If you want to, you can learn something new every day.
If there is ever a phrase where I will instantly loose my respect for anyone, it is the one: “But no one showed me how!” - as if those who know are walking everywhere asking those who don’t know if they can show them.
I am in the process to start building my own house from freshly cut logs and it is fabulous to be in an areas where no municipal approvals are needed. I have a sawmill to do all the rough cutting and from there it all has to be done.
Yesterday was my first real day of cutting some logs and that alone is a skill that will take a few days to master. It is surprisingly difficult to eyeball a log and then plunge into it with a 350mm blade driven by a 15 kW vibrating petrol motor. One quickly realise that this thing is not intended to make razor blades, yet you need to get a very straight plank out of it. My first few literally went bananas!
In the process of reading up how to do wooden house construction, I came to learn that what we call in South Africa to be “Timber” is not Timber at all. In the USA and the UK it is called “Sticks”.
This came about when real Timber became hard to find, and the commercial cuts we know today was developed, and usually dried in kilns and treated.
Timber was used untreated, and also green. Yes, you actually worked with wet wood which is supposed to dry naturally and slowly.
So, in this day and age, even where I am now, Timber is hard to find, which now means I will have to devise my methods in order to get something sort of in between Timber and Sticks. I simply won’t have the luxury to do 12” beams like they did in the old days. That said, Timber construction is far more economical on material than Sticks.
As a Land Rover Man, I can certainly allowed to quote: “One Life. Live it!”
