BEL #1
I'm far over due for getting this started, and I have a lot of projects going. Some of the big projects that I am working on include the junk pole fence and rock jacks as seen in the videos, getting the sawmill going, and with my off-boot hours getting Bartel's Bunkhouse in a better state. Today I spent a bunch of time at Bartel's, looking at the issues with the door, leveling out the floor, and chopping up a bunch of wood from a tree felled the week prior. I got some other odds and ends done including stripping bark off of some poles so they can dry out for future projects. As I get deeper in to more complex projects I will put up more detailed posts about what is going on.
The door to Bartel's has a number of issues. The hole for the doorknob was made too large. The door itself has insulation inside, but the wood slats on either side have gaps so the insulation isn't insulating, but rather acting as an air filter for the air that freely flows through. Fortunately the rocket mass heater works extremely well. For a smaller J-tube it draws very well and has a good amount of barrel surface area to get the temperature from chilly to tropical. The wood rack outside the door blocks nearly half of the opening and needs to be addressed before loading any wood in to it. For now there is a bit of wood on a shelf inside and more I split today along the path just outside.
The floor is massively lumpy and bare dirt. I'm going to fill it in and level it out to start, and I'm hoping to have some success with my plan to eventually create a stone floor. Since this will probably only be worked on during the weekends, the progress will be slow, but I will experiment with a few ideas and see how they turn out before doing the floor there.
I have plenty of experience with framing houses and doing carpentry with dimensional lumber, but not much round wood experience beyond working on junk pole fencing here over the last few months. At some point I will get enough wood dried and tooling set up to move forward with getting some indoor round wood projects completed. For now I need to work on debarking poles and create a better system for making tenons. There will be plenty more to share about this and more in the coming weeks.
.jpeg)
4
