Well that is something I never thought I would be asking.

 

We are redoing our kitchen and I took out a few walls. My home is a Ranch with trusses, BUT we get a poke of snow here in Maine and I will feel a lot better if I could get some beams up over a 24 span in my remodeled and opened up kitchen. I thought the hand-hewn look would be better than bandsawn beams and wondered how long it would take me to hand-hewn some beams. So yesterday I got some Spruce logs and tried it. I did not have a Broad Axe so instead I did it with a Collins Pole Axe. I never was a fan of the Collins axe anyway as they tend to be a bit thick behind the blade, but in 2 hours I had made an 8 foot round log into a square beam. Another hour had the beam squared up with a plane. I did not think that was too bad.

 

Overall I have five beams to make:

(1) 8x8x8 ft long

(2) 4X8x8 ft long

(2) 8X8X12 ft long

 

I figure with a day spent per each beam I should be able to get the job done with that hand-hewn look I am after. It would be much faster I think with a broad axe, but I have to use what I got. At least the wife approved of the rustic looking beam anyway.

 

http://www.traditionalwoodworker.com/Broad-Axe-American-Pattern-Biber-Classic-Hand-Forged-in-Austria-by-Mueller/productinfo/367-7505

 

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My job is to give my kids things to discuss with their therapist

That is quite the broad axe though maybe a bit more than I would want to spend. I might talk to a guy at work though, he builds knives and swords and we can purchase steel at work for scrap iron prices. As you can imagine, US Navy warships have some of the strongest steels in their hull so I got access to some really hardened steel. I am not sure if the blacksmithing would take some of that strength out or not, but I can envision building a nice, tough, sharp broad axe so thanks for the link.

I also took some pictures while I was hewing my second beam, one of the 4x8 inch beams. As you can see from the pictures, its not really that hard. I had this one hewn out in an hours time, but planing it square to all four faces took another hour or so. Overall it is time consuming, but the beams do look nice in my home, and that is what counts.