Cabin Restoration

A special week and a half of training for Elder Parkerson.

It was discovered last year that several of the logs in the walls of the Whitmer Farm log cabin have rotted and were in serious condition. Elder Young was serving in the Palmyra NY FMG at the time. Being a master carpenter of sorts he was called in to figure out what to do. He had a dream one night of how to repair the logs and has been working hard on them tis spring. It was learned that he would not be able to complete the task before his mission was finished so they invited me to learn how to do it. Here's me in my favorite position about a story up!

First you have to loosen up a log that needs major repair. You have to jack hammer out all the mortar and chinking that surrounds the log.

Then you remove bad log from the building. Not necessarily an easy feat as even rotten logs are heavy. In many cases though you don't have to take the log out of the building and can effectivly repair it in place.

After removing the log you bring it down where you can work on it. You have to remove any and all rotten material. Sometimes the log is so bad that you have to make a form to hold the pieces in place while you prepare to fill it with concrete. The log is then prepared with an epoxy based sealer to lessen further rotting and to protect the log from any chemical action by the concrete.

The prepared log is now hoisted back up on the scaffolding in preparation for filling with concrete.

Concrete is mixed on the ground, passed up in buckets and tamped into the waiting log. It is leveled and shaped and allowed to harden.

Now we are ready to slide the cement filled log back into teh building. And I thought it was heavey before the concrete was added!

The repaired log is now set into place where the notches hold it in place and mortar mix is used to fill in between the logs. After that hardens a good caot of "chinking" is applied between the logs. After that hardens you wouldn't even know that the log was worked on. It may sound easy but with the drying times for the epoys, glues and concrete and mortar it takes almost a week to do one log. It was fun and interesting. Now the Peter Whitmer farm house where the Church was organized will stand well for another 50 years...

Best wishes to all.