DIY Shepherd Hut #1 | Oak & Iron Axles

foreign [Music] ly starting to work on this traditional Shepherd's Hut so I bought these cast iron wheels and axles in the UK as that's where this type of Hut was originally developed in the 1500s and they never really made it across to Europe so the kits aren't available here guessing all these bits over to France was far more challenging and slower than I'd thought you may have seen that they broke the output shaft of My Land Rover and then nearly ripped the trailer into on the drive over but they're here now and it means I can finally begin some real work the back two wheels are 32 inches in diameter and weigh around 70 kilograms each whereas the front two wheels are 24 inches and weigh maybe 40. because they're smaller they can turn under what will eventually be the oak whales which the Hut will be built on top of meaning that you can steer the Hut in the direction that you need foreign the axles run the full width and are made of 50 millimeter solid steel some kits you can buy have stub axles that you just Mount onto the Timbers however I'm sure they wouldn't last as long as these full length ones and I want this heart to last as long as possible the overall width is locked at two meters because of the threads that are cut on the axles but the length can basically be as long as you want within reason I'm hoping to get somewhere between five and a half and six meters which is more than enough for a kitchen a dining area a fold down bed lots of storage and maybe a wood stove although if they're well insulated they're not really needed but obviously bring a certain charm to the space I don't ever intend to live in the Hut but instead to Shelter From the weather cook food and do work the final resting place for this will be a new location that I'm very excited to show you later this year the other important parts are these cast iron turntables again there are cheaper steel options but they wouldn't last as long nor look as handsome these are designed to spin on each other which enables the steering of the front axle foreign the final cast iron bits are these two brackets they go upside down to how they're shown here and they support the rear of the heart of the back axle so my job is basically to fill everything in between using a combination of reclaimed seasoned Oak beams that sit on the axles and fresh green oak for the longer six meter rails you can't buy seasoned Oak from a sawmill so you have to keep an eye out on various online marketplaces waiting for a house demolition or something similar and pounce when you see them come up because they don't tend to stick around fortunately there were four extremely long seven meter beams about an hour's drive away and after checking them out and agreeing a price we then had the question of Transport they were going to be far too long for my dad's trailer but we did manage to find a five meter rental that could handle them foreign [Music] [Music] even with the longer trailer they still overhung by a couple of meters which was causing some weight problems so I had to cut them shorter but I did leave one long as I had two good ends and it's kind of cool to have a seven meter Oak Beam for whatever happens in the future a big thank you to Michelle who I bought the beams from for helping us lift them onto the trailer and for the wine and a massive thank you to my parents for helping throughout foreign foreign two five which is there five one seven five so that's roughly what I'm after which means any cracks like this I'm good hahaha [Music] [Music] [Applause] overall the condition of the beams wasn't too bad at least that's what I thought at the time some of the ends which are more vulnerable had split quite deeply as you could see so I tried to find a good two meter section to begin working on foreign thank you [Music] it's not a simple thing to reuse seasoned Oak beams you have multiple issues to deal with especially if the beam contains the heart of the tree which as it dries shrinks and causes deep cracks often on more than one face cracks are ugly but they're not normally a structural problem unless they're very close to the corners or if they run the full length another issue is weight and mass you've really got to keep your wits about you when moving them about and they're also tough much tougher than Green Oak and will blunt your saw blades twice as fast meaning you really have to make sure the cut is worth it before you do it I suppose the process isn't dissimilar to baking in that you put in a lot of work and you don't really know how it's going to end up until they're finished foreign to get going you first need one good flat face my preferred method is to set up a laser level and then take a power plane to get down to that line [Music] [Music] oh [Applause] once you're on the line you can use a small spirit level to make sure it's flat across the width then you can use this flat face to make a perfect 90 degree cut with a circular saw but I didn't have a saw quite big enough the final dimensions are going to be one two five by 175 and my Festool saw only cuts to 85 so it was time to upgrade all right this big boy can cut 130 so it could handle all of the 125 cuts and most of the 175 cuts [Applause] [Music] [Music] okay [Music] [Music] all right [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] with the second face now 90 degrees to the first face I could repeat the same process but first I had to rip a piece of wood to attach to the saw [Music] whoa [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] this board allowed me to cut exactly parallel from the opposite Edge and the eagle-eyed among you may have noticed a continuity error here the first board I made wasn't quite big enough Burger [Applause] [Applause] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] wow [Music] another issue you can run into with reclaimed beams are nails there are a few things quite as tempting as stumbling across a hammer a tub of nails and a big beam of wood so often you'll find random Nails in random locations in Old beams and hitting a nail is pretty much game over for whatever tool you're using foreign fortunately in this case it was the chainsaw and not the brand new big saw and I thought something like this might happen so I'd brought backups [Music] at this point the beam was small enough to run through the thickness of machine which has a maximum depth of 140 millimeter [Music] all right [Music] [Music] [Music] the final face was the easiest as the big saw could do the full cut in one pass leaving a perfectly Square seasoned Oak beam sadly that beam had quite a nasty split running the full length so I ended up cutting a replacement which also had a nasty split on the edge so I then had to cut another which turned out okay each one took a full day to cut down to size so it was pretty slow going and quite frustrating foreign [Laughter] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] foreign once I cut the beams exactly at two meters the final details were some nice little curve cuts that transformed the rather brutish look of the beams into something a little more refined foreign [Music] after using the big saw for the straight cut I used the most expensive tool in the workshop to cut the curve I'm very slowly making my money back on this tool thank you [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] as you can see the beams didn't quite fit the cast iron but that is intentional the cast iron sides are actually tapered at an angle to help them remove it from the mold after casting to overcome this I'll need to make some angled shims to fill this Gap thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring this video I built my website on Squarespace two years ago to sell tool belts and more recently the blue jacket you can see me wearing throughout this video it's taught me loads about branding product design Logistics shipping tax all the nuts and bolts of business what this boils down to is that Squarespace offers a vehicle to explore your own business ideas or creative Endeavors and if you have that itch in the back of your head go to squarespace.com forward slash Carl Rogers to build a free website with no experience needed they have all the tools and templates you need to make it look professional plus you'll receive 10 off if and when you decide to go live see you soon for part two thank you

Channel: carlrogers

Views: 138,312

Keywords: tiny house on wheels

Id: FzzQMVCJs50

Length: 22min 19sec (1339 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 16 2023