Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
crawls into the padded space up behind the seat of the
White. Brad unrolls one of my sleeping bags on the
broad hood of the pickup. And I stretch my aching
bones on another, on the ground, with a poncho to
help keep off the mosquitoes.
My trucks make ticking sounds, settling into sleep.
I picture them both fleetingly, not as worn and rusted
hulks, but as finely hammered steel, eager for work,
sure under my hands and the hands of these good old
boys working with me in this madness. Mosquitoes
buzz, confused by the sticky repellent. Stars peep and
the nearby river murmurs.
Sudden heavy raindrops pound the thin poncho
into me and lightning silhouettes the trucks. Brad
abandons the truck hood, doubling his length onto the
pickup seat. I do not move, and soon am struck by a
closeness to the elements, driven by rain that does not
touch me, spread upon and flowing into the ground in
fatigue. Come on, rain. It's just you and me. And these
big trucks, and all these logs, and rocks. And pretty
soon some more sleep, in spite of everything.
Morning sees us splashing river water in our faces,
and then me and my truck grinding away up another
mountain just as high. We stop at Kingston for break-
fast, in a café in one of several old buildings put
together, no doubt, with money from timber when this
land was first logged. The high ceiling is embossed
sheet metal, and everything smells wonderfully old.
Danny takes over, and the rest is July sun and curv-
ing hills till we reach the site. It's noon as we roll in,
and it takes awhile for the landscape to stop moving.
We unhook the chains cautiously, because this sim-
ple operation can kill you, if those tons of logs storm
loose before you're ready. We pry and roll the last of
them off, and the truck straightens its back. I pat it on
the nose as the boys roll two specimens onto cross
beams in a sea of chips.
Then we reach for our broadaxes.
Well, that's an account of an actual logging trip. I
could also tell you about the time we had a timber
deadline to meet in January, and worked all night in
a sleet storm, skidding and loading, to haul the next
day on ice — but you get the point. Logging is
always
a lot harder and takes longer than you expect. And it's
expensive. You see, the timber had to be bought first,
at about 10 cents a board foot, and we paid ourselves
(too modest) a wage. Add to that, five more trips for
logs, both for the house walls and for lumber. And two
big truck tires at over $100 apiece. And a tractor over-
haul, and a clutch job for the pickup truck. And all
those trips that took two days (or three, even) instead
of one (as you had planned).
So buy your logs and have them hauled, unless
masochism really is your thing.
Store-Bought Materials
We tend to use new material where it won't show, as
in rafters to be boxed in, and floor joists and added-
room stud walls. Beams, logs, paneling, stairs, and
flooring are on display and we thus save the best old
wood for them.
The logs are only your main cabin walls, so unless
you have your lumber sawed from them, you still need
many feet of boards. You can use rough-sawn boards
and studding of yellow pine or poplar for just about
everything in the house that isn't log or stone. If you'd
rather, go to a lumber company and pay its prices for
dimension stock. You'll find it more expensive but
more uniform in size, making it quicker and easier to
install. Rough-sawn lumber often varies a lot in thick-
ness and width.
You can, of course, use poles or hewn beams for
things like rafters, but it's a bit difficult to build a stud
wall for a lean-to or upstairs room without sawn
dimension wood.
Roofing
I use either standing-seam metal or split shakes on the
roof. It takes so many shakes, you may want to buy
these too. I just don't find enough good wood (white
oak, cypress, red cedar) to split them realistically. A
happy solution is the rare shingle mill that can saw
cypress or cedar, knotty or not, at about what the lum-
ber companies charge for theirs. We'll talk more about
shingles in the chapter on roofs.
Don't bother recycling tin or shakes. Slate recycles
nicely, and can be had in areas where it was common.
Slate shingles are laid exactly like shakes are. If mod-
ern building codes are followed, roof framing will be
strong enough for slate.
