Reclaimed wood joists are rough-sawn material originally used as supports below floorboards in homes and barns. But hand sawn dating hand hewn beams marks will be irregular in the curvature and will not be neatly parallel to one another. So if all this talk of reclaimed wood makes you yearn for your own piece of history, visit Superior Hardwoods and let us guide you through the woods, dating hand hewn beams. The marriage marks in the photo were on rafters in a Poughkeepsie home built in about and repaired in the 's by the editor [DF]. Please let us know of any length requirements needed for your job.
Pit Saw Kerf Marks
InspectAPedia tolerates no conflicts of interest. We have no relationship with advertisers, products, or services discussed at this website. This article describes and illustrates different types of marks found on old wood boards and beams:. adze and axe marks, dating hand hewn beams, hand sawn lumber, mechanical pit-sawn lumber, circular saw cut marks, and modern planed or sanded smooth dimensional lumber.
We include a table of modern dimensional lumber nominal and actual sizes for kiln dried and treated wood. We include research citations assisting in understanding the history and development of the mechanically-operated reciprocating saw or a mechanical and often portable replacement for the hand-operated "pit saw". We also provide an ARTICLE INDEX for this topic, or you can try the page top or bottom SEARCH BOX as a quick way to find information you need.
Generations of types of adzes, axes, broadaxes and saws used in cutting beams, and similar details are readily available on many buildings. The marks left by these tools offer both clues to building age and wonderful aesthetic detail. Below, in rough chronological order, we illustrate different types of saw and tool cut marks in wood: adze cuts, hand sawn pit saw marks, mechanically-operated pit saw marks, circular saw marks, and unmarked, planed modern dimensional lumber.
We discuss the visual comparison of adze marks, axe marks, hand sawn lumber, mechanical pit sawn lumber, and circular saw mill cut lumber and boards.
Timber frame construction initially used hand hewn beams, cut roughly rectangular by an adze and axe. Later timber frame construction used sawn beams and still later wood frame construction used sawn sills, studs, joists and rafters, dating hand hewn beams. Photo at page top: pit saw kerf marks on a sawn beam in a home in Cold Spring New York. Hand hewn beams, chopped and then sized with an adze and axe were used in North America from the 's into the late 's.
Our dating hand hewn beams above shows the scoring axe cuts and hewing adze cuts that are normally visible in the rough surface of hand hewn wood structural beams. The tool marks on the antique beam shown here were most likely made using an adze or a combination of a broad-axe and adze, dating hand hewn beams. The flattening was not done with an axe alone, as we can see the smooth surface left by the adze on some of the beam's surfaces, dating hand hewn beams.
An understanding of how hand-hewn beams were cut, for example, can permit the careful observer to not only recognize the type and age of building framing, but even to understand just where the worker was standing when a blow from a tool was delivered to a building framing member. Using an axe, broad-axe, or broad-hatchet, or possibly only an adze, a hoe-like cutting tool with wooden offset handle, the worker would make make a series of cuts along the round up-facing surface of a log.
For those who had one, a chalk line was used to mark a straight line along one or two sides of the log to guide the cutting, and the scoring cuts would be made to about the depth of the line.
With a chalk line or more likely working just by eye, the worker most often used a broad-axe or a broad hatchet to make the cuts into the log surface. Rough scoring cuts may have been as far as two feet apart along the log surface, and were not made to the full depth of the string line or sight line that represented the desired flat surface of the finished beam.
Between these scoring cuts dating hand hewn beams wood would be chipped out by prying with the edge of the scoring axe or hatchet. Additional scoring cuts closer to the final cut-line might be made using the broadaxe or broad hatchet or possibly the adze itself, followed by additional chipping. In a final series of cuts, dating hand hewn beams, the sharp adze or more often an axe, broad axe or broad hatchet was used to cut away the curled "chip" of rounded log surface cut and then the surface was "planed" by the adze.
The axe cut was made at the base of the chip of wood cut and lifted by the adze. In our photo of a hewn beam above, the vertical cuts across the height of the log face red arrow are the cuts that were made to remove the chip, while the scalloped green arrow or split orange arrow rectangular face cuts are the marks left either by the adze blade or by the splits in the wood surface when the adze-cut chip was removed. You can see by the fact that some of the cut surfaces are smooth that the hewing cuts were made by an adze.
A skilled worker might use a sharp broadaxe to cut on-the-flat along the log surface to flatten it to its final face when no adze were at hand; in that case we might see smooth but more rounded-scalloped cuts, or cuts that were angled into the wood and thus less-flat along the beam surface as the axe blade could not be swung absolutely parallel to the beam face where the blade of the axe or hatchet flattened the beam surface to the final cut-line.
