Oxfordshire Woodland Group

🙂 This work is supported by The Postcode Local Trust 😀

A significant number of rafters are needed to cover the roof of the Woodland Cruck Barn. This need has been matched with using a number of the stems harvested and extracted during horse logging operations together with additional localised felling operations to thin out and remove suppressed pole and skinny Douglas Fir trees.

The Douglas Fir poles are first debarked to remove any embedded dirt, grit and especially flints together with any protruding knot pegs that are removed using a hand saw.

The rafter stock was hand hewn using the Swedish Wetterlings long handled hewing axes. This is because hewing needs to be performed around knot whorls in two directions thereby requiring a knife edged blade that will work in two directions rather than a one sided chisel type blade e.g. Kent pattern hewing axe that only works in one direction.

The finished rafters are not all the exact same size or shape but this does not matter. When the full set of rafters are complete then these will be sorted such that they are graded in size (thickness) so that they will form a reasonably flat outer rafter surface to which hand split lath will be fixed.

Examination of the typical timbers employed in a local South Oxfordshire barn reveals that timber scantlings employed are neither regular nor dead straight and square.

Ken Hume

Job Done

Ken Hume