hand hewn | The Lighthearted Woodworker

That’s right! You read correctly!

I attended Woodworking in America 2013 this past weekend. This was my second WIA. It’s been a few years, but I have to say I thought perhaps things had changed since I last attended. But no, same as before.

Allow me to explain.

I started Friday off by attending a class called Timber! by Roy Underhill. Roy had an 8’x 24″ log that he turned into a square beam right in front of our eyes. While he did break a sweat, he was able to keep up his classic witty repartee. Naturally he used nothing but hand tools: an axe, an adze, a froe and a mallet. Who owns these tools?? Roy used his regular “camera tricks” to make it look easy and to make matters worse he make it look like sooo much fun!

Roy

Next attended Peter Follansbee‘s class on carving wooden spoons. Boy, again with a guy who can split a log with his froe and carve up a spectacular utensil in no time, all while telling amusing antidotes and make it look so easy that apparently even I could do it. Don’t be fooled though, Peter “cheats” and uses green wood. Oh sure, green is easy, Peter! I’ve been struggling a lifetime with hard, dry wood, not to mention dull tools. Oh, and if I had a hand made knife made from forged steel and made my own handles I bet I could make it look that easy too.

Peter

I needed a break and headed down to the marketplace. They really needed to trim down the number of vendors! Who has the time to spend with all these amazing toolmakers? Not to mention the amount of woodworkers roaming the floor? You can hardly move one booth without running into someone and spending thirty minutes in chatting about tools wood or just sharing a laugh. Who has time for this?

I spent the end of the day at an online forum of bloggers, the people who keep me entertained with woodworking content throughout the year. Sure it sounds great to put a face to a screen name or an avatar, but its entirely another thing to spend three nights swapping stories and sharing libations late into the night.

The gurus of the online woodworking community.

Saturday morning I popped around to several classes, unable to make up which one I wanted to attend and then spent the afternoon with Chair Maker Peter Galbert in his class “A Windsor Chair, From Log to Living Room”. I have to say, I feel a little sorry for Peter. He spent the entire afternoon giving away all his secrets of how he builds his beautiful windsor chairs. Step by step, he demonstrated how he uses his froe, splitting a log, shaping and steaming it into the arms, creating the seat and the spindles, even his tricks for alignment and assembly. Another one who made the building process seem fun and attainable. Peter- pretty soon everybody will be building Windsor Chairs!!

Peter

So what’s my beef with Woodworking in America? I left Sunday with a rush of enthusiasm that I could hand hewn enough logs to build a barn, carve a kitchen full of spoons and fill my house with Windsor chairs. Of course, in order to do that I am going to need a lot of new tools! Oye.

As if that weren’t enough I had intended to take a nap and catch up on episodes of Dexter on my plane ride home. Instead I found myself reading “Home Building and Woodworking in Colonial America” cover to cover (I picked it up while chatting with Joel from Tools for Working Wood).

Now do you see my problem?

I guess my biggest problem with Woodworking in America is I need to wait a whole year for WIA14!

The “new” tools I picked up at a tag sale this morning for $12.

Interesting article. There was a time when I was infatuated with all things barns. I love huge beams, the joinery, as well as the architecture. We have a hand hewn mantle and an arch way in our home.

The real meaning of “hand hewn”

Posted on July 17, 2007 by Gabel Holder

Hand hewn is a term that is widely misused today to refer to almost anything with a rustic appearance. The real meaning is actually quite limited in application. Hand hewn refers to a timber that has been converted from a log using only axes — most commonly a felling axe and a broad axe.

A common misconception is that timbers were shaped with an adze. While adzes are wonderfully useful tools, they are pitiful at converting logs to timbers, and were not historically used for that purpose. This misconception may stem from the fact that hand hewn timbers have an interesting texture of undulating tool marks — almost as if the wood were scooped out a little. This is the result of the shape of a broad axe. First off, the broad axe is sharpened on one side only (single beveled), unlike a felling axe which is sharpened on both sides (double-beveled). Also, the cutting edge of a properly adjusted and sharpened broad axe is curved in a couple of different ways. If you set this properly sharpened broad axe down on a table on its “flat” side, you will quickly see that the axe actually isn’t flat on it’s back –the axe should rock back and forth along its edge, with the mid-section acting as the fulcrum. You want the corners of the edge to be about 1/16″ to 1/8″ off the table — that keeps the corners from digging in, which is very important. You also want a curve along the length of the edge, with the middle being quite proud of the corners. This curve helps create a slicing action, (rather than chopping) which is crucial to good clean work as well as efficiency. And the edge must be very sharp — ideally razor sharp! A dull broad axe is worse than useless — it is very dangerous. The effect of this razor sharp, curved and convex edge is that the wood is scooped out, leaving a subtle undulating texture similar to waves on the sea — very different from what is often passed off as hand hewn today.

Most people who are “hewing” timbers today are using either a power planer to create a textured surface or are adzing sawn timbers — both of these methods make an “interesting” texture, but are completely inappropriate for historic work, as the tool marks are completely different than what you see on authentically hewn timber. It is important to note that each hewer leaves behind subtle, tell-tale tool marks that allow an observant person to play detective and determine among other things whether the carpenter was left or right handed, which direction along the timber he was moving as he hewed, how high off the ground the log was, the size of the different axes used, whether one person hewed the entire timber or one man went up one side, while another man went down the other, whether two faces were hewed before the log was rolled, or whether one face was hewn and the log rolled each time.

I am sure that is much more information than most people care to know about how a carpenter swung his axe on a particular day a couple hundred years ago. Nevertheless, it is valuable information when it comes to understanding how a particular building was built; especially in terms of documenting existing timbers to better understand the original techniques or when we need to repair, restore, or replace damaged or missing timbers in a way that is consistent with the original means and methods. It is entirely possible when replacing a timber, to study other contemporary pieces from the same building and then hew the replacement the same way the original was done, reproducing the act of conversion as well as the product. Not only do I believe there is cultural value in this knowledge and skill–keeping alive and in some cases rediscovering the subtleties of a traditional building skill that mostly died–it is simply the most accurate process for reproducing a hewn timber. While I understand that such a level of detailed care is not appropriate for many projects, occasionally it probably is â€“ when accurately replicating parts of the original process is an important part of the clients program. Or when close just doesn’t cut it â€“ such as work done on cultural treasures.

(repost from Hold Brothers Timer Frames)