Woodshed from home made materials

cathead

CATWERKS LTD
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With the advent of winter coming soon and a supply of firewood sitting outside getting rained on, it seemed to me that a
good project would be to use the pile of rough sawn lumber to construct a woodshed. The first step was to position and level
patio blocks on the ground and lay out two 12 foot 6x8 oak beams. A floor was made by laying out 2x8 material flat on the
beams and nailing it down well with pole barn nails. I covered the floor with 3/4 CDX plywood for a nice smooth surface.
With that part completed, it was relatively easy to build on since the base was flat, level, and square. I used 4x4 beams
for the vertical supports and constructed the roof first so I had a place out of the rain to work in. Instead of perlins, I covered
the whole roof with boards as I had plenty of material. The whole roof was covered with 30 pound roofing felt and topped
off with green metal roofing. The walls were the last part of the project to close it in on three sides. I have not decided if
I will include some barn doors on the front yet but probably will when time permits. P1040258.JPGThis shed will hold a goodly amount of firewood, six cords or maybe a little more.



P1040257.JPG
The interior of the roof was quite appealing to me with the ridge beam so was happy with the build. Most of the boards are made of
basswood which had been dried and stickered for a year or so. Some of the boards became blackened as they were on the top of the pile or were the board ends exposed to the elements. Later on I can add battens to the outside of the building if I want to tighten it up more. I see
a lot of woodsheds with spaces between the vertical boards but I prefer it more closed in.


P1030989.JPGThis is the home made band saw I built and used to make the lumber to build the wood shed.

An interesting anecdode is that my only expenses for the shed was for 3 sheets of CDX plywood, a roll of roofing felt and some nails
and a few screws. I was lucky in that a friend was cleaning up his yard and gave me the roofing metal. My total expense for the building
was under $200.
 
The shed looks great! Do you have any pictures of or links to the bandsaw build?
I didn't take any photos while building the mill but will share with you what I can. The
wheels and tires were from an old Nissan Sentra that I had. Also, I used one of the CV joint
axels from the car to drive the wheel. The rails are made of 3 inch channel iron spaced at
three feet if I remember correctly. I have tried several engines on the mill starting with an
8 horse Briggs and Stratton, then went to a 12 horse Kohler, then to the current one which
is a 16 horse Kohler which is plenty of power. The band saw blade is 14 feet long.
The rails are all bolted together using 1/2 inch bolts on the cross bars. Basically the rail assembly
is built similar to how a boat dock goes together with vertical posts every 10 feet to hold it up.
I made the rail assembly first and built up the carriage incrementally on top of the rails. Also I used
the rear wheels, bearings, etc to mount under the rail assembly. I can supply some more photos
if you like. Basically, I looked at some commercial mills and used what stuff I had on hand to
do the build. In doing so, there will likely be a few changes made in the process to make it all
work well. I used a boat winch to raise and lower the mill head which is OK but does not give
one exact incremental (dimentional) control of board thickness. It's quite usable though since its all
rough sawn lumber and if I want very precise boards I use a big planer anyway.
 
Yes. Both the shed and the mill are awesome! I have never done something like this. May I ask how the lumber is handled before and after sawing? How do you dry it without splitting and warping? I'm sure there is an art to this.
My brother want's to see another angle of your saw mill if you have a pic.
 
Yes. Both the shed and the mill are awesome! I have never done something like this. May I ask how the lumber is handled before and after sawing? How do you dry it without splitting and warping? I'm sure there is an art to this.
My brother want's to see another angle of your saw mill if you have a pic.
The sawed wood is "stickered" which means I place three 1x1 inch sticks as wide as the pile is deep
and allow a season to dry. It's not really hard to do, just labor intensive. I will try to take several more
sawmill photos for you.
 
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