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Re: historic hewing questionnaire [Re: northern hewer] #33097 08/23/15 04:59 PM
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D Wagstaff Offline
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So, I have let you see my initial rough hewing, some of the residue and here is the view of the final pass.

The beginning at the butt end, first cuts with the skradbile, the indications are not promising and as it progresses up the stem the quality of the cuts are getting worse and worse

'till it was all to obvious I had big problems

and it was time to call a halt to the proceedings.
Then with a reliable and trusted axe in hand address the damages done.

Re: historic hewing questionnaire [Re: northern hewer] #33098 08/24/15 12:34 AM
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northern hewer Offline OP
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hello everyone tonight

HI Don

You seem to be working with the log at a fair height, I always worked close to the ground, maybe 6" high, the height of the sleepers the log laid upon, and they were bedded into the ground about 1/3 of their height, so in other words very close

I always scored on the final pass, (lightly) every 4" +-, trying to not penetrate into the finished surface too deeply. This aided with the hewing on the final pass, and pretty well eliminated any problem with grain tearing etc.

Any historic timbers that I have photographed and examined also show the telltale signs of the scoring on the final pass, usually the bit of the axe being slightly rounded on its centre would remain

NH

Re: historic hewing questionnaire [Re: northern hewer] #33099 08/24/15 06:45 AM
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Yes, those scoring marks, so characteristic of how timbers got squared up in the North American places. I like this look very much, thanks for explaining it some.

I am finding that I like squaring-up at a height around my knees maybe even just above that. Like that I am able to relax quite fully, upper and lower body parts, and work in a natural position maintaining, more or less the same posture for all the operations, notching, wasting and surfacing, like I said it before, a unity, none of this being my design but what I have observed.

Right now I've got things set up for squaring up out back on the site where my sheepshead that got crushed under a falling tree's getting rebuilt. The ground is sloping there so it has given me the chance to try out all the possible heights. I must say lower is better than to high.

It's by far my favoured squaring-up scene on that you tube,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZITaHFCMcI&list=PLCffcV_sdtZqvmIMjFWNppnlTAVdeefWd

Re: historic hewing questionnaire [Re: northern hewer] #33100 08/25/15 01:53 AM
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northern hewer Offline OP
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hello everyone tonight

Hi Don

Thanks for keeping this discussion going and interesting, and I might say educational

One thing though that I would like you to comment on, or anyone else who might like to take a stab at answering it----

Ok--here we go--

"into the theoretical construction site, (lets say it is a new barn being built)--comes 2----40 foot pine, large enough to square 12" on the small ends--these trees are 3.5 feet on the large ends

These logs are to be transformed into the long outside mud sills, would you still raise them up to knee level, if so that would make the top of the log at the lower end approx. 5 feet from the ground--what would your plan of attack be as you instruct your hewing team standing patiently by, waiting to construct an area for hewing these and many others as they continue to be felled and are skidded into the area

enjoy

NH

Re: historic hewing questionnaire [Re: northern hewer] #33101 08/25/15 07:05 AM
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Yesterday at lunch I got a call from the neighbor to help again with bringing the straw inside and getting it stacked, 700 bails or so we unloaded but this barn from 1870 or something, I forget, its posted up there on the gable of the house in wrought iron numbers, it is unusually large, the old farmer saying 80 men were used to raise it and he is that proud to tell that his barn is bigger than most but also built with sturdy construction, (have a few photos if you like to see). I guess the main bents and the wall plates are from wood out the North American woods and must have been something in the range of size you throw out in your story. I've been eyeing them with keen interest and can just make out the axe marks. It was told to me that anyway wood from the tropics normally got squared up prior to transportation to save space and because that made for safer cargo and probably that was also the case for these timbers, so they would have been axed over there.

Three and a half feet, wow that's almost unimaginable here. This is the biggest one I have attempted lately, down there in France.
Working along that long face it gets a bit crampt in there. (You'll have to excuse me in my moth-eaten underwear, it was so hot that day. Summer's not the right time for this work, believe me.)

