The crisp mountain breeze blows softly through your open double hung windows, billowing the thin drapes clinging to them. As the air reaches your nostrils, you are taken aback by the soft scent of cedar, or maple, or even oak that has formed the structure of your log cabin. Suddenly you wonder how on earth did the architect design such a thing in Revit? While there are a few ways it can be done, one of the most versatile is by using Wall Sweeps! Let’s see how!
The very first thing to do is to develop two separate Profile families. One will be for full diameter walls, the other for half diameter walls. This is to allow for saddle joints at the corners, which is among the most popular designs for log corners. Logs should be somewhere between 10 inches and 12 inches, no more no less. Therefore, you can design profiles with adjustable size types for these sizes.
Next will be to load these profiles into your project as wall sweeps. First edit the structure of the wall. I used a Generic 6” wall. Six inches is half the width of the logs that I am using, so when the flat part of the wall shows between the sweeps, this would be used as the plaster caulking often found on log wall designs.
If you have your view in this dialog box set to Section, then the ability to add Sweeps to the wall will be available. Select the Sweeps option in the Modify Vertical Structure group.
After that, the task is to simply load in the appropriate wall profile, and set up your material, etc as shown in this dialog box below. Since this profile is centered on the insertion point, I added 6 inches to the distance from the bottom on this wall profile. As we are using a 12 inch log, every sweep above that is offset by that distance from the base. For the horizontal orientation, use half the width of the structural part of the wall. In our case, it is 6 inches so our side offset will be -0’ - 3”, as shown. Remember to allow these sweeps to cut and be cut as well. Carry these sweeps up as high as you need to for your wall. If your wall will be higher than the default 20’-0” Sample Height, adjust it to whatever you require and add more sweeps accordingly.
Now duplicate this wall type but add the Sill profile to the bottom and the top sweeps. The top can be flipped to be upside down, if your design calls for it. This will actually create a flat surface at your cap plate as well.
And there you have it. Two wall types that when used together to make saddle joins at the corners, will allow for the nice and cozy log cabin of your dreams!
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