Bottle Logs: A Tutorial (of sorts)

SO! (I love that for an opener, it always seems to fit)

SO! - The February/March phase of this project is nowhere near as dull or stagnant as I feared.  In fact, it's downright stressful!  (Good to flex those muscles now, anyway...so we've got that going for us.)

The "house" is still just where it's been for the past few months:

It remains un-raided as far as we can tell. I think we're past the worst of the heating season. (We don't want to go down there and really inspect, because our primary source of believing that we still have all our logs is untouched snow.)(Although, we've had so damn much snow this year, they could have tunneled in and we'd never know.)(MAN, I hope our first winter in the house is just like this!)

We've spent the last few weekends down at the property plowing, so we don't get so buried we can't get in, and pulling snow off the bunkhouse roof. It's been glorious! And when you bring margaritas (in short, clear, beer diameter bottles!) and forget the ice, you can just pluck icicles off the eaves and pop them in your drink!). It's just been so beautiful with the snow...

Anyway - we've been stressed because there's really more to do right now than we thought. We're still working on the building permit because we need to have the HVAC and Electric lined up before he'll issue the permit, so we've been scrambling to finish getting quotes and lining those guys up. (And have now supplied all needed info to Inspector Rob.)(Keep your fingers crossed).

(Oh yeah, and we now have Rob the draftsman, Rob the inspector and Rob the electrician. Really?!)

On top of all that, we're attempting to get a construction loan, because we DON'T have any proceeds from a building sale yet, and are not likely to any time soon. Conversely, apparently 82% of the money spent on this build needs to happen in the next 3-4 months. OUR portion, is practically nil compared to the trades.

We are also realizing things like: We should have most, if not all, of our windows and exterior doors purchased before we put up the timber frame, so we know damn well where the timbers should be, and know that we're going to have windows to fit the openings we've created and now can't be changed.

OMG, I THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING TO TELL US ABOUT BOTTLE LOGS!!!

YES. I AM GETTING THERE.

During all of this, I've been cranking away on bottle log production, and I've got this down to a pretty good science. We're actually at the point where we need to sit down with floor plans and get a sense of how many bottle logs we think we'll really need - so I know when to stop.

During one of our trips to the property recently, we went into the pole building and unearthed all the bottles we'd collected the last time we thought we were going to do this nine years ago. THAT was an adventure. A) We had WAY more bottles that I remembered (and better ones), and B) Mice had crawled into a few and died there, which was a horrifying and sad discovery. (And we're not using those bottles)

BUT - look at the haul we got!!!

And mostly liquor bottles, which meant lots of clear, which we need desperately, and lots of interesting bottles, like the Tanqueray 10 and Bombay Gin

So! (*snerk*) Here's what I've been doing:

My first piece of advice is COLLECT MORE JARS. We tend to think in terms of bottles, because that's the big deal right?  And we all know that means jars and vases and anything else that's glass, but we end up focusing on bottles because they are romantic and spaghetti sauce jars aren't.  BUT - Jars make the whole process SO MUCH EASIER, Y'ALL. All those fancy-ass wine and liquor bottles you've been saving with their awesome shapes and delicate colors?  STILL NEED A CLEAR END, AND IT'S WAY EASIER TO SHOVE THE NECK INTO A PICKLE JAR THAN TO CUT DOWN A VODKA BOTTLE.

We have had to cut down a fair few bottles, and there's really no great way to do it.  We had a bottle/glass cutter rig that we tried, but it didn't work that well, and is really a lot of work to get a good score on the glass, and still was a crap shoot when it came to getting the glass to actually break the way we wanted it to.  Then we tried buying a diamond blade for our side grinder (called an angle grinder in other circles, I'm told), and that has worked pretty well.  It takes a little bit of finesse to cut through without causing cracks or breaks, and it doesn't make the cleanest edge - but we don't need a clean edge, just a stable one.

