Hi TB and Mark:

TB--I do not have any right now that is accessible for cut and pasting, but will strive to do that in the very near future.

It sounds like the subject of handle styles could be a good conversation piece.

Mark:--I believe that you use a style of working with your tools ie; (higher than I do) so in that case I believe that your straighter handles might work better because you need to shorten up your grasp of the handle for control and safety reasons.

All the old texts, and other research material that i have studied over the years always seem to show workmen working on timbers lying on bed pieces, not on tressels.

I had one fellow relate to me the following story--- during the second world war he landed on the beaches in the south Pacific where the Japanese had been working on flattening round timber, they had left their sites empty but their timbers were still where they were working on them. They were working alongside the timbers with one end up on a support.

You can see that various ways of doing things were tried and used depending on where you are from.

The immigrants that originally settled the US and Canada came from many different ethnic origins, and their style of using tools and building timberframe buildings varied widely.

We sometimes refer to a style as German, Dutch, Swedish, English or what have you. one thing is for sure that after 15 or 20 generations everything seems to meld together including people!!

NH