Oxfordshire Woodland Group

A 3 year old log with double curvature was selected from the storage stack that was generally considered to have been no use for conversion to form long beams or cruck blades but after inspection it was determined that this log if cut into 2 x 10 ft lengths plus 1 x 8 ft length could form curved arch (10ft) and wind braces (8ft).

The log was very dry, showing no signs of rot (due to debarking) and so was set up on the bunks to be hewn and then halved using a standard but powerful chainsaw. A chalk guide line was snapped down the centre line of the hewn log to guide the sawyer (A Jarvis). It is important to ensure sound footing for the sawyer and so dry logs with bark still attached were positioned, dogged and wedged on either side of the hewn log to be halved.

The two mirror image matching arch brace stock items are of good quality and will be processed further using a hand plane and drawknife to produce a quality finish.

After finish processing it became obvious that a longer (18"+) chainsaw bar fitted with a ripping chain was needed to help prevent chainsaw bar nose marks on the ripped surface. Ideally the chainbar nose should at all times protrude beyond the bottom surface being ripped to help avoid disfigurement of the ripped surface with chainsaw bar nose marks.

Contrary to general opinion timber-frame surfaces are not generally adzed but as explained and illustrated at great length elsewhere on this forum these are axed to produce a normal hand hewn finished surface that might be augmented with the drawknife to clean up difficult (spiral) timbers. In the case of removing imperfections in the finished surface of material halved by chainsaw ripping then this is where the adze can be employed to good effect e.g. the reduction and removal of deep chainsaw (mainly chainsaw nose) cut marks.

Ken Hume