right now I am engaged in a project using all hand hewn timbers, and the actual building of the frame will incorporate hand tools (only?) The idea is to build the thing as they would have done so in Switzerland in the late middle ages or perhaps a little afterward.

SO I have several logs that I am working on, but I am working on them in the woods -and unfortunately I have a bad habit of forgetting my camera! But I have 1 or 2 pics here and there. I will try to bring my camera next time I head out to work. As a personal project and don't get to work on it as often as I'd like either.



This was an experiment, so that's why this face is narrow and has such a waney edge. It was more or less just me learning the feel of a new axe, and I didn't want to risk ruining a good face

This is an overly-large hickory log that 2 posts are being hewn out of, it was split in half and here the two halves are set up to be finished. Some very rough hewing was done prior to splitting, but a lot of tool marks still remain. This particular log has seen a lot of experimenting!


My American Broad Axe, with a 12" face. I just got doen makng that handle. I didn't feel like doing it the 'proper' way and waiting for a good hickory stave to dry out (which takes like a year) so I just made it out of a bigger handle I bought that was made for a pick axe -the eye of a pick axe is huge, so the was plenty of material to carve it out to fit the broad axe. I hen gave it the bend by clamping it down and pouring boiling water on the wood


The German Stossaxt, sitting on a hewn ash timber


I like to hew the logs right where they fell, I love working out in the woods


More picture to come as the project progresses

Hi DL,

It was hewing backwards down from the top of the log on LH spiral grain that did the damage.

You say to hew along the grain but this is spiral grain and as such when this method is followed e.g. during juggling the split runs in a spiral fashion and results in tear off of the aris.

The way that we used to overcome this problem was to hew in a forward direction up the log such that the grain on the lower part of the cut runs out away from the aris rather than hewing in a backward direction where the grain runs in causing a lost aris.

Regards

Ken Hume

Sorry, I misunderstood the direction the grain was spiraling. When it goes the one direction, I find it works to hew along the grain striking the axe away from you, when it twists the other direction then it is helpful to pull the axe toward yourself. That's my strategy anyway. Or alternately you could just use a left-handed axe if you have one. My 12" broadaxe is currently hung for left handed use, and I am fortunate enough to be able to use my left hand decently as the forward hand, but I realize not everyone can do that. The solution then is to use a slightly longer handle and grip with your right hand a little further from the head than you would otherwise to prevent knuckle smashing.

I find that an arching motion with the axe along with a closely scored face helps tighten the leash on the grain. The scoring is done just with a single cut ever so slightly deeper than the line (these scoring marks will show on the finished surface, unless you can perfect the process) usually about 3" apart, but sometimes closer around trouble spots or heavily twisted logs. This way if the grain does twist away from you, then it only has the opportunity to do so for an inch or so before your cross-grain cut stops it. You can score with any old axe you please, I like to use my 12" axe because it will leave a straight score the full width of most timbers. If I am using a narrower axe, then I usually score the face with a series of staggered cuts. My scoring cuts are always slanted, just because that's how it happens. On a finished and planed surface, the slight remnant of these scoring marks creates a very attractive appearance. On an exterior application, however, I would say you need to eliminate them somehow so they don't wick water into the wood.
I used to not score on the final finish hew because I wanted a smooth face, but when I tried it once I have never looked back. It makes a world of difference!

2 faces. Both are scored as described, the one on the left has been finish-hewn, the one on the right is still rather rough. The edge toward the center on both the logs is just rough split, so don't worry about it!

Hello everyone tonight:

Good discussion indeed:

DL-- just a point of interest and for discussion purposes, in the very first photo showing the hewing axe along the log seemingy working in the direction of the axe, I notice the scoring marks angled in the wrong direction. The scoring marks should be angled in the opposite direction so that as work progresses the chips will fall away and not hang up this is important, and will leave a nicer smoother surface.

Nice photos for sure, and I give you an A+ for effort especially for working with hard wood like hickory not an easy feat to say the least.

I can't say that I agree with scoring using the 12" broadaxe this is certainly new to me, and your comment about "using any old axe for scoring", a chopping axe is usually very rounded in the cutting edge--(the nature of the beast) and if you were to use it during the scoring process the centre of the cutting edge will penetrate too deeply in the finished surface and really leave an undesirable surface, ideally the scoring axe should be fairly flat on the cutting edge so this doesn't happen.

My scoring axe is a special tool with a longer handle, and a head filed and sharpened with a fairly sraight edge, not perfectly straight!

