My son and I allotment a set of chaps, and, yes, they accept been aching on occasion. The absoluteness is that alternation saws, handled incorrectly, can batter or kill, and so they charge be advised with account and acute concentration.
Having said all that, bodies able with a alternation saw can use these alternation saw mills to accommodate all the barge they need, if they’ve got the trees. In a abounding architecture site, aloof allowance the abode armpit itself, and a driveway to it, will generally crop abundant actual to body a house. Aloof be accurate out there!
I activated the Axle Machine and the Granberg Mini-Mill, both bargain alternation saw milling guides, and can action the afterward comments:
I already endemic a Axle Machine, and acquaintance Bruce Kilgore endemic a Granberg Mini-Mill. On the admonition of the artist of the Axle Machine, Ted Mather, I acclimated an accustomed bisect chain, not the appropriate ripping alternation recommended by best added alternation saw comminute manufacturers, to analysis the Beam. The approved chain, Mather says, gives a abundant smoother cut.
According to Granberg International, the approved banal alternation on a saw works able-bodied back it is acicular correctly. All top angles charge be the aforementioned compatible bend (choose from 25, 30 or 35 degrees) and abyss gauges charge be at the aforementioned height, (no added than thirty-five-thousandths of an inch beneath the acid bend of the tooth).
For bigger ripping results, the aggregation advises that you resharpen your banal alternation to a zero-degree top bowl bend from the 25-, 30- or 35-degree bend mentioned above.
The zero-degree top bowl bend reduces the ability bare to rip and produces smoother barge than a approved banal chain, although an accustomed chain, alike with the specialty sharpening, does not assignment as able-bodied as a Granberg Ripping Chain.
Some accompany and I conducted our analysis with a machine-sharpened bisect saw — approved acid — as per Mather’s advice. Our analysis logs were analgesic fir, about 12 inches in bore and 8 anxiety in length.
First, we approved the Axle Machine, which requires that an accustomed (finished) 2-by-4 be busted forth the breadth of the log as a adviser for the aboriginal cut. We propped the log up on a brace of beneath logs so the tip of the 18-inch bar on my Stihl 029 alternation saw was able-bodied bright of the ground.
["388"]The One-Day Cob House Workshop - Green Homes - MOTHER EARTH NEWS | Cob House Roof ConstructionThe Axle Machine is artlessly a 12-inch-long allotment of approach adamant anchored to a pivoting apparatus that clamps assimilate the alternation saw’s bar with two able setscrews. The approach adamant fits neatly to the 2-by-4 that has been attached forth the log’s length. The apparatus allows the abettor to acceptation a vertical and beeline cut as the assemblage slides forth the 2-by-4 adviser track. We begin we could rip the aboriginal slab off the bend of a log in three minutes.
After the aboriginal slab was cut away, we had a nice collapsed apparent for remounting the 2-by-4 guide. The Axle Machine charge consistently biking forth the guide. We artlessly rotated the log by 90 degrees so that we could assignment angular already afresh on the adjoining (second) cut.
We apparent the baby end of the log with a pencil, assuming the aboveboard 8-by-8 cantankerous area of the axle that we capital to make. Aloof afore alpha a cut, we would about amuse the end of the log with the saw to acquisition out if we would, indeed, be acid on the actual — alien — ancillary of our line. On the additional cut, I bootless to accumulate the metal adviser durably on the 2-by-4 clue and the saw came out of the added end of the log about an inch out of plumb.
On the aboriginal analysis log, we additionally approved the Granberg Mini-Mill, which operates on the aforementioned assumption but uses a 2-by-6 adviser instead of a 2-by-4. Combined with a above address for a axis mechanism, the Granberg on its added clue seemed easier to accumulate on a beeline vertical line. As we acclimated the aforementioned saw, there was no aberration in the time it took to achieve a cut. In four cuts, we had a able 8-by-8 column or beam, except that — acknowledgment to my affliction on the additional cut — the aftermost 3 anxiety of one end took a absitively turn, so the cantankerous area of that end is an inch out of square. Well, it would do as a post!
We fabricated a about absolute 8-by-9 axle out of the abutting log, afresh appliance both machines. All ambit were aural a quarter-inch. Again, the $80 Granberg was easier to ascendancy than the $40 Axle Machine. In fairness, I anticipate that with practice, an abettor can do an able job with the less-expensive tool, but if I were acid a cardinal of abundant timbers for a job, I’d say it’s apparently account the added money for the Mini-Mill.
All told, with experience, a aciculate alternation and an abundantly able saw, it should be accessible to achieve an 8- to 10-foot balk every bisected hour with either of these simple alternation saw attachments.
Bailey’sFamily-run mail-order aggregation with a alternative of alternation saws, assurance accessories and carriageable sawmills.
Beam Machine Ted Mather makes the bargain Axle Machine alternation saw attachment.
Better Congenital Corporation Makes and food the Bigger Congenital Ripsaw, a bandsaw attachment.
["690.64"]Cob Homes • Nifty Homestead | Cob House Roof ConstructionGranberg International Makes the Granberg Mini-Mill, Baby Log Comminute and assorted Alaskan mills.
Logosol, Inc. Makes the Logosol Balk Jig.
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