I am now making a table-top child's log construction kit

Frank Pellow

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Toronto, Ontario, CANADA
((part 1 of 2)

A few years ago, I made a "lifesize`log construction kit. See the thread: http://familywoodworking.org/forums/showthread.php?t=4467&highlight=construction

Now, I find myself making a more traditional model size kit. Here is what has happened so far:

Two weeks ago at Pellow`s Camp, my nine year old grandson Ethan brought a project with him to camp that was to involve the building of a “hunting” cabin. We decided to make the building out of scraps of cedar and, to that end, we planed some wood down to a thickness of 1 centimetre. Here is a photo of Ethan using my portable Delta planer:

Small log construction set 00 -Ethan using the Delta planer -small.JPG

Observe that he is wearing my glasses to guard against chips in his eyes.

The thing that got Ethan started on the project was a model rifle that he saw in a Doll House supply store near his home. I asked him how long the rifle was in order that I could determine scale, but he didn’t remember well enough to be reliable. This put a halt to the project.

On Wednesday night this week back home in Tronto Ethan slept over at our house, then the next afternoon the two of us went to the store to check the model rifle. It is 9 centimetres long. I imagine that the real rifle would be about 6 feet long. So this gives us a scale of 1 centimetre representing 4 feet. Ethan wants a cabin the represents a period about 100 years ago and, back then, Canada used the Imperial measurement system. So I decided that the world we are representing will be Imperial. However, I can still use the much superior Metric system for the parts I am making. Hence, the Metric to Imperial conversion.

It suddenly occurred to me that the best way to build a log cabin model would be with model logs and that I should rip the boards that we had planed into strips and then cut and shape those strips into squared logs much like the logs in the Pan Abode cabin at Pellow’s Camp. We had not planed a large enough supply at camp, so I planed down a few of old cedar boards that I salvaged when I replaced a section of Kathleen’s fence in July.

Small log construction set 01 -Planing old cedar fence boards down to thickness of  1 cm -small.JPG

Ethan and I traced out a rough plan of the cabin that he wants. It is to be 24 by 20 feet interior space divided into a kitchen, store room, and living/dining room on the main floor and a sleeping loft above the kitchen and store room part. A ladder will be used to reach the loft. It should be possible to easily remove the roof and to look inside. There will be a separate bécosse.

The next thing that occurred to me is that I could design the logs and other parts with dimensions such that Ethan could build not only this cabin but other structures as well.

On my tablesaw, I cut the 1 cm thick boards down to 1.5 cm (mostly) and .75 cm (a few) strips.

Small log construction set 02 -Cut boards down to 1.5 cm (mostly) and .75 cm (a few) strips -sma.JPG

Thus, each part will represent a log 8 inches in width and 1 foot in height. Back 100 years ago, it was easy to get such squared pine timbers in Ontario.

I beveled the strips slightly using this:

Small log construction set 03 -Bevel the strips on router table -small.JPG

bit on my router table.

Then, each strip was hand sanded to 120 grit using a Festool Granat pad:

Small log construction set 08 -Two notches have been cut -small.JPG
 
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(part 2 of 2)

Finally, I was ready to cut and notch some logs. There are going to be a LOT of them, so I needed to come up with some fast repeatable way of cutting the notches. Each notch should be 11 mm wide and 4 mm deep. This allows for a slight amount of slack and makes it easier to put logs together and tae them apart. After some experimentation, the notching method that I decided upon is as follows:

(1) Using a homemade (out of Baltic birch) miter gauge on my large (40 cm wheel) bandsaw, I set a magnetic featherboard on the steal table to act as a stop block.

Small log construction set 05 -Cutting notches on band saw -about to make first cut -small.JPG

(2) The bandsaw fence was set in a position such that the right hand side of the cut will be slightly more than 25 mm from the end of the model log.

(3) The cut is lined up just to the right of a pencil mark on the fence. This mark is positioned so that the left side of the cut that is about to be made will be slightly less than 15 mm from the end of the model log.

Small log construction set 06 -Cutting notches on band saw -about to make second cut -small.JPG

(4) The cut on the left side of the notch is made:

Small log construction set 07 -Cutting notches on band saw -second cut completed -small.JPG

(5) Then, several small cuts are made to clear out the notch. Here is a picture of a half (7.5 mm) deep log with two completed notches:

Small log construction set 08 -Two notches have been cut -small.JPG

I found that, with practice, I could cut a notch in about 6 seconds and that I could cut four notches into a full depth log in a little under a minute.

