Hewing White Pine - 2019 Axe Cordwood Challenge
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- čas přidán 18. 02. 2019
- For the 2019 Axe Cordwood Challenge, Ben Scott has added several new “challenges” in addition to the firewood chopping challenge that has always been the primary focus. One of these new additional challenges was to do some hewing. Since hewing is one of my favorite activities to do with an axe, I was eager to do some.
At some point in the last year a double-stemmed white pine fell across the creek at the northwest corner of our property. It seemed like the perfect candidate for the hewing challenge. The tree was quite straight, and it would basically be salvaging a deadfall. I was able to get two 8x7" timbers from the lower end of the double stem portion, both timbers ended up 13 feet long. The first face hewn, wasn't square to the layout, and I had to re-hew the face a second time. I also ended up having difficulty as I decided to leave the timbers in the creek bottom, due to their awkwardness and weight and the icy conditions. I failed to level my cribbing, and so I was unable to handle the logs properly. This made proper layout difficult, and I didn't make the absolute best use of these logs, better timbers could have been made had my layout been more careful.
This year for the challenge I have decided to use one axe for essentially the entire challenge, so all of the hewing done in this video was done with the same 3.5# felling axe I used to chop my wood for the rest of the Axe Cordwood Challenge. I use a style of hewing in this video that I call “tie-hacker style” which is just hewing with a long-handled, double bevel axe with the log cribbed quite low to the ground. It matches the style of hewing used in the late 19th and early 20th century by woodsman in the southern US who produced oak railroad ties on a massive scale. It is a style that is readily accessible to anyone with an axe. I do love the use of broadaxes as well, but I wanted very specifically to demonstrate that all sorts of work can be done with just one tool. Its OK to own lots of axes, but you can get by with just one if you need to.
A mention of thanks here at the end for Steven Edholm and Ben Scott for creating and managing the Axe Cordwood Challenge and for furthering the goal of keeping working axes alive. - Jak na to + styl
My friend asked me the other day if I have a go-to daydream in my head, and I immediately responded with “hewing a log into timber, while alone in the forest”
Certainly not the response he expected, but you do it once and it’s all you can see yourself doing, haha. Great video!! Any time you wanna film some hewing just know I’ll be lurking in the comments hahahaha
Hello, that is a nice bit of timber you have there, I was thinking Barn timber :) with that bath tub if it is cast iron you should be able to break it up with a slag hammer, if it dint's or just bends then it is steel and then good luck :) on another topic, I once had to pull out some large trees out of a friends Forrest (we call bush) and we used the electric winch on my Land Cruiser, they where heavy but they came out very easy and on one occasion we had to use a snatch block of another tree to get the log to travel in the right direction.
I used an old tub like that once to make a water collection area, hooked a pipe to the hole up high, (the mud clogged the drain hole) a angled the back corner to a feed pipe for a pond and capped it with hardware cloth as a filter..lol that was when i was about 16 or so.
It sounds interesting. I can think of a couple uses I could put this tub to myself, if I can get it out of the creekbed.
While it is work for you, it is a surprisingly soothing and relaxing video to watch!
Very nice video and channel, subscribed ! I haven't tried to hew with an axe yet, I definitely should give it a try. Cheers
Bonjour Oden. If you are interested in hewing, a couple channels I highly recommend are onsek and Mr. Chickadee. I've got a hewing playlist with some good videos from both channels plus many other good ones from around CZcams. thank you for the sub
A utility working ax making timber. I need to get a longer handle on my hewing ax. There's one at a antique store in town with a long handle I saw the other day. Another great hewing demo, bud!
For slick logs just wear your corks ( caulk boots).
Not such a bad place to spend some time hewing some lumber. I don't know the topography of where the creek is, but could you use your Ox to move the bathtub? If there is a bank you could maybe set up a gin pole with a block and tackle. I installed an antique clawfoot tub in my second floor bathroom. My plumber and I just hoofed it up the stairs. Yikes! If the tub in the creek is cast iron you could possibly crack it up with a sledge. I don't envy you the task. I got really relaxed watching you chop and listening to the creek.
If it were up out of the creek bed it would be easier, but the creek has fairly abrupt banks in this area, theres essentially a 2-4 foot vertical bank on the north side where it is flat, and then the hill on the south side. So getting it up and out is the big issue. I don't really want to keep it in the woods, it is ugly, but I could find some use for it back home, probably as a water trough most likely.
@@oxbowfarm5803 I figured there must be a steep bank. What you need are a couple of strong Lads you can rope into hefting it up to the flat. Good Luck!
Well done, you have patience for the task:)
Metal bathtub? In the woods? Next to a peaceful creek? Sounds like a recipe for a personal wood fired hot tub!
I was hoping you would turn this into a video. Thanks!
Thats some impressive work there no mean feat at all
Nice work ;) looks like you've done that before.
A dumped bathtub 🤣 that could totally happen here too. Driving to the official dumpster would be much easier and free. But people still drive a long way on small roads to secretly get rid of stuff. I found a dumped BBQ in my forrest last year lol not complaining, I had use for that... but still... I don't get it.
I'd move the tub as long as there is snow and frozen ground. It will dig into the ground and be difficult to drag once everything thaws and things get muddy. Old tire tubes make a good sledge for big odd shaped things. And I'd need to use a tractor, skidoo or at least a winch because I doubt it would move at all if I tried pulling it lol
Most of the garbage was someone's personal back of the woods dump I suspect. The bathtub might have had a purpose, there is some junk bolted to the faucet holes. I think it was just too close to the creek and the water took it away.
Very nice video, I always find hewing so relaxing to watch. I notice in other hewing videos some cut v notches about 18" apart then split off in between before going back to do the final light hewing. Have you ever done this or do you find your way more efficient?
You mean like this? czcams.com/video/fnqGYAlRAS4/video.html I mainly decide to joggle or not based on how much material there is to remove to get to the line. For these timbers I was actually trying to scrape an 8 inch timber out of a log that was probably a bit too small for it, so there wasn't really much reason to joggle on most of the faces. If there is a big slab of material to remove, joggling is often worth it.
About the tub...use a sledge hammer and it should break up into pieces.
I bet an ox would be able to skid that bathtub on the snow.