The girl child has even helped with that bit. The only real downside is that the blade seems to have dulled pretty quickly. We've cut maybe 25-30 bottles and it's already getting pretty dull, to the point that we think it's causing cracks just because it IS dull.  (Spaghetti sauce and pickle jars are way cheaper than a $45 diamond blade that can do a limited amount of bottles, I'm just sayin'.)

Once the bottles are prepped, though, the process is pretty easy and quick. (Plus it's fun!)

After some initial trial and error, I devised this jig that I use for two purposes - one is to make sure the bottle logs are the right length, and the other is to provide the equivalent of a second pair of hands. The jig holds the bottles, and helps with the wrapping of the flashing, so that I don't need a second person to help, and it's still easy and smooth.

Here's what most of my completed bottle logs look like:

And here's how I do it.

I use the jig to help me pair bottles together (and figure out where to cut them if needed).

Then I get prepped by cutting several lengths of metallic (foil) flashing tape - some the width of the flashing and some the length to go around the bottles - which is often pretty close to the same length. Then I also cut several squares of the tape for tacking things into place as I work. I also cut a piece of metal flashing the right length to fit around the bottles.

(Our bottle logs are 17" long (our walls will be 16" and we want the bottles to stand proud), so we've mostly been using rolls of 12" x 50 ft flashing.  I'm on my third roll now, and will probably need another before I'm done, maybe more...we'll see).

My jig has a groove in the center that holds the bottles steady, but also helps me roll the flashing around the bottles, because I can hold the bottle against it and then push down as I roll, so the wood helps to shape the flashing around the bottle.)

I put the flashing in place under the bottles, and then tack the right corner in place with a square of tape, to help hold it as I roll. (In some cases, I set the second bottle to the side and slip it in later, and sometimes, I hold both bottles in place as I roll.)

Once I get it started, I roll the bottle (or bottles) around until the flashing meets on the other side:

Once it does, I fix the right side in place with another square of tape:

If I haven't rolled both bottles at the same time, this is where I will slip the other bottle in the end of the rolled flashing.  Then I tape a square on the left side so the flashing is held, while I get a piece of tape ready for the seam.

I seal the seam with flashing tape:

Then I seal up each end of the flashing against the bottles.

The idea is to make sure everything is securely taped together, but also to get it as air tight as possible, so I generally press everything together really well, and often do a second round of flashing tape on either end to be sure.

After both ends are taped, I just make sure it's all pressed down as good as I can, and voila! A bottle log!

In some cases, the bottles are not nearly as perfectly matched - they may be slightly different diameters, or one may be a little bit of an odd shape, or wider near the middle than at the end where we care about the bottle - and so the flashing and the tape need to be mashed less beautifully around the bottles, and a few more rounds of flashing tape used to be fairly sure of getting it air tight, but ultimately, they all end up looking more or less the same.

Now we just need to figure out how we want to use them, and how many we think we will need.  Plus I need to set aside the really cool and unusual ones (I have a special box of them already), so we can plan where we'd like to feature those to really show them off.)

It's been a blast, and things are actually taking off faster than we expected.  I mean, it's already MARCH, and we might be able to start dunking our logs in Borax in another month or so! (Maybe two, tops).  Plus the guy who's going to pour our slab, wants to get down there NOW and start pushing snow out of the way so the ground will thaw sooner.

(This part is going to be hard for me - seeing the property getting torn up by machines after how fucking stunning it was last year).

But it will be worth it!!  WE ARE ON OUR WAY, Y'ALL!!

Winter Projects

Hi all!

After we got the logs all peeled and put up, we took a little time to just relax. We spent a some more time at the cabin, and had a blast with my sister and cousin when we finally closed it all up. Then came the holidays and we spent a lot of wonderful time with family, and even had our son visit from Texas for two weeks.

Now in January, we've gotten back on the wagon to do a lot of the prep work for next spring. Scott is more accessible during the day, so he's been tracking down trades people and getting quotes for things like the foundation, and looking for an electrician so we can get all those people lined up.