In order to make as few unique parts as possible, the length of the log shown above will be used as the “standard”. This log is 175 mm long and the portion between the notches is 120 mm long. This represents 8 feet in the real word. Eventually, as much as possible, longer and shorter logs will be based on multiples and common fractions of this standard. But, Ethan will probably be gluing the logs of this original cabin together, so I will experiment with special non-standard parts and use all this as a learning experience.

I built this set of logs to use as the base of the cabin:

Small log construction set 09 -Fitting together a few logs to start a small log cabin -small.JPG

Yesterday evening, I was going great guns making more logs when the blade on my bandsaw snapped. :eek: :( I think that this was caused by me over-tensioning the blade. I don’t have the time right now to get a new blade, so the project is again on hold, this time for a couple of weeks. Here is what was completed before the halt:

Small log construction set 10 -I made this many logs before the blade snaped on the band saw -sm.JPG

The final thing that I did with each log was to sand it with 180 grit Granat paper, punch an identifying part label into it and enhance that label with a pencil.

Small log construction set 11 -Each log sanded with 180 grit Granat pad then a letter identifyin.JPG
 
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As I was reading the bandsaw cutting I was thinking the same thing Allen. Frank, on the second notch you might experience some "flexing" of the log making the cut shallower than wanted, might have to put a brace/board above the log on the sled holding it in place/down. Bet you will fly through them then, but don't forget where your fingers are!
 
Allen and Jonathan, I am happy to report that the suggestion worked like a charm. I ganged together 6 logs together with one already notched log to use as a guide. Here is a photo:

Small log construction set 12 -Ganging 6 logs together on a sled for notching with a dado set on.JPG

It took only 3 minutes and 10 seconds to set up and to notch the 6 logs which is about half the time it would have taken on the bandsaw. And, the cuts are smoother!

I am surprised that I did not think of using theis method :huh:, but this shows, yet again, the advantage of getting feedback from other woodworkers.
 
Looks like a fun project, Frank. :thumb:

And good to see you, too. :wave: I was thinking about you a week or so ago...figured we'd be seeing you before too long.
 
August 29th Update:

Yesterday afternoon, I showed Ethan the logs that I had made so far and he was very very happy with them:

Small log construction set 13 -Frank and Ethan with the beginings of a model log cabin -small.JPG

He got right into it and made several suggestions, many of them quite good. For example, Ethan suggested making floorboards for the loft, observed that that cedar would not be strong enough, and recommended that we use oak. Here Ethan is examining a prototype loft floor made a oak boards which he helped me manufacture:

Small log construction set 14 -Ethan examining oak floorboards in sleeping loft -small.JPG

A suggestion that I doubt we will actually act upon is a toilet (of the “drop down” type) placed in an area which small protrusion of the upper floor jutting out over the rest of the building:

Small log construction set 15  -Ethan's suggestion for the position of the toilet hole -small.JPG

We had a great time together planning things and trying out a few of ideas. There is no way I would rather spend my time –and I think that Ethan feels the same way.
 
Septemer 4th Update:

Going back to the start of the week, Ethan and I visited a doll house store near his house and we purchased a bug of small cedar shingles. We got what I would estimate to be about 400 shingles for about $5. I, then, spent too much time experimenting with placing the shingles on roof modules (using contact cement). The problem is that the singles are of some non-Metric and non-Imperial size and I have not (yet?) come up with what I consider to be a optimum size roofing module. Here I what I have come up with so far:

Small log construction set 16 -Eexperimenting with purchased cedar roof tiles -1 -small.JPG Small log construction set 17 -Eexperimenting with purchased cedar roof tiles -2 -small.JPG Small log construction set 18 -Eexperimenting with purchased cedar roof tiles -3 -small.JPG

The cedar shingles have been glued to a piece of 3mm think Baltic birch plywood which fits into a “standard” 12 cm x 12 cm square. A half log glued 5 mm up from the underside of the roof module holds it in place. The problem with what I have done so far is that, because of the uneven overhang on the left and the right of the plywood, more than one type of roof module will be required. I would like to remove this requirement.
 
Very cool Frank, but for some reason, I see you getting into the dollhouse cedar shingle manufacturing business too? Or will you be able to just modify those to work?
 
