Clayton's Bootcamp Experience

BRK Day 72

What did you treat them with?  Are the logs green or dry?

Mike Haasl wrote:What did you treat them with?  Are the logs green or dry?

Logs are green which isn't ideal but I'm working with what I've got.

Treated with raw linseed oil mixed with powdered charcoal. The recipe calls for it to be "the consistency of paint". I think that first coat was a bit thin, but I'm going back tonight to apply a charcoal heavy coat (yes I'm aware the linseed oil won't be cured hehe).

Nice!

I'm working on a permaculture experimentation facility thingie and one experiment I want to run is natural posts in the ground.  I want to come up with as many approaches (old/new/inventive) to treat or protect a cedar post and see which does the best over the course of 10 years.  If I can find black locust (rare around here) I'll use that too.  And maybe a "conventional" post as a control.

Some ideas:
backfill with gravel instead of sandy dirt
backfill with limestone gravel (different pH)
add ash or lime or something else to the backfill sand to reduce microbial activity
shoshugi ban (probably spelled wrong)
treat the post with raw linseed oil and powdered charcoal (thx!)
dry posts (winter and summer cut)
fresh wet posts (winter and summer cut)
Scandinavian ore pine modification
any other permie-friendly things the old farmers say to try

BRK Day 73

That sounds awesome Mike! I envy your patience. What great knowledge to gift to the community!
I love the Scandinavian treatment, wish that I had time to do that. Such a cool idea!

BRK Day 74

Yesterday was a very, very long day. Me and Orin got one of the posts replaced on the 10x10. Not much, but it's something

Clayton High wrote:Greg, can you ask your chestnut to stop growing? I'm gonna have to build a new fence. Just kidding, I'm thrilled!

Woohoo!  Grow baby grow!  (sorry about wishing more work on you Clayton :) )

BRK Day 75

Greg, I'd happily rebuild that fence every week if it would grow that fast haha.

More work on the wing walls yesterday, lots of lugging wet sawdust.

The phone we got didn't have good enough cellular connection to get the speeds we wanted for livestreaming. There was a theory that if we stuck it in a tree, it might work. So we tested it and lo and behold, it worked! More than twice the speed on the ground.