A while back we got the sanitary permit, and the land use permit - but now we  have to do the building permit.  That's been a BITCH. So much technical information we needed to come up with, and so many things that don't really apply to our situation that made it that much harder to answer.  But we persevered, and we faced down RESCheck, and we emerged victorious!!

We have completed the massive application and I will be putting it in the mail tomorrow after I scan a copy for us. (WOOHOO!!)

A couple of weeks ago, we went out to the property to check on things and just enjoy some fairly moderate winter weather. It was in the low 20's and actually pretty nice with a fire going.  So we sat around for quite a while drinking beers and admiring our place.

Mother nature very generously provided custom made beer tables:

I'm very happy to say that, so far, our logs remain safe and untouched. (Hopefully that continues to be the case now that the temps have been sub-zero quite a bit). We're planning to go down again next weekend to see how things are doing.

In the meantime, I have been studiously peeling bottles, and getting ready to start the production of bottle logs. (I've also been drinking a lot of Riesling in blue bottles, and giving gifts of booze with the one rule that I get the bottle back.)

So! Although I have many more bottles to soak, and we still have to go get the original stash from the property (with all those great Tanqueray 10 bottles)(In case you don't know, the old ones had octagonal bottoms. I don't think they do anymore), I will shortly be starting the process of assembling the bottle logs.  (Scott is ecstatic and MORE than anxious to get all these boxes of bottles out of the apartment).

DONE!! (Technically)

This was a HUGE weekend, y'all.....HUUGE.  We got all the wood split and stacked. We are DONE! (For the most part)

This weekend, we had no other plans, so we got to spend the whole 3-day weekend at the property completely focused on getting the wood put up.

(Well, almost completely focused - I did take a moment to put up a little nod to Halloween decorations.)(look at the windows)

Friday was an absolutely BEAUTIFUL working day. It's what I'd been envisioning all along, with the sunshine and the fall colors, and a little fire going all day. It was sweatshirt cool when we weren't working, but once we got moving and warmed up, we were down to t-shirts.

A few weeks ago, we bought a second cart and developed this great system with the two of them, where Scott has one by him that he throws the split logs into. When it's full, I grab it and pull it to where I'm stacking, while he fills up the second one.  By the time I've stacked everything, and get back to him with the empty cart, there's a full one waiting for me.  (There's always a full one waiting...).  It worked out very well - we work at roughly the same speed, so I just kept going around and around and around with full and empty carts.  Sometimes, I'd get ahead of him if the logs were particularily snarly and he had to fight to get them split.  During those times, I'd start cutting up the lumber and building the frames for the next stack.

About mid-afternoon, we took a break and had lunch by the fire, just the way I wanted to. We stoked up the fire, turned on the tunes, and ate cheese and salami and crackers while we admired our hard work.  We even decanted some nice wine to enjoy fireside. (Apparently, my daydream never included packing glasses).

I will still say that if we had perhaps been a little more patient and planned to get logs in the spring and put up this wood over a summer, in a SANE fashion, where we weren't under such a deadline, we would have been much better off.  We'd also be a year further away from our awesome house, so I have no regrets, but still.....

There may be room for regrets yet, I don't know.  I confess to still being worried about not doing the Borax dip this fall.  And there's no doubt that having to peel all the logs first, and then cut them and split them caused some issues.  In hindsight, we should have gotten everything peeled, and then cut stacked and split each log, so we didn't end up with logs ends laying all over the ground for weeks. At the time, we were thinking - we need to cut all these up so we can get at the rest of them to peel them. But it would have been better to suck it up and just move and restack the heavy logs.  Lots of the wood has been actually ON the ground, With all the rain we've had, it's gotten pretty swampy and quite a bit of the log-ends came to me slimy or muddy.  We hadn't been worrying about this because they were going to get dipped and scrubbed off in the Borax.....NOW they are getting stacked slimy and will dry that way until spring. I'm assuming/hoping most of the crap will dry up and flake off, and they will get pretty well cleaned up when we Borax them in the spring. It doesn't matter if they get stained or discolored - only the ends will show, and those will be either sanded or shaved off.

