Skills

Sawing

Sawing horse

A simple, fixed sawing horse can be made of round wood as shown below. This holds the wood at a convenient height for safe and easy sawing. The off-centre legs allow different lengths to be easily cut. The legs are driven a short way into the ground to hold the horse steady. This is suitable for sawing wood up to about 130mm (5”) diameter.

Alternatively, by adding diagonal braces, a moveable sawing horse can be made, of similar dimensions.

Peeling

Note the following:

• Where wood is converted into products with the bark off, peeling is usually best done immediately after felling, before stacking or extraction and conversion. Once the sap dries, the bark holds more tightly and peeling becomes difficult. Wood with bark on is more likely to be damaged by insects.
• Do not peel wood on steep slopes, but extract to level ground first.
• Occasionally, as when round ash poles are to be made into hay-rake handles, only some of the bark is peeled off to begin with. This slows down the rate of seasoning and reduces the chance of splitting.
• Waste bark left at the peeling site may enrich the soil as it decays. Take care to site peeling operations where they will not harm interesting woodland flora, or remove the bark for disposal elsewhere. Composted bark makes a useful mulch for use around newly-planted trees.

Large logs and poles

Specialist de-barking spades or peelers are available from suppliers of forestry tools. As a substitute, you can use a worn spade with a well sharpened edge. To peel a log:

1. Trim off larger branches cleanly, with a light axe. You can cut through small knots with the peeler.
2. If the pole has a kink or curve, peel the bark with the pole in its unstable position first. It is much easier to steady the pole in this position before the bark on the other side has been removed.
3. Stand facing the pole about 1.8m (6’) from its butt end. Hold the peeler in both hands with your knuckles on top.
   
4. Make long, sweeping push strokes with the peeler, running the blade off the end of the pole at each stroke to remove the bark. Peel three quarters of the way around the circumference of the pole.
5. Turn and peel the stem in the other direction. If you have trouble using the tool ambidextrously, step over the pole to use it in a more comfortable position from the other side.
6. Continue peeling until you reach the tip of the pole. Turn the pole, and work back toward the butt, taking off the remaining strip of bark.

Small poles and rods

The shaving brake holds small round wood at an angle of about 30˚, which is comfortable for working. Approximate dimensions are given for an average height adult, but the brake should be made to fit the individual user.

Stand as shown, pulling the draw-knife towards you. Longer poles can be reversed in the brake to shave the other end.

Cleaving

Cleaving, also called riving or splitting, is one of the oldest woodcraft skills, and has several advantages over sawing:

• Cleaving is the quickest way of dividing a pole lengthways.
• Unlike sawing, cleaving does not cut through the wood cells, and so the face of the split pole or ‘cleft’ is more durable than a sawn pole. There is also less wastage, as sawing removes a groove of wood, or ‘kerf’.
• Cleaving exposes any weaknesses in a piece of wood, so the best pieces can be selected for particular uses.

Note the following:

• To learn the skill of cleaving, start with a clean straight pole of about 130mm (5”) diameter and 1m (3’) long, which should split evenly. Longer, thinner poles, or those with knots and bends are more difficult to split straight. Freshly cut ash, hazel, willow and chestnut are the easiest woods for cleaving. Any dried wood will be difficult, but elm, hornbeam, box and apple are particularly tough.
• Always start with the thin end of the pole, as the thick end is the tougher to split.
• Split between any knots, rather than through them.
• Make the split through the pith, which on an evenly grown pole will be in the centre. The pith of an uneven pole will be off-centre, and splitting will be more difficult. Uneven stresses in the wood will also result in warping.
  
• The general rule is always to split the wood in half, and then in half again until you get the size you want. If you try to split unequally, the split tends to run off in the direction of the smaller part.

Cleaving large poles or logs

Cleaving large poles should be done with a sledgehammer and wedges. Wear goggles to protect your eyes in case a wedge gets chipped. Avoid trying to split logs with many knots, as these will not split easily or cleanly. Inspect large logs carefully for cracks, as you can use these when inserting the wedges.

1. Lay the pole on a hard surface. Two other poles placed side by side make a good support and hold the pole steady.
   
2. Tap in a wedge lightly, so that it stays in position, about 30cm (12”) from the end of the pole. Use a sledge or lump hammer. Then hammer the wedge in farther with the sledge to open up a split part way along the pole.
3. Hammer a second wedge in further along the split.
4. Continue to add wedges in line as necessary until the split extends to the far end of the pole.
5. Hammer in the wedges in sequence to cleave the pole.

Cleaving short logs

This method is suitable for logs up to about 13cm (5”) diameter and 60cm (2’) long, or for larger logs which have first been split by the method given above.

1. Stand the log upright on a block or other flat surface.
2. Position a cleaving axe or hatchet exactly across the pith, to split the log into two even halves.
3. Using a wooden mallet, hit the back of the axe to start the split.

By cleaving a pole in different ways you can produce pieces of different sections. In the diagrams below the numbers show the order in which the sections are cleft.

When cleaving a 17cm (61/2”) length of pole into 12mm (1/2”) squares for hay-rake tines, wrap twine around near the base to keep them from falling apart as they are split.

For further details on making pales, paling fence, tent pegs, rake tines and many other products see Tabor (2000).

Cleaving medium-sized poles

The cleaving or riving brake is used for applying leverage in order to split medium-sized round poles. It has two horizontal bars with space between them to allow a piece of wood to be put under tension. The horizontal bars are not parallel, to allow a range of sizes to be held, from about 25mm (1”) at one end, to about 150mm (6”) at the other.

To use the brake:

1. Place the pole to be cleft upright in the brake so that it is held by the angle of the brake. Place the pole small-end up.
2. Place the froe exactly across the pith of the pole, and strike the back of the froe blade with the mallet to open up a split.
3. Once the split is well started, position the pole into the gap between the horizontal bars, as shown. Continue the split by pressing down on the froe handle, levering the pole open. For larger poles, insert a piece of wood in the crack to keep it open, then remove the froe and put it in further down the crack.
4. As it splits, pull the pole towards you. Try to keep the pole in a position so that the point at which the split is just starting is directly over the point of leverage.
5. If the split starts to move off-centre, turn the pole so that the larger section is underneath. Push down on this section with your left hand and push downwards with the froe to bring the split back to centre. The split tends to travel towards those wood fibres which are under tension – in this case, those which are curved downwards by the pressure of your hand.

Hazel rods for hurdles and other products are split in a different way.