Setting the Ridge Pole, and rafters

First off, I have to admit that I wasn't on site this day, I was out of town, but we had some great friends lined up to come up and help. Thanks, Larry, Brett, Brent, Landon, and Mitch for being here to help Jason set this up.

Here I would like to answer a few of the most asked questions...
Q- why are there spaces between the logs, and what do you do about them?
A- The spaces are expected, this is not a kit home, they are not milled logs, so they are not going to fit perfectly, we will fill them with a mortor mix called chinking, but this comes at a much later date.

Q- why do the logs all look crooked?
A- we are using logs as our scaffolding, to help us be able to stand where we need to stand. thy are supported by the ends of the logs hanging over (called the overdangles) so they are crooked, which in turn makes it look like the hole house is crooked.

Q- are you going to leave those ends of the logs like that?
A- No, but we are using them to help hold up the scaffolding, so we will leave them that way, until we are ready to cut them (near the end of the project)

Q- How did you learn how to do this?
A- Jason stumbled upon a website www.loghomebuilders.org We attended a class and follow the website, it really isn't rocket science, just alot of hard work, and some creative thinking.

We set up the lifting poles (the tall logs) because our tractor didn't reach far enough to set the center RSPL, or the rafters, but in the end we decided to rent a gradall for a day to get these done.

Woo Hoo, the Ridge Pole is in place!

This was how they lifted most of the rafters up, it worked but they ran out of daylight with 3 sets still on the ground.

lifting.....

most of the rafters in place.