It is the king of trees.
And like cunning dukes who usurp its strength through exploitation and subterfuge, we rive, chop, saw, and hew it mercilessly for our own gain.
But we are ever thankful for such a beautiful tree and we sing its praises all day long.
The video shows a red oak being roughed out from the round with a felling ax. The grain is shortened between scoring marks, then split off the timber. This is the first step in hewing it square. The timber will be finished with a large headed, short-handled broad ax. It will become one of the beams in the new Francis Cooke House.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
Tags: 17th century house, English carpentry, hewing, oak, pilgrim house, Plimoth Plantation, The Francis Cooke House, timber frame
Great stuff, Mr. McKee!
This is fantastic guys…
Hello,
For what it’s worth, I often think a clear strategy can lead to a more predictable result then a random approach and that’s why I did appreciated ones reading that on chopping the notches from above a certain sequence of chops can be used. I don’t know if it is the sequence that is important or just the fact of the sequence itself but the one I discovered is: beginning left or right side, doesn’t matter, chop middle, down, up and then middle, down, up on the other side to clear the notch. I noticed the chopper did something similar when juggling. Nice wood.
Greetings,
Don Wagstaff
Hi Don,
If I understand your point correctly, it really does help to have a methodology in this kind of work. It may sometimes come across as random, but there’s a very specific technique and progression we follow when hewing. Sometimes, part of the hewing process can still be seen on existing house timbers from the period: Score marks, the width of broad ax, etc…and it’s amazing what the old tool marks can tell you.
Our challenge, as artisans re-inventing the work, is to rediscover these techniques without the benefit of a formal apprenticeship. It’s not out of the realm of possibility to think that a 16 yr-old carpenter’s apprentice from the 17th century would have a more intuitive understanding of how to go about his labors than anyone alive today trying to do the same work.
We learn by working alongside those who have done this a long time, through research, and by doing the work. And it’s good to remain humble as well. I’m always a little suspicious when the thought comes into my head, “Well, it’s easier and more practical to do it this way so that means they MUST have done it this way”. Not necessarily. The past, as they say, is a foreign country.
Thanks for your feedback.
Rick