Hi Paul.

If I were you, I would still be inclined to store the wood uncut until I was ready to do the walls as well. I think you will be better off, as far as wood stability goes, to join them at the last possible moment before you enclose the structure. The thought of greenish-oak, cut into a frame, and then left standing (even roofed) makes me a bit uneasy, THOUGH, I am basing this reticence only on "normal" aesthetics. If you are going for a structure that looks less formal, and aren't concerned about joints twisting and shrinking about, then go for it. Make sure you have enough bracing! Especially important if you are roofing the structure, but not adding additional wall shear. And nice, deep housings; and thick shoulders (I've seen a fir tenon twist so badly that it destroyed the side of a 1" housing, and oak could be even more destructive.


You are definitely cutting the trees down at the right time, as the sap is not yet rising, though it is starting to feel a bit like spring here in Montana.

It is, of course, a bit of a balancing act between securing material and developing design. It is really hard to say, unilaterally, that one should be done first, to the exclusion of the other. If you know you will have a bunch of 7x7, then it might be worth your while to estimate some board footages and cut down the trees accordingly. Or, and I am firmly in this camp, I would be out wandering my property, with a notebook, and plastic tape, and a camera, and I would be identifying my main structural members in the trees, right now.

Once I have a general idea which timbers I really want to utilize, then I would sketch out a few designs that could utilize these in a provocative way. This would probably lend me towards a certain footprint, and I could then estimate how much flooring, sheathings, siding, etc, I would need and then I could develop a comprehensive cut schedule. Lots of labeling and organization and pre-thought, but I like that sort of thing.

Cut more rather than less! Estimate big, add 15%, add a little more. You will use it all, no matter what. A house needs furniture, too, right? And you don't want to not have enough because then you will dealing with wood of varying moisture contents, which can lead to difficulties.

Or, and this is a big or, you could just go cut a bunch of cool looking trees down, rough mill them (knowing you will mill them again after seasoning/drying), and then figure out an efficient way to use what you have. Some of the guys I work with would go this route in a heartbeat, and while I can completely appreciate the attitude, I am a little too compulsive to be quite that freeform. They sure are fun to work with, though!

I can almost smell the 2-stroke! Be careful out there, and you can never sharpen you chain saw chain enough.

Good luck and keep us appraised!

Cheers, Chuck

Sure you have to keep in mind what general sizes and lenghts will be available to you, but I'd still have my design done before I start logging. Otherwise, how are you going to know what sizes to mill to? It would just be a guess, and you could spend as much work and effort remilling later. Another question, if you oversize, are you then going to get larger checking?

Tim, to what end? Well, preserving the aesthetics of your property. Where I live, there aren't many harvest able tress on a property usually, so each one you have is important, other wise, you may as well just buy field property. Our 80 acre family farm only has a few yard trees. Our two 90+ year old Blue spruce blue down in a freak natural occurrence of 5 days of rain followed by a micro burst. I peeled and saved the trees(dragged them into the back shed) for some later use. Sure did make the yard look much more bare. Takes forever for new trees to grow. Longer than my lifetime.

Brad, if you had thousands of trees would you change your position?

Tim

My initial millings would be to the largest size possible for each log (for beams and posts). After they have cured for a year, at the least, Then I would mill to whatever sizes I actually needed. Yes, it is more work to mill twice, but you would obtain a much better final product, in my opinion.

Once you have done the first milling, you will have a very good idea about what sizes you have available, and you can design around that knowledge.

Or you could just mill once, design accordingly, and then square rule the joinery, much like working with hewn, and then you don't have to mill again. A house could look really awesome with no two timbers the same size; talk about custom! I love it!

I am not sure I follow about larger checking. Most checking results from drying too quickly, or uneven moisture transport from the surface, not from the size of the timber.

Sorry to hear about your spruces; what a heart breaker.

Cheers, Chuck

Oak will check if you're cutting larger than brace stock. You do what you can to minimize it. I'm sure the guys in the drying/sawmill secions of forestryforum could expound more on that. Some of them are on here too so maybe they'll jump in.

Tim, maybe. :P
I was at a farm near Indy. This farm is becoming surrounded by sprawl, but they've kept it as is (pumpkin patch and Xmas tree, petting zoo etc.). They have a woods that contains a handful of giant oaks and a giant Beech(hayrack ride goes through there). Biggest diameters I'd ever seen. These are real ancient giants. If I had those, no way could I cut them down. Too cool and majestic. Probably because of the lack of them where I live, unlike where you live, I'd have a hard time cutting a good tree that took so long to grow. Maybe I'm just nuts. Luckily, I've managed to find a bunch of great reclaim.

Thanks Brad. Will research Oak checking. As far as preservation; I am leaving the 300+? year old oaks that are still kickin' on my property. The are as big around as a hippo,gnarly, full of holes, lightning struck, burnt, half dead, and totally lovely. Best habitat tree ever imagined.

Thanks Chuck. My reasoning for framing and roofing 1st year and walls 2nd year is two-fold: 1. I read that it is a really bad idea to wall in and heat a new (green) timber frame the 1st year because it will cause rapid seasoning and lots of defects. Of course, we could wall in and NOT heat, but man it would be hard to stay in the cold yurt another winter looking at that well insulated house! 2) My wife wants this sucker done in 3-4 years. Gotta start now. She's a trooper (see yurt living above) and I'm not takin it for granted! thanks again.

I WAS thinking about using some unusual wood - maybe with a little wiggle in it (for posts). A lot of my trees are ALMOST straight. I'm sure the building inspector will hate it..but it would look cool. Work well with SIPS too come to think of it so long as the curve wasn't "wallward"? Also, all of my trees have quite a "flare" at the base. I was wondering if I could invert the post and use the flair for gunstock? The flare is quite significant. Possibly because it is so windy here and the trees are all on hillsides?

Hi Paul,

Yes trees should be felled and used upside down as posts so that any moisture drains feely from dead knot pockets. The flare of jowl posts is usually obtained from the butt of the tree.

Traditional timber framing in oak tends to utilise quite young (70 - 120 year old) trees that are boxed heart converted. Smaller diameter trees are less prone to heart checks and I have noticed that 6" x 6" boxed heart Douglas fir shows no checks whereas 8" x 8" does.

Regards

Ken Hume

Paul, are you no longer fixed on post and beam? Are you thinking more traditional now?