Hewing

Casual hewing in the woods, 2024

Before industrialisation, hewing, and later pit-sawing, were the most common way to convert timber into beams. It consists in laying and fixing the selected trunk on bearers or tressels, marking the edges of the the future beam and using different types of axes, sometimes adzes to turn a tree into a multiple-faced beam.

With the increasing struggle of globalised industries, hewing has the potential to become more and more popular. It reduces the intermediates in between you and the tree, allows for curves and specific surface finish, and in some cases, ends up being cheaper than traditionnaly milled timber which is suffering from supply shortages. If the trees are well selected, a trained hewer can convert at least 2 trunks into two 6"x6", 4 meters beams in a day.

Notre Dame de Paris

For the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, french architects and historical monuments decided to reconstruct the roof as it was built nearly 800 years ago. Lots of european and even american timber-framers have been involved to hew the beams for the roof trusses, timbers ranging from 4 to 10 meters long. Many small companies in France used the very welcomed opportunity of paid-hewing, to turn the work into an international hewing gathering.

Usually, the carpenter works each of the four sides at a time. He does notches and splits the wood in between the notches with a felling axe and finishes the surface with a finishing axe.

Casual hewing in the woods, 2023 and still going :) Blog post