i've used a chainsaw for scoring- is this a confessional? - it is accurate faster than an axe. and one can burn away every knot.
that's true that scoring by axe gives an advanced feel of how the tree is cutting, and where the grain changes in the stem and around the knots. and then there's just the speed of chainsaws, which is probably unnatural. but then so are we. that's why we build houses in the first place.
the one point i'm really taken on in this discussion is the chainsaw process mark. where one can leave an axe score mark that went kind of wild, the mark a chain leaves straight on is brutal to see. it's as if the timber has been cut in half, from that clean line of a chain saw scratch. i wonder whether the quality of process marks, and to what extent it is good aesthetic practice to make them transparent, give some indication of the kind of tool to put to use.
