Roundwood Building Workshop

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I went to a Roundwood Building Workshop this weekend. Roundwood is timber that is left as logs rather than being cut into planks. We constructed a shelter for a cob pizza oven (yet to be constructed).

The timer is a mix of red cedar and ash juniper. Before doing anything with it we had to take the bark off it to prevent insect infestation down the road.
The night before the project leaders charred the end of the posts that would be put in the ground. The charring is another insect infestation prevention measure. Getting the cut ends charred is of particular importance.
The post holes were dug to a depth of 2-3'. We also half buried a couple of dozen roofing nails in the charred end of each post for additional stabilization.


The cool thing about roundwood is that you can use features of the tree(like this limb) to add beauty and support. This limb will provide support for a girder.
After we got the posts in position we back-filled the holes with decomposed granite and tamped it down.

If you can you want to put your girders in a fork

Rolling the girder over so the crown is facing up.  

Notching out the girder. This is where a rafter will rest

Roundwood building seems pretty forgiving. Most of our cuts were made with a chainsaw.

Where we couldn't use a fork for girder placement we made a box joint. Here's the girder.

Here's the corresponding box on the post

A lag bolt is used to secure each of the connections.

Our rafters cut to 8' sized smallest to largest diameter. Smallest go on the outside.

The only bit of planed wood we used are the purlins attached to the top of the rafters. The purlins will give the metal roofing a relatively even surface to attach to.



One of the outside rafters was a little low so we had to make a shim.
We ran of time to finish putting on the corrugated metal roofing.

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