Which tree would you pick jack pine or white spruce? Is there a right time of year to cut the logs? Do you strip bark right away or wait?

White spruce,cut and peel in late winter,build in early fall.
What size?

If you want to build a nice one, you winter cut the logs, peel them in the early spring when they sweat raise them of the ground and let air dry. Treat them with a mildew resistance treatment than air dry for a year. Spruce will split like crazy if you cut and build right away. You will think a bomb went off when they check (split). Most guys don't dry them enough and when you rush to finish and pound the heat to the logs they check like crazy.
Build the roof twice as big as you think you need, that is the secret to maintaining a log structure.
I build my log house in Timmins out of white pine.

Clean peeling is the easiest, but like gibb said they really like to mold. Clean pealing is a timing thing. You miss the timing and they won't clean peel. You cut too early in the winter here and there is not enough sap or they dry out or whatever they won't clean peel good. You cut them in the summer before August and you can peel half a side in one swoop, but those trees are heavy with sap and won't dry before winter here because we are going into the rainy season and no matter how you treat them and protect them they will probably end up black as the ace of spades.

I like to cut logs in April when the sap is beginning to run. Sunny side up will clean peel in April. You have to keep checking each log as different logs will clean peel at different times. Keep rotating bark up into the sun. If they are peeling good you should be able to pry up the bark with a screwdriver and pull long strips of bark off (5 to 15 feet or more). Once you have removed all the bark and don't want your logs to mold stack them and put a roof over them. I will suspend a large tarp above them, keeping rain off, but allowing air flow. If you have a couple of relatively dry months they won't mold much. If it is rainy, you will have to bleach them. IMO if you cut and peel them in late spring and it doesn't rain most of the spring, summer an fall they should be light enough to build with in November.

Good luck!

Gibbs what treatment do you put on them?
I've seen videos on you tube where guys char the logs with a tiger torch to dry them and I think make them mold and rot resistant. Anyone ever try this?

I have plans to set the first flight of logs on pieces of railroad ties to keep logs up out of the wetness. I want a raised floor inside away from the ground letting me dig a cold storage underneath is there any problem with that idea?

Make cribs with the ties-easier to shim from settling and or heaving if that is a concern.

If the cabin is 20x14 how often should I crib it? The corners obviously but does it need more than one crib in the middle? Figuring cribs to be 2x2

9 should do it.How is your ground,might want to go 3x3 cribs.

The best peeler are broken truck springs that are sharpened on one end and the shackle part is a good holding point. 3 foot leverage really works in the bark peeling.

We have a man here in Michigan that uses high pressure sprayer(Power washer) to blast the bark off.

Then he stores them to dry, staked and covered mostly.

I use a snowmachine spring in simliar fashion for frost fleshing beavers.

If I were to do this again, I would cut and peel my logs and use them the first year. Allowing the bark to remain on the logs just invites insect infestations and mold growth.

I used a bark spud to peel the logs, a wire brush to clean them up and then sprayed the logs with a zinc borate solution. An insect and fungal inhibitor. I sprayed these logs with Outlast Q8 log oil. Amazing stuff. Expensive.

The footprint of my cabin is twenty-four by thirty. I used support midway in the spans. That's adequate to support the logs but it might make for a spongy floor system depending on how you engineer it.

Larva and the residue they leave behind under the bark. A tight notch.

I usually make an outbuilding each summer. Seems I can't have enough small outbuildings (trap shed, lure shed, banya, greenhouse, garden shed, chicken coop, woodshed, she-shed, etc.). I cut lodgepole pine that is at least 2 years standing dead. I mill 2 sides flat, then draw-knife off the bark and cambium, sticker and stack over the winter, then build. Very little settling/shrinkage. I make the foundations with simple cinder blocks and never span more than 8' without supports (I hate spongy floors). Floor joists are 2x8s, often doubled, on 1-foot centers. Makes for tight little cabins. I agree that leaving the bark on is asking for trouble because of insect infestations and mold. On dead-standing lodgepole, takes about 15 minutes to clean-peel the logs with a sharp drawknife and well worth the time and effort.

Nice looking place. I noticed your stonework. I'm a bricklayer by trade and laying stone puts me in a coma. I enjoy the finished product but the process is way too tedious for me.

I milled the logs flat on the bearing surfaces and pinned them with oak dowels at the corners and here & there along the length of the wall. My primary concern was vandalism but it also lends some rigidity to the walls. The oak dowels are rugged and you don't need to worry about striking one when cutting door and window openings. Drill down through the logs, drive to the desired depth and then cut off flush with a chisel.

I like it Posco. I've been using 8" spikes and need to pre-drill anyway. Why not go to hardwood dowels? Cheaper, and doesn't dull the blades when you inadvertently cut into one. Probably just as strong. Next cabin, I'll change my evil ways. Thanks.

Jack

Lovely she- shed , Jack !

I would like to have one, and a banya someday similar . I do like the stonework too. I have enjoyed making stone walkways in fitting them like a puzzle and placing them flush in the ground without mortar . The mortar would be better, though.

Someday !