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.
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