John Foreman of Bancroft is an expert in the long forgotten art of hewing a square timber from a white pine log using only the hand tools available to craftsmen in the era of building square timber framed barns. He demonstrated his skills at the 2009 O’Hara Mill Homestead Canada Day celebration.
Slabbing Axe
The white pine log was raised, for working ease, on two cross logs and anchored in place with two adjustable dogs. Determining that the log could yield an eight inch by eight inch timber, two vertical lines were penciled on each end of the log eight inches apart. A third vertical line was drawn on the inside of the level when making one of these two lines, a future reference point for establishing a right angle for hewing the third and fourth sides of the timber (the two outer lines will disappear in the hewing process).
Driving a nail at each end of the log where the vertical lines meet the bark, he snapped two rough chalk lines from end to end over the bark, removed a two inch width of bark along the chalk lines with an axe, rubbed the debarked strips with sawdust to remove as much pine gum as possible to prevent later gumming up of the broad axe and made a new chalk line on the debarked strip. Releasing the dogs, the log is turned 180 degrees and this procedure is repeated where the two vertical end lines meet the bark.
Slab Hacking
Standing on the log, John chopped a series of wedges about 18 inches apart along the side of the log to within about one half inch of the chalk line. For this, a scoring axe, which has a straight cutting edge as opposed to the curved edge of most axes, and is much slimmer in the wedge than conventional splitting axes is used.
More Slab Hacking
The next step is the removal of wood between the wedges; again to within a half inch or so of the top and bottom chalk lines. A 4 lb. curved edge slabbing axe is used for this.
The scoring axe is used again to vertically score the chopped surface every 6 inches or so along the length of the log. Ideally, the scoring will penetrate the half inch of remaining wood such that there will be very little sign of scoring when the broad axe removes that wood.
The broad axe is used to make the final hewn surface, following the top and bottom chalk lines. When shaving with the broad axe, he makes contact with the log with the bottom of the blade first and pulls the blade toward him as he makes contact, so that the blade peels the wood instead of breaking it below the point of contact.
Finishing with the Broad Axe
When both sides of the log have been hewn, the log is turned 90 degrees, the centre penciled on the ends is leveled horizontally, the dogs are secured, two pencil lines eight inches apart are drawn vertically, and the whole process is repeated.