Last edited by Cecile en Don Wa; 08/25/15 07:10 AM.
Re: historic hewing questionnaire [Re: northern hewer] #33103 08/27/15 12:25 AM
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northern hewer Offline OP
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hello everyone tonight

Hi Don

As I look at that picture of you hewing, I noticed that you are grasping the axe handle in a right handed stance (right hand leading), but working like you are left handed, and in the left handed direction normally used by left handed people

I find this unusual I wonder if you could explain how you are able to accomplish this or if it just comes naturally to you

just wondering--nice photo

You are right the timber trade was conducted like you say, the trees were felled here in north America--(Canada)--squared up--rafted down the river to Montreal Que. loaded into the hull of the ocean going vessels and unloaded wherever--

NH

Re: historic hewing questionnaire [Re: northern hewer] #33104 08/27/15 11:22 AM
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Ok, ok Richard, here is where it gets rich and the blows may begin to fly because of the strong feelings attached with the way we do things and how we learned those ways, rather by tradition like you having learned from your father who learned from his father etc..., or someone like me who has had to struggle alone from a point of ignorance at no little cost in time and money to say the least. So we are invested in how we each do it and can be expected to have strong reasons for backing it up. But I divorce now my writing self from my woodworking self for the sake of discussions, (ha ha ha don't believe it for a second). I should say I'm not totally convinced there is one right way to do these things, maybe that's not possible given so many complicated variables involved.

But first I wanted to write something about your fantasy scenario from above. Such a massive piece of wood could only be squared from the ground at least initially. In the past for practical reasons and because I am an l.w. I have squared up in two stages first removing bulk waste in a very rough way simply to get a timber to the point I could manage to situate it better. I would also notch it with two cutting the v grooves at one time standing on the ground at the side. How you going to score or notch from above with the bottom side of the timber three feet below your feet? Then with a splitting axe, not a maul, who knows,maybe even a double bitted, with a long handle start rough wasting as quick as possible and once it was reduced, get it to where I could work with more precision and pleasure, though that rough wasting would be fun too.

I guess to be fair the question over grip could be turned around to ask how the ones using the grip the other way round, inside hand at the back, manage it that way. Let me put this drawing up just so that we are both on the same page, knowing that the axe and way you go about squaring the log are different from the way I go about it.

This is one of the standard modern images used widely around the internet and in a number of publications to include the Axe Book from Gränsfors Bruk, the tool catalogue from Dick has also printed this image usually with their own explanations accompanying. I pulled it from a Swedish document about historical carpentry work. It's very interesting mostly for what's omitted.
And here am I going at it another time in that stance I like so much except for maybe not so low.
I wonder what could be said about these shots other than one way is right and one way is wrong. To me there is a certain logic and consistency underlying a grip that allows a posture that is square to the working surface and the forces exerted to be in one line with our desire to get the line vertical with a minimal exertion.

Got to leave it there for now Richard and get myself back out to the workshop.

Re: historic hewing questionnaire [Re: northern hewer] #33105 08/28/15 01:46 AM
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northern hewer Offline OP
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hello everyone tonight

Hi Don

Well it looks like you found a hewing position that really works for you--more power to you, and by all means please don't let any thing that I say change what you are doing--

It really is challenging to say the least to try and teach a common group hewing, knowing full well that some in front of you might not be able to adapt to the norm when hewing positions come up for discussion

It would be nice to have someone speak up on how they handle this situation

NH

Re: historic hewing questionnaire [Re: northern hewer] #33106 08/28/15 07:30 AM
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So, if we take the left hand side of the illustration showing the left and right handed version of the "so-called" correct grip, that is, outside hand nearest the axe head, it's plane that this takes a reach across the body causing a dip in the shoulders and a twist at the hips, or the effort required to overcome these natural tendencies. In the other case when the inside hand is the one up high and the outside hand down low there is no unnaturally twisted posture as a result. Both hips and shoulder are comfortably held in a 90 degree relation to the axis of the stem, (see photo above).



Notice how the body faces inward toward the face of the timber as the hewer reaches across his body to grip the axe up high with his outside hand. (I pinched this picture off the internet just to illustrate a point.)


Why is that handle on the broadaxe bent like that? Mostly you will get the answer that this provides for space between the knuckles and the face of the hewn surface, it seems apparent but is it. What if the sweep has nothing to do with the hands but instead is meant to keep the shoulders in this squared up relationship by bringing the rear outside hand in line with the shoulders squared to the face of the timber? Isn't that the more natural position? Doesn't that give a better reference to the result we are after? That the instrument is like that to facilitate the results directly and not indirectly by making the user feel comfortable in a way that gets the hands out of the way literally and figuratively?


