One of the large projects on the Pumpkin Patch Mountain Homestead is to build a cordwood chicken coop. I have wanted to practice this construction art form ever since I read about it. My husband fell in love with it, as well. So much in fact that he wanted to make two of the four walls of our cabin out of cordwood. I didn’t want to mess up our house, so we decided to practice making a small chicken coop out of cordwood. This way it will get all my mistakes and blunders out of the way, and I can learn properly.
We had first made the frame for the coop. Using pressure treated 4×4, we stabilized the frame by inserting them into concrete deck legs. We had leftover metal roofing from the carport construction so we placed and secured three sheets for the roof. There is no built flooring to the coop. Since it is a chicken coop, we decided on a dirt floor. As for a foundation, we leveled the ground and glued together, cinderblocks all along the edge. This will help keep bugs and more importantly, termite away from the cordwood sides.
Getting the cordwood material together.
Building a cordwood structure takes a lot of materials. First and foremost is the wood itself. The husband had cut down quite a few trees in our endeavor of cleaning up the land to be able to build on. Now after, cutting the trees down, we immediately corded them into 10-11 inch sections. Since we had a roof over the future chicken coop, I stacked all the pieces in there and let everything dry out from the weather for about six months. Now, most people will say to shave the bark of as soon as you cut the tree, but we didn’t have that option. There was only so much time to get everything completed since we don’t have a cabin or live on the property yet. Fortunately, this didn’t damage the wood, there was no rotting and all the pieces are extremely useable for this project.
I also needed a bark shaver to do the job. Amazon has a variety of tools for this project. I choose to use Timber Tuff 10-Inch Straight Draw Shave. This draw shave is very good for small projects like the cordwood pieces I cut. It is sharp, so be careful, but it also has nice wooden handles to hold onto that won’t slip.
It does have its drawbacks. I have found that this draw knife only really works for thin tree bark. Currently, I have at least two types of tree bark drying under the coop, pecan, and beech. I can’t even try to use this drawknife with the pecan wood. It is way too thick, and I will be there for hours on one piece. The beech, on the other hand, was very easy to shave because of the thinness of the bark. It almost shaved off like cold cheese and a potato peeler. If that makes any sense.
Shaving the bark off the wood.
Since my wood was already cut into small pieces, I needed to first set up a stable system to place each piece of wood, so when I shaved the cords wouldn’t go flying. I have to admit and my system probably isn’t OSHA approved. I used a system of cinderblocks and my booted up feet to hold the cordwood pieces from moving.
Now that the wood is secure you can start shaving. I tilted the draw knife slightly at the top of the log. Tilting the knife makes it a little easier to get the draw knife under the bark.
Once you start the knife peeling up the bark, slowly pull the knife down the side of the wood. When I felt the tension and the knife wouldn’t go any further, I stopped and took the knife out. Then I ripped the strip of bark off, turned the wood and started again on another strip.
Once I got all the way around the cord, I flipped it over and started on the bottom side where the bark was still left. Make sure you shave off all the little pieces of bark you may have missed. And then set aside the shaved wood up off the ground and let continue to dry. It is as easy it that.
