Some Fun at Squaring-up

Joined
Mar 2, 2013
Messages
1,772
Yesterday at the goose festival in Enter I got the chance to go a hewing on a stick of poplar, which is always enjoyable. No shots of the process, me being busy with the axes that whole time, but here is the results of the effort in plain day-light.
mg_0118-1.jpg

mg_0129.jpg

mg_0129-1.jpg

An unfortunate scuffing resulting from a dirty support there just above an overly deep notching, an indication of technique left for some future interpretation I suppose.
 
Last edited:
Thank you, Square_peg. One thing to add is the technical aspect of getting at an inside oriented radius. One can always steepen the angle of the cutting edge in relation to the axis of the stem effectively shortening the length of the blade, only then it's altering the trace pattern left on the surface which ought to be consistent by all means. Alternatives include, using a side-axe with a smaller blade or, as I did it here, grabbing a double beveled (1700 model) which can get you out of many a tight spot, but then we're talking a whole different ball-game, in terms of the surface left behind. Well next time it comes to squaring a stem á naturelle - as they say it - I will have to consider using a steeper angle over the whole length. In other words, anticipating the curves in advance, or from the outset since normally the bend is resting below from up on the supports to begin with and the first two sides cut straight along the snap-lines.
 
I thought you might have used an adze for the inside curve. Difficult to do with any tool.
 
You might well have a point Square_peg, a few in fact. An adze would be suitable for curves, if time consuming, but what does time matter if you are after a certain surface quality anyway?

In the historically poorer parts here a lot of carpenters were left with materials for building houses, barns, sheds and on and on and on, that might have been, lets say, not the most desirable materials, since the most desirable went to the ones who could pay or otherwise commender for their own purposes. So Jan and Pete, (sort of the Joe Blows of my area), made do with what was not costing much and was at hand in their neighborhood and they also got good at designing and constructing using these materials to make the most of it. Needles to say it but their wisdom has prevailed and what is left over from their works - not much - is now highly prized as desirable objects in and of their own right.
Oude%20Saksische%20boerderij%20gebint%202.jpg
 
Last edited:
I've seen posts like that one pictured. I had always assumed it was just a stylized thing and not made out of necessity. A shortage of fine timber is a notion foreign to the Pacific Northwest. Thanks for opening my eyes to this.
 
Last edited:
I wouldn't want to give anyone the short end of the stick by any means, and for me to say the work was borne out of a particular kind of poverty, while that may have been an element, is not a true picture as I see it. Lets put it bluntly, these builders were operating in a context where the material used was simply a logical choice. Why use wood that was a product or even worse shipped in from some foreign places, when there are trees growing right in that place that can do the job. Here in Drenthe and much more so in a place like Normandy, Fr. there is growing that much oak and oak which is growing along the perimeter of a field or not in a thick forest will produce a crooked stem very often. Any way the relevant point is how this kind of work is uniquely suited to axe work since milling it up in a mechanized process is out of the question, even ripping with a saw is impractical. In other words here is an instance of making good use of otherwise unmarketable wood. And if you think it through it was in a real sense also very subversive:). (I'm still waiting for someone to flesh out the economics of it all. Axel Weller has come the closest as far as I know).
 
Great job....A little curve or twist gives something a lot more character !
 
Back
Top