It is the hand out front that does the lifting. In the case where that hand is the one next to the timber the forces are only vertical but when the outside hand is gripping up there a correction has to be made to make up for the off-centerer position of the source of the lifting.

I have to wonder if all this makes any difference because it's obvious that the log's get squared up regardless. In one way, maybe is comes down to the effort expended to get it done and working in an efficient way, that way which will be least demanding physically and mentally so that the process becomes sustainable in the long run. I mean in the end it is all about energy, from my perspective. If I get the idea to square up my own timbers but after one timber or one project I find that it is just to much work and not worth it, probably that will be the end of it and I will just have the story of how I squared up those logs that one time with an axe. But if the work goes well and the results are good then it becomes an alternative to the other options available, then I have achieved some degree of choice and become that much more independent instead of just clowning around.

That's my side of it and it would be better to have some countering arguments no, lets say alternative visions.

Last edited by D Wagstaff; 08/28/15 07:45 AM.
Re: historic hewing questionnaire [Re: northern hewer] #33107 08/31/15 03:07 AM
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Hello everyone. I am the "lad in Ohio" that Richard mentioned earlier. I asked his advice about some problems I've been having while hewing white pine logs. At the risk of being long winded (which Richard can tell you I am), I'd like to tell you a little about myself and what I've been doing.

I am 57 years old and have been hewing logs all summer for cabin building. I'm not building log homes, just smaller structures, cabins. I am hewing two faces, the inside and outside walls. That is the way logs were hewn here in Appalachia.

I have way too much time in each log, but at my age, and after having a heart attack four years ago, I learned a man really can work himself to death.

Each step in the process takes about two hours. Falling, limbing, topping, and piling brush-two hours. Barking the log, I use a D-handled scraper I bought and filed a good edge on-two hours.

Getting the log on a foot high trestle I built (I use a firewood lifter/timberjack to lift it), marking the timber on the cut ends, and snapping chalk lines from end to end-two hours. SAWING back to the chalk line (if I tried standing on one of these logs and axing down...well, let's just say that fresh peeled pine is the greasiest thing I ever seen). I was using a chain saw, but have switched to a one man crosscut for greater accuracy.

Anyway, sawing to the line, then using a miner's axe to rough out the log to within 1/4-3/4" of the line. That combined operation takes two hours too. Then I finish it out by hewing to the line with a Gransfors Bruks double bevel broad axe.

Two hours, hour a side. Like I said, way too much time in each log, but hey, I can't think of a better way to spend a 90 degree afternoon (maybe I better start wearing a hat).

My technique is different than Richard's, or anyone else I've seen online here, but it works for me. Like I said, the log is up on a foot high trestle I built. I am sitting a'straddle the log, when roughing out and when finishing.

I'm working on the right side of the log, roughing from butt to tip and finishing from tip to butt. My leg, the one you might be worried about, is cocked out 90 degrees to the side, or even a little backward at times. But I'm hewing straight down for the most part. I pull backward as I strike, making sort of a slicing motion with the axe. I rarely miss or deflect, but when I do, the axe just buries itself into the chips.

Oh, and I lead with my left hand. I'm right handed, right eye is my dominant eye too. But my left hand is closest to the axe head. Seems more natural that way. I can do it with my right hand forward, under the axe head, it just isn't as easy.

Now, my problem, the one I contacted Richard about, is that as I'm hewing and I get to the very bottom of the face, that last bit of sapwood wants to tear out. I'm sure a lot of it has to do with my straight down hewing technique. I've made adjustments, hewing back toward myself slightly as I get to the very bottom, but it still happens too much. Best way I can describe it is like a ring shake, it tears back behind the line.

I've tried hewing most of the way through, then rolling the log over and coming in from the other side. That works, but it leaves funny looking tool marks. They displease my eye. And it isn't a matter of scoring lightly to catch the split, it pops out way behind the line. Follows the sapwood ring. I could also ask how you'uns handle tear outs around limbs, it's particularly bad on the white pine whorls?

Doesn't seem to be any regularity to the grain at a whorl. Not that I can follow. But I've already pirated Richard's thread enough. I do want to say, I stand in awe of that man. I've read this thread, all 110 pages of it, twice. He's amazing. All you guys, I mean, I just flatten logs, cut notches, and stack em up. Any lad could do that. You guys are artisans. You really are.

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