Dutch - Oregon Trail

"There aren't a lot of old-school German/Austrian/Dutch hewers around here to ask lol...."

Ha!:)...A good way of putting it.:)

As a matter of fact it's one of the minor puzzlements in the history of craft in America:No sooner that those G./A./D. hewers got here,that they threw away their goosewings,and picked up those Anglo-Saxon symmetrical hewing axes...Size of trees?...The crudity/temporary nature of building projects?Nobody knows,but historians back East,in the areas favored by Moravians,and other Germanic people,have long been puzzled by it...
 
I think the colonials were more utilitarian than their European ancestors. They were less concerned with putting a nice finish on a beam and more concerned with just 'get me that damn beam finished!' This would have been especially true when it came to the expansion of the railroads when 1000's of men earned their living or at least spent their winters hewing ties.

cedarriverforge.com/Photo-index/axephotos/Barnickol-RR%20Tie%20Hacking.pdf
 
Square_peg said:
I think the colonials were more utilitarian than their European ancestors. They were less concerned with putting a nice finish on a beam and more concerned with just 'get me that damn beam finished!' This would have been especially true when it came to the expansion of the railroads when 1000's of men earned their living or at least spent their winters hewing ties.

cedarriverforge.com/Photo-index/axephotos/Barnickol-RR%20Tie%20Hacking.pdf
Click to expand...

I'd imagine it was something very like that,a turn to more function/less form...No longer that great Permanence of structures in view...(precursor to the constantly moving Americans of later decades).

Kent-pattern-ish broadaxe is heavier,longer-hafted,easier to accomplish more in a day of hewing...WAY easier to forge,too!:)
 
Kevin Houtzager said:
:)

As for colonials not using it that often: Has anybody considered that sawn wood came in to fashion right about 1900 and sort of commercially available? Thats the main reason they dissappeared. The second is the craftsmanship it took to build these. Making a Kent pattern takes so much less work.
Click to expand...

Broadax hewn timbers were predominant because it was expedient to create them onsite where the tree was felled. Horses then skidded them over the snow down to a frozen lake or river so they could be floated or rafted to market or a sea port. Sawmills, on the other hand, required elaborate water wheels and affiliated machinery and therefore had to be situated at consistent water flow rapids or waterfalls. Philemon Wright pioneered the first lumber milling facility and factory at the Chaudiere Falls on the Ottawa River already in the early 1800s. Growth of Wrightsville and Bytown to become Hull and Ottawa was entirely founded upon Mr Wright's enterprise to dam the falls and and harness water power to encourage growth of industry. Mass-produced sawn building materials became common in eastern Canada already 200 years ago.
 
Yes Kevin, I do have you! Lol

I've started on the grind. Lot o' blade there for sure. I made a funny contraption out of one of my wife's Emory boards with a tiny eye screw through it set back the depth that I want my edge, ran it along the edge to get a mark and remove the rust up to that point in one fell swoop.

I also carfefully made a grind/bevel gauge at 22.5 degrees from a defunct bank card- specific to this thing.

So far, I've hogged off the meat from either thick end with only forward strokes at that angle and now matching it to the existing angle in the center.

I figure that is laborious part, now comes the more tedious part of keeping my bevel flat and carefully matching the whole thing to my gauge.

It's starting to look "pretty" for the lack of a better word :)

I've rehabbed the edges/profiles of several smaller American hewing hatchets and one larger hewing axe but this takes a lighter touch I'm finding.
 
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Process pictures.
Goose wing shavings by Agent Hierarchy, on Flickr

Goofy contraption for marking the edge.
Goose wing shavings by Agent Hierarchy, on Flickr

Goose wing shavings by Agent Hierarchy, on Flickr

Goose wing shavings by Agent Hierarchy, on Flickr

Goose wing shavings by Agent Hierarchy, on Flickr

Goose wing shavings by Agent Hierarchy, on Flickr

I want to draw the bevel up to meet the scribed line. It's in a state you don't usually see a picture of lol.

K Kevin Houtzager , can you post a picture of yours for reference? Yours is twice the mass so I would assume that the edge is proportionate?
 
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Kevin, I like the really thinned down handle on several of my ball peens that I use - like this one for example:
0c8ECA3.jpg


But the two on the right there are my most used with the little bit heavier heads.
7BZFByq.jpg


(The one on the right was my attempt at using a leather dye - it's hickory)
 
Looks good Kevin! The flair at the bottom is a nice touch. I put a little bit of a flair on some of mine but my hand never really ends up back there when I use them. Smaller ball peen handles I am finding work well being a bit flat on the sides.

Nice/well set-up hammers are underrated in my opinion.

As far as a handle for the goose wing I have a large piece of quarter sawn hickory that I think will work. It's not perfect and will have a little heartwood playing in it but should work out just fine.
 
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