30-11-2011, 04:42 PM
Hello Col, I used to up end all the hardwood boards as they came off the saw and let them stand for a few days to skin off before stickering them, I mainly used Sitka Spruce for my stickers as my sawmill was predominately a softwood mill, you have to be carefull with freshcut Sycamore as the colour is easily tainted by tannin or prolonged damp.
Green oak framing is a different ball game to todays carpentry, I have worked mainly on oak roofs and "A" frames/trusses also ceiling beams, we found the French beaming oak to be the best as the French really know how to manage their oak hardwood stands. Worked in The Channel Isles doing the green oak for a friend of mine, he speeks good French and knows the oak sawmill owners in France, we had the oak delivered to St Peter Port on an old French fishing boat !
The tools required are pretty basic, 1.5 & 3" chisels (like razors) hammers (steel & skin) one very large rubber sledge hammer ( nicknamed the pursuader) a chain saw a mid power concrete breaker (will explain)
A beam plane ( 12" Makita electric planer) sometimes a curved plane (6" Makita electric curved planer) beam morticers, chain not chisel ( Makita & Maffel) a good hand circular saw (Festool, the best) a large hand 20" circular saw (Maffel, amazing saw) and a good 3 or 4" electric hand plane a good selection of hand planes rebate, bullnose, jack etc. a good square (we used a "Japanese Square") and a good sharp chalk or ink line.
The only sucsesful way to mark out green oak beams is to snap a center line on the best face and take all measurements for other center lines, marking joints etc from that line, that way the joints will fit even if the beams have a bit of twist in them.
Some mortices especially on a low pitch A Frame can run to a considerable depth and are quite wide (3 to 4" on 9 to 12" stock, you can't do the slant cut for them with the average beam morticer, not even from both sides, a Holtzer might do it but thats ten grands worth, the answer...use a Bosch mid size concrete breaker, they come with a 3" concrete chisel amongst others, this chisel can be wetstone ground and then honed to 25 degrees, result...one 3" very sharp wood chisel that fits into a hammer breaker, it slices through the end grain of oak like nothing else, I used to remove bulk stock with this to within about a mil or so of the joint lines then a few strokes with a hand chisel to the line and the jobs all done.
Somewhere I have a few photo's of some oak framing handywork, if I ever find them I will post them up.
Lawrence.
Green oak framing is a different ball game to todays carpentry, I have worked mainly on oak roofs and "A" frames/trusses also ceiling beams, we found the French beaming oak to be the best as the French really know how to manage their oak hardwood stands. Worked in The Channel Isles doing the green oak for a friend of mine, he speeks good French and knows the oak sawmill owners in France, we had the oak delivered to St Peter Port on an old French fishing boat !
The tools required are pretty basic, 1.5 & 3" chisels (like razors) hammers (steel & skin) one very large rubber sledge hammer ( nicknamed the pursuader) a chain saw a mid power concrete breaker (will explain)
A beam plane ( 12" Makita electric planer) sometimes a curved plane (6" Makita electric curved planer) beam morticers, chain not chisel ( Makita & Maffel) a good hand circular saw (Festool, the best) a large hand 20" circular saw (Maffel, amazing saw) and a good 3 or 4" electric hand plane a good selection of hand planes rebate, bullnose, jack etc. a good square (we used a "Japanese Square") and a good sharp chalk or ink line.
The only sucsesful way to mark out green oak beams is to snap a center line on the best face and take all measurements for other center lines, marking joints etc from that line, that way the joints will fit even if the beams have a bit of twist in them.
Some mortices especially on a low pitch A Frame can run to a considerable depth and are quite wide (3 to 4" on 9 to 12" stock, you can't do the slant cut for them with the average beam morticer, not even from both sides, a Holtzer might do it but thats ten grands worth, the answer...use a Bosch mid size concrete breaker, they come with a 3" concrete chisel amongst others, this chisel can be wetstone ground and then honed to 25 degrees, result...one 3" very sharp wood chisel that fits into a hammer breaker, it slices through the end grain of oak like nothing else, I used to remove bulk stock with this to within about a mil or so of the joint lines then a few strokes with a hand chisel to the line and the jobs all done.
Somewhere I have a few photo's of some oak framing handywork, if I ever find them I will post them up.
Lawrence.
