hello everyone tonight

Very well said, I too felt strongly about just a hewing gathering of enthusiasts that would be well advertised as a forum to compare the modern and historical squaring of timber, the historical and modern tools, and techniques

It seems to me that safety is being shoved aside as I view how some are approaching the hands on work of squaring timber on the internet

I know first hand that there are gaping holes when one tries to put forth accurate re enactments, the one I remember quite well involved the staging of a barn raising using a single gin pole and horse power

dressing accurately the participants was a breeze--lots of info available--hewing and framing, manufacturing wood pins, the commanders--fair amount of info available--

Where the problem started to get tricky was carrying out the raising tasks historically accurate--in most cases there is not much to go on--putting up the long purlins--slender long squared stems, with many mortises which weakened its integrity--had to be handled with kid gloves, no chance of breaking, or no raising!!

The gin pole, had to be strong enough, but not too large to become unmanageably heavy, getting it raised from ground level to an angle that the long peeves could take over--men can only lift so high, on the first lift, but not high enough for the long peeves, what I did was to have a group with short peeves to take over from the lifters to raise the gin about another 5 or 6 feet--here the long peeves came on board and some danger develops because the gin if it faltered on the third lift it could come back down on the initial lifters--here again the long peeves had to be jabbed well into the gin, no chance of slipping out

For anyone attempting such a re-enactment, be sure to instruct everyone involved prior to the lift so they know their role and the dangers to themselves and others

I found that one of the greatest dangers was as the gin was being hoisted to its correct angle and stayed, the men seemed to relax, I had 4 men on each peeve, and one group seemed to not be aware of the weight of the long peevee, and one came down narrowly missing a worker near the bottom of the gin

a scary moment for me being in charge of every aspect

It ended up going up well, each bent going up with groans from the pulleys, and all the gin pole stays taking the strain of the lift--starting the lift when the bents were nearly horizontal was the maximum strain on everything, it really settled and tried all the rigging--I was using 1" manila horse fork rope rigged in triple pulleys at the top of the gin and double pulleys on the bents--these pulleys were used to move barns and were strong

got to go now

enjoy

Richard
NH