LHBA does not advocate carving the log at the butt ends. doing so would impair the log's natural abilty to resist water damage. in class you will learn why having one log fit snuggly against another might not be a good thing. will also learn the log-preserving qualities of chinking (think 'breathable').

Thanks, folks. I anticipated the problem with rotating the log, and I suspected that water infiltration would have been one of the concerns with cutting into the grain at the butt end. Thanks for commenting and confirming my suspicions.

About the chinking/breathing - I can understand the concept there. If there's a space between the logs (up and down, as well as butt to pass), then moisture content can weep out through the chiking. Where the logs directly contact (particularly in a carved out area which could trap water), then the moisture stays in the joint too long and can cause rotting/mold. That makes sense.

About the rotating - I thought about that and had brainstormed that someone could position the log the way it needs to be, then draw a scribe line on it before lifting (or after it's up on the wall) to fit it.

Thanks again for the comments! I appreciate the general info without going into members-only details. I'm quite content to wait and get those in October!

DGC

I don't mind waiting. I've learned so much from the articles and posts on the forum and the public areas of the website. I'm quite happy to simply keep looking at photobuckets and blogs and learning more about the log building process and basic design ideas.

What amazes me most is that I can look at a picture, then a week later see the same picture and notice something completely new. For example, look at Rckclmbr's photo at:

http://s279.photobucket.com/albums/kk122/rckclmbr428/?action=view&current=IMG_3328.jpg

When I first saw that photo, I was looking at the obvious - the scale difference between the milled stick and the large log set in the wall. But look lower in the photo - down at the foundation wall - lower left side of the picture. On that wall running to the left, along the foundation, you can really see the liberal amount of chinking material applied there. That photo gives a good view of the scope and amount of chinking necessary in a Skip-style home. Now, I'm not put off by that - in fact, I like it. The idea of those chink lines gets me excited! I never liked the sterile look of milled logs stacked together with no visible chinking material. But it goes to show how the same photo of a LHBA home in construction can show so many important details for educational purposes.

It happens all the time... I'll see a photo captioned to draw your attention to the ridgepole support log, and I'll notice an interesting thing about the girders for the second floor or the loft. Some people notch them to fit between courses, and some cut a small piece out of a course and put the girder in place as a whole log.

I'm learning a lot about the different approaches to the same problems and what does or doesn't look like my style for what I want to see in my walls. And all this keeps me VERY busy and not in any particular rush to get access to the members-only area. I'll get there - but I still have SO much to learn before I even go to the class in October!

DGC

is bang for the buck. Sure, you could carve a fancy pesudo notch for the but and pass logs to fit more snugly, but the whole purpose behind skips teaching is get your family out of the rain as fast as possible, and into a home that you own outright. making your corners very pretty is not going to help with that. Although, it does take a lot of mortar to fill the gaps for big logs (>12 in) and the gaps just get bigger with the size of the log.

btw, I don't mean to say that any of the previous answers were bad, but all I am saying is that even if it were OK to scallop the but ends, it would not be worth it.

I really do appreciate all your input!

I understand the speed aspect of stacking the walls, Stressman. I wouldn't be in THAT big a hurry - so if there were a benefit to be had by carving the ends, I'd carve 'em. But I can see the concerns with moisture and chewing up the grain in the log at that end, and I don't want to go to all the trouble of building a solid house only to have the corners start to rot because I scooped out those ends.

DGC