Log Cabins | Building With Different Log Styles

Log cabin logs : profiles

A log home can be built using different types of log styles… or  ‘profiles’  Some of these have a ‘tongue and groove’ milled into the top and bottom of the log that allow the logs to be stacked tightly on top of one another, eliminating needing to apply ‘chinking’ between them.  Chinking is a material that seals the spaces in between logs, and comes in a variety of materials & colors.  It is functional as well as being a style that again is reminiscent of original log cabins.

LOG STYLES

FULL ROUND – This log style retains the full diameter of the tree, and are most often finished using the old hand-done or: ‘hewn’ method, retaining the marks of the tools that were used.

SQUARE – Logs which are milled to be flat on both sides, having been milled to resemble the log cabins that were built duing the civil war, often with large spaces that were chinked.

SWEDISH COPE – Logs which appear mostly round, having a ‘half-moon’  shape cut out of the bottom of the log and fits tightly to the log underneath it.  Chinking is not needed with this type of profile.

‘D’ – Logs are rounded on the outside, and milled with a flat profile inside which creates a ‘flat vs. round’ wall in the interior of the home.

LOG-SIDING – Is a siding option that can be used to transform an existing home that is traditionally sided with clapboard, vinyl siding, etc.  into one that has the look of a log home.

 

LOG CORNER STYLES

DOVETAIL – Square, hand-hewn, or chinked log styles of log homes often required a ‘dovetail’ which is made at the end of the log at the corner. One to the right, and one to the left. Which makes an interwoven corner. Handcrafted dovetails may be fabricated with a ‘full dovetail’, often the notch is sloped both the top & bottom, or only as a ‘half dovetail’ where it is sloped on just one side.

BUTT & PASS – A method used in which logs ‘butt’ up against one another at the corners… without any notching or scribing.

SADDLE NOTCH – The method that is typically used when overlapping round logs at the corners. most commonly used with constructing homes with the Swedish cope profile.

INTERLOCKING SADDLE NOTCH – Typically seen on “D” or ‘full-round’ log profiles, where notches are made on the top & bottom of each log, Then when two logs a placed onto one another, they interlock; making a tightly-sealed corner.

VERTICAL CORNER POST – Larger-sized logs, (i.e., 8″ x 8″), than the logs used for making the log walls; (e.g., 6″ x 6″). The logs that are being used for the walls are attached by the process of “toe nailing” them into the corner post.

 

 

 

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