NO longer in Chicago, I see. But if those guys carry everything that's on there website, then wow! everyone ought to go over there!
http://www.frogwoodtools.com/Catalog/65.htm

They have a mortise axe that fits the bill quite nicely! It's description says for cutting mortises or notching out logs, and price is listed at $63! They also have a twibill! that's something you don't see every day. Now if they only had a besaigue...

Says that some of there prices are from 1993, so maybe a bit out of date!

does anyone know how are those lance tooth saws are for end cuts? roughing out joinery in lieu of an all orange saw?

i recall a photo of martin puryear working with one of those to make something like this:

I want to talk a little about the tools used for hewing too.

Personally, I am an axe man. I love the axe, I think it is the perfect tool (that's not an exaggeration at all) See my latest post on the Daisy Wheel Design thread to learn why I have such an opinion of this king of all tools. To me, scoring the log with a chainsaw is like cheating. It seems like an insult to the timber, like a lack of respect for the material you are working with. With the axe, you and the log are having a friendly conversation, and the log is learning to see things your way, all the while you are learning quite a bit about it. With the saw for scoring, you miss a lot of this information that could come in handy on down the road, while juggling and later when using the timber. The first bite of the axe tells you quite a bit about the wood, and so does each bite from that point.

Now back to tools (sorry, I'm in a very mystic, philosophical mood today)

I use a number of axes when hewing any one log. Previously I used a gransfors bruks broad axe as my only broad axe. It's truly a wonderful tool, but it's not the ideal tool for every job. I recently acquired an American symmetrical broad axe (I mounted it for left hand use for the time being so that 2 people could work on a face at once) with a 12" bit. I was absolutely amazed at how good a job this tool did.

This tool is vastly inferior in quality to my nice (expensive) Swedish axe, but it's design and more importantly its sheer mass are a tremendous benefit. When I got it the blade was full of nicks, the head itself was rusty and gummy for some reason. I spent several hours with a file, a sander, and some WD40 and got the thing back to working condition, and made a nice new hickory handle for it. Using this axe is so much faster.

I love my gransfors axe, dont get me wrong. I use it now to do the things my other axe can't. I use it to clean up any messy spots and smooth out irregularities. I also use it for carving, shaping, and some for joinery, kind of like an Austrian style carpenter's axe which is really just a small broad axe.

I am also impatiently awaiting the arrival of 2 German-style goosewing axes to ship from Austria, 1 is a medieval pattern axe and the other is a little different that I intend to mount on a long handle.

By the way, I NEVER use an adze for hewing. TO me an adze is a tool for joinery and such.

I have come to the conclusion through further study that the German's don't really use any kind of a special axe for cutting notches. From what I can tell they seem to be nothing more than a small forest type axe, similar in size to the Gransfors (or wetterlings for that matter) forest axe. For this taks I just use whatever is at hand, but a small bit seems to work the best -although currently my Gransfors broadaxe does find use for cutting notches.
The goosewing that I intend to hand with a long handle will be used hopefully for 1 man hewing, as to be seen in the video Ken posted earlier.

I also like my new Stossaxt, which is good for cleaning up rough spots

So what are some of the tools you all use?

hello everyone tonight:

Well DL--I like some of what you have to say but disagree with some of what you say.

First I like the no chainsaw use to notch, that is my style, probably not a contractors aproach too costly, but for sure the notching by hand with an axe, will give you the true hand hewn finish if that is what you want to accomplish, or asked to accomplish or produce.

Another thing to consider is the chainsaw track in the finished surface, these things will happen when you try to cheat.

As I read your post I could not help but wonder how you produce accurately and consistently a good surface using so many different axes, I am a firm believer that one should stick to one favourite axe for hewing and another for scoring.

My thinking behind this is that one needs to be very familiar with the curved handle of the broadaxe so that as you use it you can strike the surface of the lined timber exactly where you want and need to

Notching with a broadaxe--I don't think so----------

The scoring axe--another tool that should be carefully chosen and then unless the handle is broken you should stay with one only switching handles is a very critical step and dangerous on top of that.

I realize people will do things in many different ways but for me I recommend a safe approach--choose two axes and use them for the use they are intended for, and for sure keep the adze in the box when the hewing process is on the go.

I have many different axes in my collection but each one feels differently as I pick them up only one feels comfortable.

Just my opinion

For the record I use a North American style broadaxe about 10" across the cutting edge, it is a family heirloom with a nice amount of tool steel inset left in the cutting edge, and I hew right handed

I also favour a smallish scoring axe with a nice cherry handle that exhibits curves that are also a family tradition

There are pictures of both in my thread you may have to look alittle to find them, because they are back a ways

NH

i've used a chainsaw for scoring- is this a confessional? - it is accurate faster than an axe. and one can burn away every knot.

that's true that scoring by axe gives an advanced feel of how the tree is cutting, and where the grain changes in the stem and around the knots. and then there's just the speed of chainsaws, which is probably unnatural. but then so are we. that's why we build houses in the first place.

the one point i'm really taken on in this discussion is the chainsaw process mark. where one can leave an axe score mark that went kind of wild, the mark a chain leaves straight on is brutal to see. it's as if the timber has been cut in half, from that clean line of a chain saw scratch. i wonder whether the quality of process marks, and to what extent it is good aesthetic practice to make them transparent, give some indication of the kind of tool to put to use.