This is what I mean.  Oh, WELCOME HOME....barf

So, Friday was great, we killed off one whole wood pile (the biggest one), and ended our day in the traditional way in Wisconsin - eating fish fry in a bar.

Saturday, we woke up to THIS:

We had been expecting it, but it's still very ugly in the middle of October. It was also really cold and windy too.....However, the snow part was supposed to pass over and the rest of day only cold and windy. We forced ourselves out of our warm bunk house and down the highway to the gas station for coffee, and then buckled down and got to work:

We actually got two full ranks filled up before we got cold and hungry and decided to call a break for breakfast.  Work like that in the cold and the wind earns you a hearty breakfast at the diner in town. (I wouldn't ordinarily show you our breakfast, but I found this pic when I was loading photos off Scott's phone from the weekend.  He apparently thought it was worth documenting, so now I share it with you).

We went back and worked until early afternoon, by which time, we had filled up two more ranks and run out of materials to make any more frames. WE HAD TO QUIT, Y'ALL. We HAD NO CHOICE.

Naturally, we went out to the bar. We met up with some friends who have a cabin on the same lake as ours and had an awesome time. (You can do a respectable amount of bar hopping in Barnes, WI - who knew?)  My point being, even in the midst of all the hard work, we still manage to have fun.

SUNDAY was the big day!! With the extra work we'd done on Saturday (we'd really been thinking the day would be a wash), we were well ahead of the game. We ran to Menards for more framing materials, and then got set up.  Work-wise, it was nearly a carbon copy of Friday - sunny, cool but not uncomfortable. Sweatshirt weather.

Here's the start of the final day:

I made many many round trips with my wagon, and Scott split many many pieces of wood.  We had a fire, ate snacks for lunch and by midafternoon, it looked LIKE THIS:

It's a fact of life that you can't tarp anything large without the wind blowing off the tarp before you can secure it - at least once. So we wrestled with that baby, but in the end.....

HOUSE: some assembly required

So what's with all the "technically" crap, and "nearly done" stuff?

OH yeah - we really haven't gotten our heads on straight yet, and when a friend started to clear land to build a garage, we offered to help him if we could have some of the Poplars.  We didn't get many rounds from the logs we have because they were all pretty big, and needed to be split in order to dry soon enough.  So, we wanted some smaller ones that we can cut and leave whole and still be able to use next year.  Also - Scott wanted to do some built in shelves, which is done by using a flat sided log-end that is longer than the others so it sticks out, making a shelf. Only.....we never saved any logs to cut longer.  So we took the 4-wheeler and went down the far end of our property, where we dropped one good sized tree we can use to make shelf logs.

So - after all that hard work and angst, and the feeling of accomplishment when we tied down the last corner of the tarp....

We ended our day by HAULING FUCKING HEAVY LOGS AROUND.

And next weekend? You guessed it - we will be peeling logs....

(These are all optional logs, though - the pressure is off, and doing these won't be anywhere near as bad.  And if we don't get to them, it's not a big deal)

Sure, we know what we're doing. Yep.

So, last weekend was an interesting one. Let's just say there were many adventures, but some good things came of it.

We've been arranging work so we can take Fridays off and have 3-day weekends to work on this, which is good because other stuff keeps coming up on the weekends (GOOD stuff, stuff we want to be doing...), and having the Fridays always gives us a little edge on the weekend.

It's also nice because the weather has been UTTER SHIT this fall.  I'm not kidding - in ONE week we went from pretty consistent days of 85 degrees and humid, to very consistently 30's (THIRTIES, PEOPLE), and DRIZZLE. It's just been miserably cold, and damp and crappy every weekend, and pretty much all the days in between, too.  It breaks my heart - I had visions of glorious, sunny Autumn days of crisp leaves and sweatshirts, taking a break from splitting to share sandwiches and beer sitting on logs and admiring the fall beauty. NO.

