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Re: historic hewing questionnaire [Re: TIMBEAL] #14572 03/11/08 01:40 AM
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northern hewer Offline OP
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Timbeal:

Well said--half way between that just about says it all
I have a farming background so I always think in acres, feet, inches, bushels, pecks, gallons, quarts, pints the list goes on and on, then when I was about fifty they wanted me to learn to speak french, and listen to this pay me! well in 2 years I did learn to say hello!

One thing that is great they couldn't change the old historic buildings footprints, they still come in feet and inches. The old farms are still layed out using the old survey stakes, but they are nibbling away at them with their metric whatever.., nothing quite fits though. they tried but the metric plywood just wouldnt fit the stud layout of 90% of the homes so voila we still have 4 by 8 sheets of plywood around, 8foot studs, and the list goes on.

By the way we still have the new 4foot round balers, It does get confusing for me HUMMM--cubic centimeters,hmmm---millimeters now lets see---------the 1 inch manila rope--oh yes we went head great strides got rid of the 1 and 2 dollar bills that fit so neaty into our pocket book now we got looneys and toonies that make our pockets bulge out, and our wives purses weigh a ton or is it a tonne well who knows....

hope I didnt confuse anyone with my canadian talk it is a great country, beside another great country.

NH



Re: historic hewing questionnaire [Re: northern hewer] #14581 03/11/08 09:51 AM
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We now need a passport to cross the border. I can almost bat a rock to Canada from my house. Tim

Re: historic hewing questionnaire [Re: TIMBEAL] #14594 03/12/08 01:02 AM
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northern hewer Offline OP
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HI everyone:

Well got the snow moved finally and was able to get out of my house, they say that the world is warming up, but you sure wouldn't know it looking out my window, a record snow fall up here yup broke a record that has been around since the 70's., and still lots of time to break more the end of march is still a ways off.

well back to some serious questions,

--I always liked to use tamrack in damp conditions if it was available what is everyone's views on this,
--and another one that I have wrestled with over the years old growth pine versus new growth pine, the old growth seems to resist rotting a whole lot better why is that, anyone got any ideas?

Re: historic hewing questionnaire [Re: northern hewer] #14598 03/12/08 01:58 AM
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NH, I use tamrack for sill instead of PT. I belive it holds up well, saw off the sapwood, sapwood is the rotty part. Same goes for pine, I use pine for exterior stuff just don't use the sappy parts on the exterior. As for old growth versus new growth perhaps we should view the sap wood as new growth and the heart as old growth, with the exception of growth ring count what is the difference? And besides there is nothing we can do about it. We are working on 3rd, 4th or 5th cuttings. It may be we have a bad opinion of pine because the mills send the nice clear sapwood to the building supply stores we buy it and than it rotts so therefore pine is crummy and don't use it outside. As I repeat myself I use my sawn pine out side and have no problems, no paint, stain or preservitives. Pine is the king of woods in my opinion, I enjoy working pine over any other. It is like butter, cream of the crop. Tim

Re: historic hewing questionnaire [Re: northern hewer] #14610 03/12/08 02:30 PM
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NH,

My old timer sawyer likes pine when he can get it. Keeps it all to himself. I think the wood that is bought for construction in my area is all doug fir. Rots very fast. Sawyer says that pine is also his favorite wood to cut. Stays true.

He did give me a stack of Tamarack that he had cut for someone 15 years ago. Guy never came to pick it up. The stickers were rotten but the boards were for the most part like new, just brittle. So we took it to our place and restacked it. So I think that speaks for itself. Just not much Tamarack in this area unless it was planted by conservation minded folks. See alot of that this way, an arce here, an acre there, dense stands of pines or tamarack that someone planted from seedlings.

Sawyer likes aspen, he calls it quake. He rough cuts it then planes it to dimension lumber. Likes it better than doug fir. We have lots of big aspen waiting to get blown over in this area so he takes it in trade.

Gregk


Greg
Re: historic hewing questionnaire [Re: gregk] #14615 03/13/08 01:45 AM
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greg and timbeal:

Thanks for the well worded replies, it sure is interesting to hear different slants on things.. Oh yes the comment about pine being the king of woods, it is in my books too, works wonderful, smells great (no complaints from the wife when you get home). Keep the replies coming
NH

Re: historic hewing questionnaire [Re: northern hewer] #14616 03/13/08 02:14 AM
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It is weird how people adapt to differing woods depending on where they live and what is available. Around here the predominant wood for a historic building covering was sawn white pine, it will just last for better than 100+ years never rot just wear away in the weather.

I am sure that in many areas pine was not available, I have noticed hemlock used, and believe it or not elm for building cladding. The odd time cedar boards seemed to show up, I never could figure out why cedar was not used more frequently, its characteristics being a softer wood like pine, and its resistance to weathering.

One thing that surprised me in my research over the years was the widespread use of pine for shingles, it came up in old newspaper advertisements around 1860 in this area. We did in fact produce shingles from pine shingle bolts at UCV as a test project which stemmed form this research, and applied the shingles to some roofs in order to monitor their durability. This is still ongoing as far as I know.

I still am a firm believer that the close examination of historic structures and the continuing use of the species of timber that the old buildings constructors used is the right way to go in a majority of cases.

Hewing Photo:


I have run across a lovely early picture of a team of hewers flatenning a white pine somewhere in the Ottawa valley timber country. It is a very large pine, and they had prepared a spot to fell it in the forest by clearing the fall path, and laying the tree tops across the open space to cushion the landing.

The one gentleman was using what appears to be about a 10" hewing axe of the North American style, the handle in particular is about 30 inches long, with rectangular in cross section and with a nice sweep up and out, and is hung right handed as it leaves the axe head. The surface that they have just finished seems to be devoid of any tell tale scoring marks, and near the one end a bit of the final pass is still clinging on to the beautiful hewn finish, what a picture!!

The timber is up to the hewers waist, and a gentleman is standing with the scoring axe but I am unable to see details of the handle or the axe head --too bad..

Hope you enjoy

NH

Re: historic hewing questionnaire [Re: northern hewer] #14634 03/15/08 12:25 AM
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Hi everyone:

One thing that I did notice in the photograph was that the log was directly on the ground not up on anything in particular other than the branches and other smaller trees.

NH

Re: historic hewing questionnaire [Re: northern hewer] #14635 03/15/08 12:47 AM
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NH,

I did not see a picture. Is it in the post or somewhere else?

gregk


Greg
Re: historic hewing questionnaire [Re: gregk] #14640 03/16/08 12:45 AM
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northern hewer Offline OP
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Hi Greg
No it is not on line I run across it in an old historic booklet that I have. One other picture that was with it was one of an early steam powered sawmill, what I was interested in was the large pile of saw logs all with chopped ends.

It is the first picture I have ever run across that shows how the saw logs were harvested in the early lumber camps. The stories that I was always told about my granfather who worked in the lumber camps in the upper Ottawa valley was that they chopped the logs down, not saw them down, it was faster to chop I guess


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