HEWN
This is one of the oldest means of turning a round log into a dimensioned piece of lumber. This process predates the bronze age and goes all the way back, at least in Western European history to 8500 BC, with discoveries of a house in England with floors made from hewn and split beam. The hewn process involved the use of one or more specialized axes to cut or cleave the outer round part of a tree trunk away leaving a flat section. The trunk was rotated and the process repeated until 4 flats had been made creating a square timber.
Often in the building of house walls, only two sides were hewn creating a consistent wall thickness while leaving the top and bottom of the timber round and natural. The space between one wall timber and the next is where "daubing," a material consisting of mud and some plant fiber would go to fill the irregular space. But, I digress.
Remarkably, a good log hewer could create consistently flat and square timbers with little more than his axes, a trained eye, and sometimes the use of string and chalk to determine length. The resulting timber reveals the telltale markings of hewn lumber as shown in the corresponding background photo.
We Love trees!
Rooted in the ground, these majestic wooded creatures, standing tall with stretched limbs provide us shelter from the wind, give us shade and, protect our soils from erosion. In a trees after life, it keeps giving: providing heat for our homes, the building blocks for our shelter, and materials for our art. Below is a brief history of how the tree in its' raw form is milled into useful products.
CIRCLE SAWN
This type of log milling uses a steel disc with cutting teeth surrounding its outer circumference. Think of your modern day table saw or handheld skill-saw. It was invented in the latter part of the 18th Century and quickly replaced Saw-Pit method of ripping logs into boards. I don't explain this type of milling as it is highly unlikely I have any of it in my lumber reserves.
Circle sawn lumber has experienced a bit of a resurgence in today's home building, with siding and flooring showing up in many rustic, contemporary, and modern homes. The mill marks left by the circular saw blade, a series of arcs running across the face of the board, are highly decorative and make for an interesting visual pattern. I have seen special saw blades in woodworking catalogs to imitate the effect of an authentic large circular saw blade. Also, I have taken old steel teeth blades and bent the teeth in alternating directions and come up with a convincing replication.
BAND SAWN
The band saw invented in 1808 in England was the next method of turning logs into usable lumber. It was slow to catch on as the initial metallurgical demands on the blade, a seamless loop of thin steel, was unable to withstand tension and forced to keep the blade from breaking. By the 1870s though, large scale bandsaws were becoming common in the United States' sawmills. It had the advantage of less wood waste and took less power to operate due to a thinner kerf that the width of cut the blade makes.
A band sawn board is quite different in comparison to the circular saw board. Instead of the repeating arcs, you have a series of straight perpendicular to the grain, high and low ridges. This method of milling has become common for small milling outfits with the popularity of portable wood mills by manufacturers like WoodMizer.
