hello everyone tonight:

For a new line of thought in regards to learning an old craft, I would like to look at how many of us acquired the skills that enabled us to use the historic Broadaxe and of course the other many points of necessary skills like setting up and lining prior to hewing.

For starters I was fortunate to have been taught by my father, who in turn had been taught by his father who had actually lived and grew up at the time that hewing was needed to construct timberframed buildings. I was taught of course to use the style that my family used, and many other aspects that went along with the hewing process, I related in previous postings that I also had the opportunity to research my hewing methods as a backup to presenting it in as true a fashion as possible to the general public for a period of approx 30 years.


I realize that this is very seldom the case and many that now hew acquired the historic methods in many ways very much unlike the way that I did.

I would like to take this opportunity to ask those that have these special skills to come on board and let those that want dearly to learn to Hew timber and use their Broadaxe an insight into a way of acquiring these skills.

How many of you out there just learned by trial and error?
How many studied and researched before attempting to Hew?
How many took an historic course before embarking out with your axe?
How many like myself had the family background training to help them along?
NH







I was just wondering