Coarse, Medium, and Fine

While hewing some perlins, I noticed the (or at least my) three stages of hewing; coarse, medium, and fine. Pretty cool.

On second thought, maybe I'll move to Finland

In a previous post I said that if my current job didn't work out I was going to move to Germany and become a Bavarian logger. But after perusing the internet I came up with another great video. (Link for phone and tablet users)

I want to join this crew of Finnish carpenters so bad it hurts.I could go on and on about the things I found fantastic about this video, but I will stick to the high notes.

1. Hewing an entire gable end wall before I die MUST happen.
2. I need to start cutting joints with nothing but a hatchet.
3. How cool are pegged floating floors?
4. I am going to Finland to get me one of those sweet axes!

P.S. Seeing as I have crazy O.C.D., I couldn't stop thinking about those great Finnish axes. So I did some research and found that there are pretty much two ways to get your hands on one. The first way - find a friend in Finland and have them go to any flea market and pick up a great vintage Billnas for almost nothing...and then pay a fortune in shipping costs to send it over state-side. The second way is to figure out a way to buy one from John Neeman Tools (see blog post here). It might be easier finding a friend in Finland, and I have a feeling that it would be a lot cheaper too.

P.P.S. I think it is poor blogging etiquette to have the P.S. longer than the blog.

P.P.P.S. Or having three post scripts.

P.P.P.P.S The End

The Dregs of Society

A lot of change is happening at work recently and as a result we are cleaning out spaces and finding fun toys...I mean tools...to play...I mean work...with. On top of that, our tractor is currently out of service, but work must go on. Luckily we found (what we thought was) a Dreg in one of the storage sheds.

A modern Dreg with spindly wheels.

Flash forward a week and we needed to move a log from the hewing bocking to the saw pit. The log was a wet piece of white oak 10"x10" 13 feet long, so it was waaaaay heavier than four men wanted to lift, what a great time to try out our new set of wheels.

Rope makes pulling and steering a lot easier.

What an easy job it was! If it wasn't for pulling the log up an icy hill we could have easily handled this thing with two men. Looks like a 17th century Dreg just topped the project list. It will make timber handling a fantastic exhibit rather than a dirty little secret we do before visitors arrive.

I get the easy job of taking pictures.