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roundwood and timber framing

Curved ridge beam/ round pole rafters

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posted 3 years ago

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Hey all! My partner and I are going to be building a small cob house next year (around 400 sq ft) we are planning on using the felled trees for roundpole rafters and having a curved log ridge pole similar to the style we saw at some of the cottages at the Cob Cottage Company in Oregon. We plan to use the trees we fell around the site in our house. Does anyone have any tips/tricks, experience they’ve learned from, or know of any good resources on round pole construction? We live in SC and are wanting to do a pond liner living roof situation. We are lucky to have a lot of friends in construction that know how to timber frame, but they are familiar with only modern construction so we’d love to hear advice from natural builders. Thanks so much I’m advance!

John C Daley

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Location: Bendigo , Australia

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posted 3 years ago

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I googled "building with round poles" and found a heap of information
Round Pole construction books

John Daley Bendigo, Australia The Enemy of progress is the hope of a perfect plan
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Mark Brunnr

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posted 3 years ago

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I have Ben Law's Roundwood Timber Framing book, and maybe it's just me but I didn't feel I could build anything after reading the book. Plenty of nice pictures showing some of the jigs they use to mortice and tenon pieces and certain joints they use. However after reading it through the first time, I distinctly remember feeling that it had been a waste of money as I was looking for specifics on building with round wood. You do get to see how they lay out the framing members though, so for the next person perhaps it has exactly the info they are looking for.

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Jane Mulberry

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posted 3 years ago

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Completely different style roof, but a reciprocating roof might also be an option to consider, like this one: thatroundhouse.info

I think there are some folk here who've spent time working at the Cob Cottage buildings, so hopefully they can help with more info on the timber framing there.

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John C Daley

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posted 3 years ago

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Mark, do you have another recommendation of a book. I collect books on almoist any subject and ordered that book after I saw it. der!

Anne Miller

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posted 3 years ago

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I would like to suggest that you see if there are any cob builders in your area to see if they might like a volunteer (to help you learn).

This looks like the book that Mark mentioned, maybe your library might have it:

https://permies.com/t/25576/Roundwood-Timber-Framing-Ben-Law

Or this one might be helpful:

https://permies.com/wiki/51262/Building-Impact-Roundhouse-ed-Tony

This might also be of interest:

build everything as domes, cover it in cob (so we can add sculpting designs onto the houses), then apply a lime plaster. Would that protect the houses enough so that we could build as domes and not have to add a roof to anything?

https://permies.com/t/57071/Cheap-cob-roof

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Mark Brunnr

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posted 3 years ago

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I don't have a suggestion for a single all-in-one book sorry. The one has some ideas and nice pictures, and The Hand-Sculpted House has a section on roofs with some ideas so if your library has that check it out. I may have sounded too negative on the other book but I did like it, I think I expected too much from it based on a description.

Edit: There's 'Round Pole Reciprocal Roof Framing with Tony Wrench' which was offered as a Kickstarter reward here if I'm remembering, I just came across it. Adapted by Uncle Mud with permission from 'A Simple Roundhouse Manual' by Tony Wrench.

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Caitey Ronan

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posted 3 years ago

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Thanks for the responses y’all! We’ll have to check out those books. Hopefully where we still feel confused some of our community that knows how to build may be able to offer help. As for a local cob builder, we haven’t found one. We seem to live in an area with extreme cob skepticism. I know there is someone is Charleston, but she seems to have moved away from cob and that’s a vastly different environment. If anyone knows of another builder in SC, please let us know

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