If all you have is a hatchet, I’d imagine a more waddle-and-daub situation rather than a cabin. For a proper cabin, you really need an axe with weight behind it, a hammer, wedges, and hopefully a tree saw (and then adz, draw knife (or similar) and so on for finish work). An ax, depending upon the type and health of a tree, is kinda a terrible way to take it down on its own.
And if for some reason, in your frontier scenario, you have plywood and bracing material, you could go with a rammed earth structure!
I just learned about rammed earth and got a few books about it, it’s so fucking cool. I want to build a house with it now, so my great great great great great grandkids can inherit it
Do you live in the American Frontier of 1840? Gonna need to build that cabin fast if you plan on making it through winter.
If all you have is a hatchet, I’d imagine a more waddle-and-daub situation rather than a cabin. For a proper cabin, you really need an axe with weight behind it, a hammer, wedges, and hopefully a tree saw (and then adz, draw knife (or similar) and so on for finish work). An ax, depending upon the type and health of a tree, is kinda a terrible way to take it down on its own.
And if for some reason, in your frontier scenario, you have plywood and bracing material, you could go with a rammed earth structure!
I just learned about rammed earth and got a few books about it, it’s so fucking cool. I want to build a house with it now, so my great great great great great grandkids can inherit it
https://www.pbs.org/show/frontier-house/