Oxfordshire Woodland Group

It was decided to try and convert some windbraces using the Frame saw made by Herbert Russell.

An 8ft long larch log was hewn to produce a boxed heart timber that had a 8" x 8" cross section. This timber was set up on a trestle and strapped to same with the butt end tucked underneath a raised cross sill to prevent rocking when being sawn.

The sawyers adopted the standard pose and had a go at following the centre line snapped on to the timber on the top & bottom surfaces. It has to be said that this technique was not particularly sucessfull as the saw was found to continually bind in the kerf even when the kerf was wedged open. Eventually this method was abandoned and the sawyer reverted to using a chainsaw to rip the timber baulk in half.

The surface produced by an ordinary cross cut saw chain is actually quite good but leaves too many tell tale signatures that are somewhat unpleasant to the eye and so the sawn surfaces of the halved windbraces were first gone over with a draw knife and then with a hand plane to produce an almost furniture like finish.

The postmortem concluded that the teeth on the frame saw blade are not set properly and need to be given more set to ensure that the blade does not get trapped. A useful book to consult in this respect is "Saws and sawmills for planters and growers" by John Morris MBE.

Stihl do not appear to make their own ripping chain and so a Granberg (Alaskan sawmill) ripping chain will be purchased for the OWG Stihl chainsaw. These can be obtained from chainsaw bars located near Southampton.
Ken Hume OWG