On the weekend in question, it was drizzling and gross when we arrived at the property - which sucked enough, but when we turned into the driveway, we were greeted with this:

Our awning completely died (I mean, LEGS UP IN THE AIR dead. Like a bug.), and one of the stacks collapsed. That last bit isn't so surprising, the previous weekend we had run out of cinder blocks and did a couple of makeshift ranks on some pallets with 2x4's nailed to the ends. (None of the awesome design ranks failed.)  (And you can't see the crappy drizzle in the photo, but it was icky).

After a bit of time pouting in the truck and licking our wounds, we finally ventured out into the drizzle to rebuild the spilled rank  - which involved a ratchet strap to keep the whole thing from exploding again...so we'll get that back next summer.

Next, we made an executive decision. One I hope won't bite us in the ass.  We're going to do the Borax dip treatment next Spring. Everything we've ever read talks about doing this as part of the splitting and putting up process of readying logs to dry (The Borax treatment does several things - it helps to protect logs against rot and insects and it's also a fire retardant. And in our case, we're also kind of excited about its mold killing properties.)  However - it also talks about the logs needing to be somewhat dry so they can soak up the Borax solution and draw it deeper into the wood. Well, thanks to the shitty weather we've been having (and the hot humid summer we had last week), our logs haven't been dry since...EVER. Not since they day they were a twinkle in their seeds' eye were they EVER anything approaching even slightly dry. If we threw them in a vat of solution right now, they would proably ADD to the level of water.

SO - next spring, it's not like a 30 second dip in some solution will take us back to square one moisture level wise, and we think if we do this early, once things stop freezing, they should have plenty of time to finish drying by July or August when we're likely to start the actual infill.  Plus we have a moisture meter - if they don't pass muster by then, we spend a couple weeks in a bar getting some zen perspective on an additional summer of cordwood, and all the awesome opportunities that will afford us.  (Like putting up new wood if we have to burn half of ours due to mold).

I'm pretty sure leaping into this half-assed and unplanned part way into AUGUST has created shitloads of extra work for us.  But then....I did say this was a test of whether or not we could handle the build.  If we can't deal with this, and the Borax in the spring, we should give it up and start selling campfire bundles at the KOA. (Ya know - look at the pics below - if we did that, we'd be fucking millionaires and could buy damn near any house we wanted.)

ANYWAY - we got that stack fixed and ratcheted, and then recycled the awning into a tarp and put all those ranks to bed for the winter. (And concerned as I am about the Borax, I was SO DAMN relieved that I won't be touching those logs again this year.)  We draped the awning canvas over the stacks and used boards to nail it down so the wind is less likely to destroy it over the winter. Screw you, wind, we're not putting up with your shit.

This actually involved another executive decision I'm both concerned and relieved about. We're leaving those logs right where they are all winter. In a happy and just world this would be ideal, because they are already stacked and they are in a good place for next year when we do the infill - BUT, this being the real world filled with assholes and  also with people who don't make a ton of money and heat their houses with wood....I'm somewhat concerned that our wood pile is gonna get raided over the winter to the point that we won't have enough to finish the house. Our original plan was to haul it over the hill where it would be more hidden, when we did the Borax dip, and re-stack it there.  I confess to being deeply relieved we aren't doing the haul and re-stack bit.

But, let's face it - who really thinks we're going to get that whole cordwood infill done next summer?  Show of hands in the comments? Yeah, we're trying to get realistic about that, too.  If we can get the back half of the house done next summer, we could actually board up the front half and work on the interior walls, etc, over the winter. Not LIVE there, like I was hoping, but at least not have to just stop. SO, if we had to put up more wood next fall, it wouldn't be the end of the world.

Once all the damage was repaired, we said "Hey, we have a cooler full of beer and a woodstove in the bunkhouse, let's go regroup and figure out our next steps."  You can guess what happened right? I'll just say it's fortunate we had enough sandwhich stuff for lunch AND dinner. I mean, come ON, everytime we looked out the window the drizzle was WORSE.