September 18th Update:

Ethan was getting a little impatient with my experiments with an optimum number of “standard” logs and other parts. After all, this started out as a hunting cabin project, not a kit to build any type of building. He did agree that he would like such a kit, but it seemed, if he waited for a kit, it would probably be a long time before we built the cabin. So, I agreed to forget the kit for a while and proceed to work on the cabin, even though this would mean that we needed to make some special non-standard parts. While building the cabin, I expect to learn things that will help me later on when I return to designing and building some general kits.

Ethan wants us to glue together the logs for his cabin and to place it on a permanent base. We had been using contact cement in our experiments with shingles and when my friend Kevin saw this, he suggested that we try a hot glue gun instead. We did try this:

Small log construction set 19 -Trying to attach logs t the base with a hot glue gun -small.JPG

But found that the wax (or whatever it is that the gun pushes out) takes up perceptible space unlike glue. So we gave up on this, took the stuff we had already glued apart, and used carpenter’s glue instead:

Small log construction set 20 -Attaching logs with carpenter's glue -small.JPG

We both prefer using the “real” glue. I thought that it might need clamping but, so far, we have not needed to use clamps on the logs. We did, however, need to use clamps when gluing the shingles to the roof:

Small log construction set 21 -Gluing shingles -1 -small.JPG Small log construction set 22 -Gluing shingles -2 -small.JPG

We did try a hot glue gun for this operation as well, and here it worked better because the space taken up by the glue did not get in the way, but we both preferred using carpenter’s glue.

I’m now ganging together about a dozen logs at a time both for cutting and for notching. What with that, it now only takes about 15 seconds to notch a log and I estimate that, all steps included, I can produce about 40 logs an hour. There have been a few customized logs that take longer. One such group of customized logs was those that are tapered at the top to support the sloping roof. Ethan suggested that we should make the roof with a single slant and even knew that this style of roof is called a “shed roof”. I usually cut tapers with a track saw on a guide rail, cut these logs are too small for such an operation, I needed to use my table saw. When faced with cutting tapers in the past, I have usually built a custom jig but, this time, I decided to invest a little bit (about $30) in a Vermont American table-saw jig that can handle tapers up to 15 degrees. Even with this I still needed to make a small sacrificial addition, in order to gang together a taper all the logs to be used at the top of one wall:

Small log construction set 23 -Sawing a taper on the top logs -small.JPG

Here are a couple of pictures taken with all the wall logs in place (but with only the base logs glued into place):

Small log construction set 24 -Walls for Ethan's cabin in placa temporarilty -view 1 -small.JPG Small log construction set 25 -Walls for Ethan's cabin in place temporarilty -view 2 -small.JPG

And, here the walls have been taken down, for “shipment” to Ethan’s house:

Small log construction set 26 -Cabin taken appart and logs stored -small.JPG
 
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Frank, again that is some serious Grandpa time you are investing there!:thumb::thumb::thumb: You do know you are creating another woodworking Pellow monster there don't ya!??!:rolleyes::rofl::thumb: The cabin looks awesome, but being behind the scenes and knowing the work and effort that is going into this project, we all know it is a labor of love from you to Ethan. A hundred, "ATTA BOYS" being sent to you Gramps!!!!:thumb::thumb::thumb:
 
Looks great Frank. The "Grandpa" time is something that Ethan will remember forever :thumb:

I made a doll house for my daughter years ago and tried the hot glue gun. The little wispy strings of glue formed when I took the gun away from the work drove me crazy.
 
Looks great Frank. The "Grandpa" time is something that Ethan will remember forever :thumb:

I made a doll house for my daughter years ago and tried the hot glue gun. The little wispy strings of glue formed when I took the gun away from the work drove me crazy.

Thanks Bob. Yes, we also got some of those little wispy strings of glue and didn't like them either.
 