As for process mark, If I see a score mark anywhere on a finished timber, I am not happy. If a scoring mark of any kind is visible on any surface that is to be exposed then I will do my best to remove it -this is where my German Stossaxt comes in handy.

How do I maintain accuracy with so many axes? The key is to know your tools, and know yourself. Let your tools do the work and they will do it well. I view hewing as a progressive act, no single pass of a tool is enough to accomplish the desired result. My process has been influenced a lot by Central European traditions, especially among the High German-speaking people (South Germany, Switzerland, and Austria) I found a website once that I cannot find again, but on it were forestry skills from all over Central Europe, from Germany, Austria, Hungary, Poland, and others.

Northern Hewer, you said notching with a broadaxe is not good, have you ever seen a Central European style long handled broadaxe? It is a tool designed to notch as well as cut away the wood. It is technically a broadaxe because it is broad and single-beveled, but it is not generally used to bring the wood down to the line -a more familiar short handled broadaxe would be used for this purpose. With such a tool, notching is fine. I would not recommend trying to score a log with a a short-handled, canted-handled axe! Just to clarify that I am NOT talking about the familiar broadaxe here.

Basically my progression of tools is a progression of finesse. The tools on one particular timber might include a Notching axe (used t notch and to cut out the waste) a large broadaxe used to bring it down to the line, my Gransfors axe to work out any trouble spots, a Stossaxt to clean up any unsightly marks, and a jack plane to put a semi-smooth face on an interior face (Old Stanley #5, 14" Jack Plane) I would use a scrub plane first if I had one. The process is from very rough to very fine, the axework at its finest allows for very minimum work with the plane (at best 2 or 3 passes are all that's needed) The plane's primary function is to eliminate any irregularities and especially splinters. If the face doesn't need to be overly fine, then perhaps I will stop simply with hewing it to the line.

My 12" American broadaxe does a fine job of creating a good, straight face -it's much harder in my opinion to do that with the small Gransfors model 1900 axe. The straighter your axe work is, the easier time you are going to have with the plane. The 14" bed of the jack plane requires a very flat surface.

"The Brode-Ax seyd withouten mysse; withouten=without mysse=miss
He seyd, “The Pleyn my brother is; seyd=said Pleyn=plain
We two schall clence and make full pleyn, clence=cleanse
That no man schall us geynseyn, schall=shall geynseyn=gainsay
And gete oure mayster in a yere yere=year
More sylver than a man may bere.” bere=bear

From "The Debate of the Carpenter's Tools" (Middle English) -Medieval, unknown date or author, 15th C. or earlier.

Hi Dl,

The European website that you are seeking is :-

http://www.en.charpentiers.culture.fr/

The one thing that was not addressed in all 612 replies / 284,138 views on NH's hewing thread was that of hewing spiral grain logs.

Check out some photos taken last week at my woodlot :-

http://cid-a449afe501ee8113.photos.live.com/browse.aspx/Woodland

to see both the process and problem that results i.e. that of tear out of the lower aris as finish hewing proceeds. Has this problem got anything to do with the direction of spiral i.e. LH / RH or indeed the direction of hewing i.e. up / down the log ?

Regards

Ken Hume

nice pictures Ken. to avoid tear out at the butt of that tree it looks like switching directions would help. as has been mentioned, with a double beveled axe at least one can come at the timber face from a number of directions. right there, at the butt, you could even turn the log and come at that trouble section with a draw knife.

the old right hand left hand twist question! maybe that depends on whether one has a single beveled axe, such that one kind of twist would be cleaner to cut than the other.

i agree that no score marks should show. but that is the easiest error to make in hewing- a too deep score mark. short of digging at it, a point in favour of axe scoring is that the angled groove can look ok. that and there are always process marks left by the tools. some are just more pleasant to look at or feel than others.

this bears on the multiple axe question. maybe a person gets really close with one axe. but there is a kind of relief for the body in moving from a bigger to smaller, lighter tool. and then the layering of one set of process marks on another.

Here's how I deal with bottom tear out:
If I am working on a log that I know will tear out, I adjust the angle of attack of my axe. Normally I chop more or less straight down with the broad axe, but if it is spiraling then my chops at the very bottom will come more along the length of the grain. It also helps to score the wood very close. Not juggle score, but light scoring prior to finish hewing 2 to 3 inches apart. I deal with the problem at the very end of the log by leaving the whole log extra long, so that any offending grain can simply be cut off.
That's also one reason to switch from end-popping of juggles to cutting them off from the top. On a twisting log, splitting off the juggles from the end allows the split to run off in bad directions, but if you cut them off from the top you have total control of the split.