This lovely but cold Sunday morning I put the finishing touches on my first homemade Strongman log. There it is:
Ain't she a beauty?
If you want to make your own, here is what I did:
I phoned a couple of lumber mills to check which one sells log without bark. I found one, went there and purchased a 6 1/2 feet long, 1 foot diameter spruce log (these where the dimensions I found on the Internet for an empty Strongman log of about 155 lbs). 25 EUR.
I have to admit, it seemed awfully heavy. At home I weighed it: about 300 lbs. What was wrong?
Of course, the wood was rather fresh and full of water. To let it dry would take about two years. So I searched for another lumber mill with a drying room and found one. Fortunately, they let me put the log into their chamber for a week. This cost me another 20 EUR I didn't want to spend, but next time I will be wiser.
When I picked it up, it had almost exactly 155 lbs. So the 20 EUR eventually saved me a lot of time.
Then I began by cutting two square holes into the log with a chainsaw. About 8 by 7 inch, with the centers of the holes (where the handles would be) about 2 feet apart.
Be careful when working with a chainsaw, by the way, they can be dangerous.
Then came the hardest part: taking the wood out of the holes. At first I used a pick hammer for the rough work, then a chisel.
This part of the job took most of the time. Luckily a friend and my younger borther (here in the picture), lent a helping hand.
The rest was easy. I drilled round holes through the center of the log where the square holes are, and two holes into the ends of log. As I wanted to use an old iron pipe for the handles and loading bars with a diameter of 1.06 inches, I used a drill about 1 milimeter less in diameter.
Then I hammered the end pipes into the holes at the ends of the log and decided they would hold.
With the handles I was more cautious and put some extra strong glue into the drill holes before hammering the pipes through to make sure they would resist the strain put on them during a heavy clean.
Then I hammered the handle pipes through.
This is how you put additional weight on it:
There you go. Looking forward to my first workout with it.
Good luck with your own!
Best,
Robert
Ain't she a beauty?
If you want to make your own, here is what I did:
I phoned a couple of lumber mills to check which one sells log without bark. I found one, went there and purchased a 6 1/2 feet long, 1 foot diameter spruce log (these where the dimensions I found on the Internet for an empty Strongman log of about 155 lbs). 25 EUR.
I have to admit, it seemed awfully heavy. At home I weighed it: about 300 lbs. What was wrong?
Of course, the wood was rather fresh and full of water. To let it dry would take about two years. So I searched for another lumber mill with a drying room and found one. Fortunately, they let me put the log into their chamber for a week. This cost me another 20 EUR I didn't want to spend, but next time I will be wiser.
When I picked it up, it had almost exactly 155 lbs. So the 20 EUR eventually saved me a lot of time.
Then I began by cutting two square holes into the log with a chainsaw. About 8 by 7 inch, with the centers of the holes (where the handles would be) about 2 feet apart.
Be careful when working with a chainsaw, by the way, they can be dangerous.
Then came the hardest part: taking the wood out of the holes. At first I used a pick hammer for the rough work, then a chisel.
This part of the job took most of the time. Luckily a friend and my younger borther (here in the picture), lent a helping hand.
The rest was easy. I drilled round holes through the center of the log where the square holes are, and two holes into the ends of log. As I wanted to use an old iron pipe for the handles and loading bars with a diameter of 1.06 inches, I used a drill about 1 milimeter less in diameter.
Then I hammered the end pipes into the holes at the ends of the log and decided they would hold.
With the handles I was more cautious and put some extra strong glue into the drill holes before hammering the pipes through to make sure they would resist the strain put on them during a heavy clean.
Then I hammered the handle pipes through.
This is how you put additional weight on it:
There you go. Looking forward to my first workout with it.
Good luck with your own!
Best,
Robert
No comments:
Post a Comment