Off Grid Log Cabin Built by One Man: Laying Extra-Thick Logs Solo

Hello friends. This is Max Egorov and you are watching the second part of the series of short videos on my successful attempt to colonize a totally wild and secluded place. You are looking at the Russian forest, where such hot weather is not common. In the summer it is fairly warm and never gets dark. You might have heard about white nights in St.Petersburg. We are approximately 300 km north of it. the rest of the year the weather here is very harsh thus building a reliable shelter is a must. I decided to build my log cabin without chopping down a single live tree. A lot of the tall trees here were downed by a severe storm a few years ago. So, I decided to reclaim those extra-thick logs for my cabin's construction. I chose a round notch (also knows as a saddle cope) to join logs in my cabin. I used a piece of charcoal to layout the log joint because it could draw well on the wet log. Most of the material was removed with a chainsaw and a small prybar and then I finished shaping the notch with a hand adze. I used my Finnish axe and adze to make the longitudinal groves. I have to confess, towards the end of the cabin's construction I used my chainsaw more and more for rough shaping of both notches and groves to speed up the process. According to the construction code in Russia, the longitudinal groove should be half the width of the top log's diameter. That will make your log cabin more energy efficient. The downside, to strictly following this code, is it will take more logs and more work to build the same size cabin. If you are planning to live in a log cabin during the winter it is advisable to make the longitudinal groove wider than I did in order to sink the top log deeper into the bottom log. While fitting the logs I had to move a heavy log back and forth. It was easy to do using a pry bar and a strap's loop. My seemingly unwise decision to carry a heavy pry bar strapped to my backpack while getting to my camp site on foot paid off. It became an important tool in my cabin's construction. Another tool that I was glad I brought with me was my homemade draw shave. I was able to easily debark and smoothen the wet logs using the draw shave. I also used it to do the finishing touches on the log butts, which made the cabin look more refined. To make my cabin stronger I used square wooden stakes to secure each log's layer. It is a bit ironic but this is what old carpenters used to do. They hammered square wooden stakes into predrilled round holes. Go figure... I think it is done so because it's easier to make a square wooden stake than a dowel and such fastener would less likely split the log. Anyhow, I couldn't come up with a better explanation on that strange classical practice. If you know other reasons why the wooden stakes are made square please let me know. Lastly, it is important to trim the wooden stake a little below the level of the log so it wouldn't stick out when the logs dry out and shrink in diameter. I filled the grooves with moss for better insulation. This is my first experience in laying logs and things were not going very smoothly in the beginning; however, it turned out to be an enjoyable and comparatively simple experience. I want to show you two panoramic sceneries of the same place. As you can see this small piece of land looks quite different from now. However, right outside of my camp the forest is littered with tall fallen trees that are just rotting... If I didn't run other projects at the same time, such as making kayaks from branches with tarp or clear plastic skin, making a dome from branches and plastic wrap, making canopies, hammocks, primitive sawmill as well as fishing and mushrooming, I probably would have finished my log cabin by the end of my one month vacation. In reality I will have to come back here next year to finish building my cabin. I will show it in the next part. If you liked the video, perhaps, you could share it with your friends. Let good people watch good videos! This is Max Egorov

Channel: Advoko MAKES

Views: 1,609,464

Rating: 4.9464827 out of 5

Keywords: My log cabin build, log cabin building by hand, off grid cabin build, how to build log cabin, log cabin, primitive cabin, how to build a small log cabin, diy log cabin, cabin diy, cabin in the woods off grid, off grid cabin, off grid log cabin, simple log cabin, making log cabin, making log cabin from scratch, making a log cabin by hand, round notch log, round notch log cabin, Advoko Makes, Max Egorov, draw shave, log cabin in the woods, bushcraft log cabin

Id: Cot3y87cvvk

Length: 4min 0sec (240 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 15 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Spencerwon21]

This man is living my dream....

[u/Jayzel718]

amazing job- i wish i had the balls (and resources)to do this

[u/nach00000]

Thanks for posting this! Are you the guy in the video??

I subbed right away, these videos are fascinating. Just came here to say this before I go back to YouTube and watch the rest of the videos.

What I really appreciate is the innovation and craftsmanship in his work. This guy is fascinating to watch and listen to. Also after watching a few vids you can start to pick up on his humility and sense of humour! I hope the channel will grow and the bushcraft community will get behind you. It's very interesting to see a lot of techniques from Russia and Finland. The Forrest where the cabin is built is insanely dense.

Awesome work!

[u/meteoriteminer]

Amazing work he's done!

[u/King_Obvious_III]

THICC

[u/Boston__Massacre]

This guy fucks with physics hard. His ability to use simple physics to move these items is incredible. Great work.

[u/otakugrey]

I wish I owned land I could do this on.

[u/allpurposechips]

Wow!! Where did you learn to do all of this!?

[u/coffeeisgoodtome]

You are extraordinarily smart. I'm so jealous of your spot on earth. You have my total respect.