Building a woodshed with roundwood.
Why roundwood
Roundwood has many benefits over sawn lumber:
- It's more efficient you avoid the sawmill and creation of waste products.
- It's 50% stronger by weight than sawn lumber.
- It's beautiful
- Much cheaper
- Can often be locally found.
The big drawback and also the big reason why it's used less is standardization. You can't completely design a house by computer without knowing all the different sizes of logs. It requires skilled labor , measuring & woodworking is much harder than with straight wood. It's a much slower building process and can't be mass produced.
This is the reason why most of the buildings are made by volunteers or homebuilders and not contractors. The amount of labor required would make the building very expensive!
My roundwood woodshed
I've built my roundwood woodshed because allot of the wood was drying outside under a tarp. It was a good way to practice my roundwood woodworking skills. Luckily with a smaller structure you can be less precise. The weight is low and it doesn't need to be as strong as a house.
I'm not a fan of shingles so I installed a metal plate roof. Shingles require a crazy amount of work to make and to install.
Tools required
There are very little tools required. The essentials ones are very basic like a chainsaw, a chisel and a drawknife, drill & auger and a hammer. You can basically make the whole building with that. The more specialised tools are mainly to improve quality and speed.
- Debarking spade
It's a more efficient tool than the drawknife it's not really needed when you cut the logs in spring. In spring the bark is very loose around the log and can be easily removed with a drawknife or even a normal spade. - Japanese saw
A fine saw with a much better design than a western styled saw. You saw when you pull, this makes it possible to have a much thinner blade. Less wood you need to remove and less force required. - Rounding plane
This tool can make wooden pegs of an exact diameter. It replaces the needed for expensive thick screws and bolts. - Mortiser
A mortiser is a chainsaw that can dig the nose of the saw safely and securely into the wood to saw a mortise. - Shaving horse
A shaving horse is cheap to build and helps in clamping wood pieces to do detailing work. Making wooden pegs for example. - Froe
A froe is a tool that can split wood. The wood will split following the grain what creates stronger halves than sawn wood. - Cant hook
A can't hook graps logs the handle gives you leverage to move really big logs around without a tractor.
Other tools
Some tools don't need explanation. Dogs, clamps, straps, rope, chalk line, squares, log scriber, winches, sharpening stones,
Examples of roundwood building
The master of roundwood building is Ben Law. He has build many beautiful houses in Great Brittain.
▶️ DTube
▶️ IPFS
What a great example of using the free resources around you! I think this is a vital skill for anyone wanting to live off the land. Thank you so much for sharing this!
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Ofcourse you can use it!
Thank you! Are you on discord by chance? I had a question for you. You can find me at LLFarms#8837
Now I am on discord. Gogreenbuddy#1548 I added you 2.
You can read about us here
This technique is brilliant. Have any other resources on building? what type of tree are you using. I close on some property tomorrow and there are an abundance of Pinoak trees that need to be thinned to make room for larger trees to grow.
Yes I've got some resources for you :
=>Roundwood Timber Framing: Building Naturally Using Local Resources. Book by Ben Law
=>Kris Harbour on YouTube
=>https://www.lowimpact.org/lowimpact-topic/round-wood-timber-framing/
Thanks Buddy. I loved framing my chicken coop with a hatchet so I think I should be able to at least cobble together a wood shed. I almost have the wife sold on cordwood construction but I dont think she is as alternative in building as I am. A round timber structure would make a great external frame for strawbale/cordwood. And it would look pretty too.
Just start building !
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Are you letting the wood dry first? Nice woodshed.
No need to let roundwood dry before building! It's even better than the joints will squeeze together when it all shrinks.
good tutorial. thank you for sharing the experience of working through wood. actually if we have the intention and effort. many works and creations are created from wood. I own a business in the field of wood.
Thanks It's more an introduction to roundwood. Allot of people never heard of it but it's so much easier and cheaper in rural area's. Lot's of people don't built because the lumber is pricy and often very low quality.
Seems like a good supply of building materials lol
very far our distance to work together 😁😂. tpi i like every post you. makes me excited about reading it