D L Bahler- I have used almost this exact method you described. It also works very well, but also requires a good amount of time and it not that portable. I think a lot of us may have access to heavy equipment to move the log to be hewn to the hew station. I always think to use the cutoffs of the tree that I felled. Arrange them in (2) 8 foot long logs spaced out at to a good 3/4 of the log to be hewn. Cut quick notches with an axe to get them to stick into each other a bit. Smash them down as hard as I can, wedging gaps. Level them to each other, until tolerable. Somehow get that this giant log, to be hewn, up a foot, onto the setup. Get the log to sit decently where you can center the log. Wedge it good with with some hew chips or shim stock. At this point I abandon the romance of log dogs. I find they don't hold tight enough. I just use planks and screw the whole assembly together, including screwing the setup logs to each other. Find the center line in log and mark timber dimensions off tis center line. Here I like to axe off a shallow line where the line will be snapped. This way I get a crisper and straighter line snapped with the wood exposed. The whole assembly goes up much quicker than other methods stated, but still, its a time killer, when I know I have many hours or axeing and squaring this log ahead of me. I always am wondering how to make it faster, yet still stay true. I like to hew timber using plumb bob as well. This means that my log needs to stay in that plane. Hewing using a plumb bob as reference means I may also use level as a reference.I really prefer straight, square timber. Nonetheless,I can't be alone, in that I am tired of checking and resetting when I could be axeing. tb