Which is not to say we weren't productive - we did a lot of stuff to the bunkhouse that will make things nicer both this year, and next, since we'll be spending a lot of time there.

We put up hooks so we could hang up our clothes. This makes it look like coat hooks, but we pretty much wear the same jeans and sweatshirts all weekend and have been just draping them all over everything.

We got rid of the minivan seat we'd been using as a bench/place to put our duffle bags, and brought in an actual table and chairs. (Also, I added a smidge of Autumn decor - if you squint, you can see it over the window.  The sign, we got at Cable's Fall Fest the weekend before.)

And Scott was super awesome (because he always is, and now has a lot of DeWALT cordless tools), and built us a wood rack to hold all the wood for the stove, and clean up a mess that's been bugging me for three years.

Here's the before, so you can fully appreciate his awesomeness.  (And mine, a little - I helped wth some design choices.)

Here's the glorious after, which not only solves the wood issue, but also provides a place for some other stuff that was in the way elsewhere.

NICE, Yeah?

And we built this great cooler shelf, so we could have the "kitchen" close at hand without it taking up all our floor space, or being way out in the truck.

Saturday dawned pretty shitty, too, but quite a bit drier, so we got back to the business of splitting this:

We got lots of wood split, built several more of Scott's new and improved ranks, had brunch in a bar with our great friend Rusty (who is also our general contractor), and later in the day had to make a run to Menards for some more supplies for building ranks. (And seafood nachos and a great margarita).

On Sunday, we kicked ass and kept stacking until about 1:30.  We filled up two more of Scott's ranks - which is a LOT of wood.  I mean, these things are 7-8 feet high - it's GREAT. (You can see what's coming, can't you?  I know you can.  I just don't know why we didn't.)

They're 16" deep by 8 feet wide, by SEVEN FEET TALL. I'm amazed it took five of them before the inevitable happened (on uneven ground, no less).... One started to TIP OVER.

It was crazy - we were finishing up rank number five, Scott had even stopped splitting, and we were going to stack the last bit and go to the bar to see the end of the Packers/Lions game. (Why? I don't know - we'd been listening, we knew how ugly it was - but I always have hope. I HAVE seen miracles from them.)  I reached up to put one last log at the top, and slid it back until I felt it gently tap the top brace, and suddenly Scott says, "I don't know what you just did, but get over here I need help.  We have a problem."  I go around the end, and the whole thing has tilted backwards and is resting ever so neatly against its neighbor (who isn't really all that completely straight either), and Scott is trying to brace the damn thing. Nightmares of dominos are running through both our minds.

I'll spare you the play-by-play (it was as ugly as the Packer's game), and just say that after a lot of swearing, attemping to shim the stack (like we could wedge ANYTHING under 78 tons of logs), and nearly being crushed to death, we ultimately got a 2x4 nailed to the stack and to the one next to it, to brace it.  And then proceeded to nail all the boards in the immedate vicinity to it for good measure. (There's probably enough lumber there to just build the damn house)

The other side looks just as pretty.

We did get it tarped off and solid...and are going back to the shorty ranks from now on.  We are both intellient, experienced people, I have NO IDEA how in the hell we never thought these things might be a little too UNSTABLE TO STAND UP for a whole year. All I can say in our defense is that we've been a little stressed lately.

All's well that ends well - no one got flattened, the stacks are stable now (and pretty hard to rob, I think)(Hell, if someone tries to take them apart and steal our wood, they are practically booby-trapped).

Here's a pic of the whole operation I took from up on the hill:

And this awesome little teeny oak tree I found in the grass there. He looks so damn proud of his colors, doesn't he?  (The pic washes him out quite a bit - he really was very impressive)

We have a weekend of cabin closing ahead of us, and then the next weekend is another one where we get to spend the whole thing at the property.  We're really going to try to get the rest of the wood split and stacked if the weather will cooperate.