This may not be helpful, but I once saw a demonstration by an experienced hewer who advocated hewing a felled tree while it was still attached to the stump. His reasoning was that the log is absolutely immobile due to the remaining connection, and the hewer ends up hailing only the valuable weight out of the forest, leaving the waste behind to compost.

Hi Bill,

I think that this techniques would probably result in splitting the stem of the trunk if it is unable to quickly and cleanly separate from the stump during the felling process. I have heard of leaving the lop and top in position to help stop the trunk from rolling but once again this would prevent optimal positioning the log for conversion.

Regards

Ken Hume

If you take the weight of an object and gravity into account then apply a force via a small axe, calculating it's momentum, one should be able to predict the effect on the log. So with the very large 40" butt log at 40' in length, it shouldn't move at all, that is just a lot of mass. On the other end of the equation it is the small ones that have a more pronounced effect from the axe's momentum, which can be slowed down by having a nice radius in the blade of the axe, in which the force can be, in scale, gradually placed into the log. In other words keep a nice sharp axe, too. I think I could have added centripetal force in there some where.

I have seen it depicted in books, this method of leaving the butt attached, it may be stretching things a bit. I wouldn't completely rule it out, I guess it may have a bit to do with the species and the timber one is wanting from the tree. The depictions I have seen were for cedar railroad ties. Leaving the top on would produce a wobble in the log I would not want to deal with. An other point with small stock or ties, how accurate did these pieces need to be? Did they spend any amount of time snapping lines and keeping them plumb, and everything else we do to them, could they have just winged it by "crack of eye"?

Tim

Hi everyone tonight:

Well Timbeal I think that you are in the ballpark on many points that you touch on:

For sure the smaller logs have a tendency to jump around especially say you are producing an 8 by 8--from an 8 foot log there is not much mass there or putting it bluntly weight to restrain it.

Once I did 80 pieces of 8 by 8's 10 feet long for a reconstruction on Fort Henry in Kngston Ontario. They were red cedar logs, and I must say when the last one was done I said that I never wanted to hew cedar again, it is without a doubt one of the worst and most difficult woods to work with.

Railway tie hewing took on many forms depending on what part of the continent that you lived in. In Eastern canada and the US the method to produce ties was to fell the tree, leave it attached to the top, flatten both sides by eye, and then detach it from the top. It was at this point that the ties were then cut from the tree in lengths with crosscut saws.

In big tree country, the large trees were felled, and sections were sawn to length and then the sections were split into segments about the size of railway ties, and hewing axes were put use at this point to true up the dimensions of the segments.

NH

Hi NH et al,

It might be worth checking out the techniques employed by the Normans nearly 1000 years ago to produce planks using the hewing "Tee" axe. The process employed appears to have involved making use of small trees that were leant up against another forked tree and then hewed down their length.

I wonder if this would help reduce "bounce" ?

Regards

Ken Hume

Thanks all. Most of my trouble is obvious that the weight of these smaller logs are not massive enough to hold their postion on their own. I guess I just have to spend a lot of extra setup time shimming and bracing the supports and log to ensure rigidity. Hard to have the right conditions when trying to hew right where you felled it on the forest floor- never really level, and difficult to trench down the supports when the ground is frozen. I do use the lee valley dogs. they work pretty well. I might try screwing in some more bracing with 2x lumber and flat notching the log where it meets its support for better bearing.It doesnt sound so complicating when you read it from Sobon in his book, but he is also "the man". Was hoping Gabel might have insight , as he seems to be be quite adept at hewing like a lot of the tf-ers in this forum, judging by that history channel footage he had. Thanks again all.

Pretty much what you said -- more set up time. More dogs, more 1x's with duplex nails or screws, etc. And then you have to move them when they're in the way. There is no magic bullet. It does help to flatten where it is bearing -- even if you have to shim it with wedges, it's more stable than a round.

Another trick on really floppy stuff, like a small pole rafter is to cut a 1x to run to the ground and tack it into the end grain -- that's a slight adaptation of a trick Will Truax showed us last time he worked with us. That keeps the floppy ends from bouncing too much.

And now a few questions --

What size logs?
what species?
how dry/green?
what size timbers are you getting out of them?

Mostly Eastern white pine,occasional Eastern hemlock. 12-16 feet long, freshly cut within a month or two. I usually only hew if I can get at least a 7" x 7", and all in all they are finishing at 7"-9".
A lot of my problem is the setup logs being out of level because of the grade of the fell site. I will try to keep the setup logs longer to even out more and screw in 2x ties at their ends and some opposing diagonal braces as well. Hoping that the setups logs would then be a connected unit and would have enough mass ,as a whole, to resist shifting. Then dog the log to be hewn to the assembly, with shims and flat bearing.
I am not sure what that 1x from the end grain to the ground was connecting to at the ground? is it trenched in the ground? thanks for your input.. tb

You are right that the bunks need to be stable first of all. Without that, you can't possibly keep the log still. And the bunks moving around could be extremely dangerous.

That 1x was just sitting on the ground. But that's for something like a 4" pole rafter that is trying to bounce up and down because it is so flexible. You wouldn't need it on something stiff enough to take the axe blows.

Hi everyone tonite

Everyone seems to be really focusing in on how to steady the log for hewing, if you would check my remarks on page one the explanation that I gave there explains pretty thoroughly how this is accomplished. I have hewn many many timbers and never had a problem with movement after you pinned them down to the bed pieces as I described with timber dogs also described in detail. You should only have a problem on real small timberslike that which would be required for rafters, these usually end up 4 inches on the small top ends, and maybe 6 inches on the larger bottom ends.

NH