Jen’s Boot Camp and Allerton Abbey Experience

This morning, Fred showed me how to use the chainsaw, and I got to cut a log for the Abbey floor divider. Then we marked it with level lines and I got lots of practice making small cuts to be chiseled away and planed in order to make a flat top.

(Day 14)

This afternoon, I hammered the sliced up log to get the big chunks out, then cleaned up the edges with a chisel, then smoothed the surface out with the chainsaw, and finally began using the hand plane to get a nice surface. It still needs planing, but is shaping up decently.

I've personally never attempted to plane a log with a chainsaw...but instead of notching and chiseling could it be done?

Or is it just to hard to go that length holding it on it's side evenly while trying to cut through?

If you use some wedges as you go along it would keep it from binding down on you...I dunno, just a thought that it might save some time/work.

Ty, it would be easier with a ripping chain, which we don't currently have, and which is about twice as expensive as a normal one, I think. If you did, you could also orient the log in any direction you want, since it might be easier to do a vertical cut than a horizontal one. But the process we used was actually pretty quick once I got the hang of it. And you'd still need to clean it up with a plane, I think, which was the most time-consuming part. But I would like to try it sometime. I'd also like to try hewing a log at some point.

Right on! Awesome work, love the random pics

So I tried some hand hewing once, just for pure cosmetics on old barnwood beams to make them look even more weathered...after several days at it I can say that it is a heck of a forearm workout!

Surprisingly enough, an antique tool a co-worker brought in worked better than the new store bought ones my boss at the time bought for us to use...IIRC the blade was thinner and sharpened at a seemingly better angle.