September 24th Update:

I didn’t do much work on Ethan’s cabin this week, but I did build a door and a window. I made the frames out of “standard” 1.5 cm by 1 cm cedar wood; that is the same dimension that I used for the logs and then cut a big 1 cm wide groove deep into the middle of the 1.5 cm wide side. I glued together the door frame then augmented the glue joint with brass canoe tacks, having first drilled pilot holes using a pin vise:

Small log construction set 27 -Drilling pilot lole in door frame -small.JPG Small log construction set 28 -Tacking the door frame for extra strength -small.JPG

I found some very very small screws and hinges for the door at Lee Valley:

Small log construction set 29 -Screwing the door hinges -small.JPG

The window utilizes the same frame pieces, with a small groove cut along the interior side using a thin kerf blade on my table saw. The grooves hold a piece of Plexiglas in place. Here the parts of a window are being dry fitted:

Small log construction set 30 -Dry fitting the parts of a window -small.JPG

And here the window is clamped after having been glued:

Small log construction set 31 -Clamping a window -small.JPG

Instead of working on Ethan’s cabin, I got back to the design of more general purpose kit. For the time being (at least), I have settled on this set of log sizes:

Small log construction set 34 -Log Sizes -small.JPG

A: 1.5 1 12 1 1.5

C: 1.5 1 6 (full height only)

CC: 1.5 1 3.5 1 1.5

D: 1.5 1 4.5 (full height only)

E: 1.5 1 5.5 (full height only)

G: 1.5 1 4.5 1 1.5

J: 1.5 1 9 (full height only)

K: 1.5 1 9 1 1.5

L: 1.5 1 25 1 1.5

LL: 1.5 1 12 1 12 1 1.5

M: 1.5 1 38 1 1.5

MM: 1.5 1 12 1 12 1 12 1 1.5

P: 1.5 1 12 1 3.5 1 1.5

W: 1.5 1 3 (full height only)

X: 1.5 1 1.5

Y: 1.5 2 1.5

Notes:
• Scale: 1.5 centimetres represents 1 foot
• All measurements in centimetres
• All logs are 1 centimetre wide
• Full logs are 1.5 centimetres high, half logs .75 centimetres
• Notches are 4 millimetres high and 11 millimetres wide (except for part Y which has a double notch 22 millimetres wide)

Rather than having individual logs with slopes as was done for Ethan’s cabin, I decided to make a limited variety of glued-together logs to serve as gable end pieces. A group of logs is glued together:

Small log construction set 35 -Gluing together three logs as first step in making two gable part.JPG

then cut on the diagonal in order to form two gable ends. The flat end of the piece is then notched on a scroll saw:

Small log construction set 36 -Notching gable parts using scroll saw -small.JPG

Finally, two standard notches were cut into the slanted side with a dado blade on the table saw. Once cut this way, the same two gable pieces can be used either to support a shed roof:

Small log construction set 37 -Testing two gable parts on a small shed style roof -small.JPG

or to support one gable end of a “standard” gable roof:

Small log construction set 39 -Making some larger gable parts -small.JPG
 
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My Lincoln log set as a kid had long green boards, there were plastic red truss like structures that fit on the gable ends, the boards laid horizontal and were captured/held by an edge on the truss structure. Another thought, early American cabin's roofs were the canvas from the covered wagon that brought the family to that site. So some white material from like a sheet or tee shirt?
 
October 2nd Update:

This week, we got back to working on Ethan's custom-made cabin. We made good progress and now have it glued together in four interlocking sections. Here is a photo of Ethan clamping the glued doorway into place:

Small log construction set 40 -Ethan and Frank gluing together Ethan's model cabin -small.JPG

The logs were designed with a bit of play because the notches are one millimetre wider than the logs. This works well for normal play and construction but, when we started gluing the logs together we found that sometimes things did not line up. I purchased a small (USA-made) razor saw intended for model use from Lee Valley (60F03.10). It cost only $6.50 and it works really well. Here is a photo of the saw in use widening a notch:

Small log construction set 41 -Widening a notch with the Zone 52 tpi razor saw -small.JPG

Here is a series of photos showing the four sections being assembled:

Small log construction set 42 -Ethan's cabin -bottom level -small.JPG Small log construction set 43 -Ethan's cabin -loft florr added -small.JPG Small log construction set 44 -Ethan's cabin -top level added -small.JPG Small log construction set 45 -Ethan's cabin -roof added -small.JPG

There are still a lot of details to be added and these will happen, over time, as Ethan plays with his cabin and gets ideas. Here is a close-up showing a couple of such details that we have already built:

Small log construction set 46 -Ethan's cabin -Eaves through and portion of roof -small.JPG

The first is the hole and the metal sheet in the roof where the stove pipe from a kitchen woodstove is going to protrude.

The second is a wooden eaves through with a hole at the left side where a downspout will lead to a rain barrel. This is modeled upon just such a wooden eaves through that my dad made and that was on the original cabin at Pellow’s camp.
 
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