On the subject of tear out at the bottom of the cut I realize that the problem varies from tree to tree, and in special cases where the problem was intense, I only worried about the finishing passes on the final side, what I usually did was to hew only half way down and then turn the log over and finish it from the opposite side, this will ensure a lovely square true corner.

These are my views only, and I respect all the different views put forth in this thread, for sure I can learn, and I enjoy your posts

NH

That's true about the scoring angles, however this is what happens sometimes when a right handed guy uses a left handed axe! In my experience, you can make it work out if you pay close attention to your strokes.

As for using a rounded axe to score, they certainly did in the old days. In the regions where juggling was done with a felling axe, that same (rounded bit) felling axe was often used to score the face before finishing with the broadaxe. This can certainly be accomplished with fine results if you make a series of shallow, staggered scoring marks rather closely spaced. I like to use the broadaxe for this sometimes because it is so wide, and close to straight, but I've never really had any trouble with a regular felling axe.

http://www.en.charpentiers.culture.fr/treesintohouses/fromtheforesttotheworksite/squaringoff
German hewing, and check out all of the other videos there too, and most importantly LEARN from them!

Some more pics of hewing, because if any of you all are at all like me then you love to see the work of others.


This was notched with a felling axe from above, because I was working alone today

Notching the split face. Splitting a log and hewing has the advantage of not giving you a boxed heart, but it has its disadvantage too. The wood toward the center of the tree tends to be hard an knotty, and sometimes rotten too.


this kind of shows my 'split from above' method. With a wide axe like this, it works best when the juggles are just a little longer than the axe itself (so you're not cutting into 2 juggles at once, and getting use of the full length of the bit) and it also seems to work best for general splitting if you chop straight down.

nasty spot. A consequence of this face being toward the center of the tree.

The kind of finish I strive for if the timber is going to be exposed, and if the project calls for nicely finished timbers. I wouldn't go to this much trouble for barn timbers, or on things like joists and rafters (in most cases) But these are posts, so they need to have the nicest finish.
When I do the finishing strokes with my Gransfors axe, it is important to note that I am not chopping down at the wood. I use a very precise motion, where the cutting stroke is a combination of downward splitting force and a lateral cutting motion. Essential I 'sweep' the axe across the wood, pulling it slightly toward me as it makes contact so it is slicing and not so much chopping. This will yield a very smooth and straight face that is easy to plane.


ya! that looks nice!

About planing: I said earlier that I wished I had a scrub plane for finishing, but I have since learned that the scrub plane was NOT historically used in this way, the plane i currently use, the Jack plane, is in fact the correct tool. I got lucky on that one.

I tried something new today too. At one point, the wooden handle on my felling axe (which is the worst of all my axes right now) broke on me, so I could no longer use it to notch the logs. SO i was forced to find other ways to do it. Then I tried a method I had heard about, notching the log on the top, then turning it to hew that face. I had never tried this method because it seemed to me that all the extra work in snapping 2 lines for each face and turning the log an extra time seemed like a waste, but now I am a fan! I was forced to do this, because the only axes I had left were relatively short handled. It works well, and I would recommend you try it. At least it works well if your log is relatively high off the ground like mine are.

Hi DL;

I have enjoyed your information on hewing.

I was wondering if you are familiar with the historic term counter-hewing? I believe counter-hewing is re-hewing a timber to improve the surface, size it, or take out a twist, etc. However I have never seen a detailed discription of counter-hewing to know that my understanding is correct.

Just wondering;
Jim

I have never heard of it called counter-hewing. I have heard that sometimes the land owner would prepare hewn timbers for the joiner, and that the joiner would clean up some of them where needed to make layout easier.

Jim

I first saw the term in one of Hodgson's books. I took it to mean much the same as you, having done the same, but with a plane or planer when using square rule on a twisted piece.

I saw a few examples of counterhewing recently on a roof we were working on. The interesting thing about these timbers is that they were hewn on 2 sides and sawn on 2 sides (hewn square and then quartered by the sawmill). The building is 1851 and is all square ruled. 40' span queenpost trusses. 5 3/4" in 12" roof pitch.

Anyway, as you can imagine, the framer used the sawn sides as the reference faces, but on a few pieces due to wind or out of square sawing, the ends (on the reference face) were resurfaced with an adze and/or plane to make them true. I suppose it wasn't technically counterhewing, as he didn't use a broadaxe, but the effect was the same.