hewing, not milling

[agg221]

Hi Rick,

 

I don't have any pictures of the canal boat stem - I was too busy making it. A friend might though so I'll ask him. In the meantime, I took a couple of pictures. First one is of some 4"x2" where I was using up a length that was too bent for anything else. They'll be buried in a wall as studwork so appearance wasn't the issue, but as it happens I rather like the rustic appearance.

 

Second picture is of the tools. The adzes have different length handles because one is mine and the other is my wife's. If you're going to stand on the workpiece you need a handle length that when you use a natural stance and an easy swing hits the wood a few inches in front of your feet. Too long and the angle of impact is wrong. Too short and you hit your foot. TWMarriott probably has a lot more experience of this than me though. I couldn't find one the right length for my wife, who is only 5'2", so I found a piece of ash with the right grain to follow the curves. The small axe was made by Garant. It's OK but very light, so works nicely single handed but won't shift heavy stuff. It's what I've been using so far. I succumbed and bought the bigger one today - Gransfors Bruks side axe, and it's really nice. I made the 4"x2" on the left with it and the extra weight and curved blade made it much easier.

[canoehead]

excellent alec,

 

would like to know how the gransfors hewing axe performs, am hoping its as awesome as the rest of their axes. i want one, but they are currently out of my price range. i bought a 7 1/2 lb ward and payne side axe off ebay for £26 which i like a lot, and more recently two austrian axes, one a long handled bearded axe, and the other a goosewing axe, both a couple of hundred years old, am waiting for them to show up, they weren't expensive.

 

i like the handle you made for your wife's adze. i also like that you have your wife adzing.

 

what were the 4x2's made from? and is your house timber framed? is it an early one?

 

have you seen this

 

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DD20bubHQIE]Paul Zahnd, Charpentier à l'ancienne. - YouTube[/ame]

 

this is the level of skill i want to achieve, and the direction i want to take in framing. a bit niche market i know.

 

also found this guys website and just marvelled

 

www.mudpond.net

 

would really like to do a hewn cruck frame next.

 

'if we can't reach for the stars what's a heaven for?'

[agg221]

Some impressive skill in that video!

 

I spoke to the person I thought might have pictures of the stem post. He can't find any at the moment, but might have some unscanned prints so will have a look through. In the meantime, he did find the picture below. When you fit planks they never line up perfectly as they're slightly different thicknesses and don't follow the curve perfectly when they're bent in, so you have to edge them off. The straights are fine with a plane but the internal curves need something else. You get a sense of what still needs doing if you look at the top plank at the end, where you can see it sticks out a bit, and the slight excess depth on the hudding (rebate) on the side of the stern post. Not standard technique as you'd normally use a huge slick for this, but I don't have one and this worked well enough.

 

The house is quite early - c.1500 give or take 10yrs. It was extended in the 1970s in blockwork (which actually looks OK as it's been rendered) and I'm extending off this, using more blockwork but a properly constructed roof and internal walls. I'll also reinstate the upper part of the current 1970s gable end wall, which is otherwise being removed, in similar fashion.

 

Another thing on adzes is that you want the blade curve to match the swing arc too. Imagine drawing a circle, with the centre at the top end of the handle, the radius being the length of the handle to the blade outer face. You would want the curve of the blade to lie on the circumference of the circle. That's why in standard work adzes the shorter handled ones have sharper curves (same doesn't apply for things like coopers' adzes for difficult internal access). You can get them forged to the right shape, then re-hardened and tempered on the blade by a decent smith.

 

Alec

 

p.s. I am really enjoying the Gransfors axe!

[canoehead]

like the barge board. and alec, how did you find out about the radius of the adze ratio to the radius of the arc it travels thru. it makes perfect sense, but how did you get to find that out?

 

thanks rick

[wisewood]

Seeing those barge boards reminded me of this little vid I posted a while back.

Well worth watching:thumbup1:

http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/woodcraft-forum/30940-cleaving-logs-viking-style.html

[canoehead]

simon, i saw this, a while back thanks to you. i especially liked the film where they make the keelson. their hewing to make one board was impressive.

 

thanks rick.

 

has anyone got any pics of anything they've hewn? and axes?

[canoehead]

curvey rafter to be, hopefully. joggles and joggling by the roadside.

[agg221]

Rick, if you hewed the finished face visible at the back in the second picture then you're very good......

 

I found out about the point about the adze from a blacksmith I know. I have forged a few things and met a few people, and my particular interest is in tools, definitely not fancy gates! There are a couple of industrial smiths still around who did apprenticeships in the 1950s/60s, with smiths who were old then and were taught effectively victorian style forging. One of them made a living out of making tools and anchors. He also knows how to work real wrought iron, properly, and we spent a week with him which was really useful. I did push him though - he eventually agreed to show me fire-welding of wrought iron to high carbon steel, which he admitted afterwards he hadn't done since his apprenticeship about 50yrs earlier!

 

The other was an industrial smith and latterly made some tools and jigs for one of the last of the apprentice-trained builders of wooden canal boats who died about 20yrs ago. It was this second smith who told me about the curve for adzes, which he'd been told about by the boat builder when he'd done one of his. He latterly adjusted one for my father, which gave me an opportunity to learn about the approach to hardening and tempering on an adze.

 

There are a handful of these people still around and I find it so useful to talk to them and draw on their experience, which they have been happy to share - I think they find it a relief not to be asked about making scrolls yet again!

 

One day when the children are bigger I hope to go and do the course at Gransfors Bruks.

 

Alec

[canoehead]

Alec, i wish i could say i had hewn it out, but i didn't, i milled that one. i want to be that good. here's a link to some guys who are that good, not sure about their attire.

 

new timber frame house construction The Riven Word

 

i'm going to keep at it until i am that good.

 

is your expertise in boat building? and what sort of tools have you made? any pictures?

 

could you forge a timber framing slick? or an axe? that i would really very much like to do. stock removal knives are one thing, but an axe, to make an axe, that's where it all begins surely?

 

was there a special tempering process for the adze? was it differential hardening like other cutting edges? did he use clay or something like it to retard the heat? or a torch to apply it very specifically?

 

thanks rick

[offgridchris]

i am a beginner in all this oak framing stuff but one thing i have learned is that the timber doesnt have to be square or straight to frame it. rick the website of the the oak traditional oak house is very much american and their system of milling relies on perfect square timber or complex calculations to map out a square timber inside the unsquare one. all my oak timbers were milled quickly and generally on 30 degree slopes on the floor because i couldn't move them so they came out rather rhomboid and then they naturally curved or twisted. the English ( or European) method of marking out lines on each timber means the hewing can and in my opinion should be rustic and curvy. if im teaching grandmothers to suck eggs then apologies. just trying to save you a lot of time getting the timber square like the rather too perfect website timber.

another idea is to chainsaw the log roughly then clean up with an axe and plane. our house was built like that and looks stunning.the bit i added on is very much sawn. although after this thread i wished id put a couple of hewn timbers in. maybe next time.

 

chris