More often in Colonial America the final beam facing was performed using an adze to smooth the surface. Had the chips just been split out of the dating hand hewn beams not see such flat, smooth cuts parallel to the beam dating hand hewn beams on the log face as are left by the adze.
This detail offers a very personal connection dating hand hewn beams the age of a building and to its past construction. You can actually place yourself where the worker stood to swing the tool. When pairs of individual timers are joined to one another with custom-fitting cuts to match their individual irregularities, most likely the European scribe rule procedure was being followed. All of the timbers were pre-assembled on the ground, scribed using a metal awl to make cut marks so that the joint would fit tightly, a hand auger bored holes for the treenail or wooden peg, and reference marks were made on each beam or post end to show the proper connection points during assembly.
You can see some of these marriage marks on the sawn beams in my photo below. Typically the marriage marks or numbers were cut as combinations of straight lines to form roman numerals. The marriage marks in the photo were on rafters in a Poughkeepsie home built in about and repaired in the 's by the editor [DF]. Square-rule construction ended the practice of custom-joining each pair of beam or post ends by cutting and joining timbers or other wood members using a uniform or standard joint shape and dimension.
As with later mass-production this allowed any two ends dating hand hewn beams beams or posts to be joined together, making the numbering of mating post or beam ends using marriage marks unnecessary.
While I've read that Square-rule construction became dominant in North America bydating hand hewn beams, I'm doubtful about how widespread it was at that time, given the many barns or other structures we date to later than that era that still used marriage marks on their posts and beams.
The timber framing shown in our photograph at above below is from an Colonial home in Dating hand hewn beams, NY. You can see this house. Hewing logs into beams may be older than is commonly assumed, as there is certainly prehistoric evidence that people made adzes for various purposes including farming and possibly wood-hewing. But generally experts date hand-hewn beam construction to the 's in Europe, and in North America from the early 's into the mid 's, extending even to modern time by some craftspeople and timber framers.
Later beams were sawn manually or mechanically by a manually operated vertical pit saw, ultimately by machine-powered pit saws and circular saws. Timber framing using post and beam construction with mortise and tenon joint connections was used in Europe for at least years before it was first employed in North America.
On older wood materials that were not later planed or sanded smooth, we find at least four types of saw cut marks as illustrated above. Below we include photographs of each of these types of saw cuts or kerf marks. Dating hand hewn beams note of the shape and regularity of saw cuts or kerfs can tell us the type of saw used to produce the lumber or beam and can give a clue to the age of the wood. Where rounded or arced saw marks are present we can measure the arcs to estimate the size of the circular saw blade - another clue to the age of the lumber itself.
In Colonial North America, at least in the northeast where water power was available, water powered sawmills were in common use as early as when water powered sawmills cut logs into planks for colonial homes. By the middle of the 19th century and perhaps 20 years before the U. Civil War, thousands of sawmills were in operation in more urban areas. Nevertheless, in frontier areas where sawmills had not arrived, people continued to build homes and other structures from logs or rough-hewn logs as we described above.
The saw cuts visible by flashlight on this sawn beam form an irregular "vee" shape, a clear indicator that this beam was cut by hand using a two-person pit-saw, dating hand hewn beams.
Our photo shows a hand-sawn pit-saw cut beam or plank. Hand-sawn planks and beams are marked by straight saw kerf cut lines that include intersecting angles marking the "up" and "down" cuts made by the sawyer who stood on top of the log the "up" cut or beneath the log in the pit the "down" cut. This beam was cut before mechanical saws were available, but after hand-hewn beams or raw logs were in common use.
Above: a pit-sawn beam examined at Brinstone Farm, St. Weonards, Herefordshire, dating hand hewn beams, UK. Buildings in dating hand hewn beams area date from the 's and hedgerows or other field markers, dating hand hewn beams, paths and roadways date to Roman times.
The relatively straight saw kerfs that change angle across this beam argue for this beam having been cut on a hand-operated pit saw. We can contrast these saw marks with the mechanical pit saw which followed, then with circular saw marks, and later with planed dimensioned modern lumber of two generations.
We include illustrations of these markings and surfaces below. Our photo above illustrates a wood member cut on a machine-operated mechanical pit saw.
In comparing the saw cut marks on this lumber with the hand-sawn wood above, you will notice that the saw kerf marks are all vertical across the wood, all parallel, and quite regular in spacing. Depending on the location, mechanically-operated pit saws were in use as early as in New Yorklater in locations further west in North America. Above: vertical parallel saw kerf marks on wood lath of a plaster wall found in a home built in in Poughkeepsie, dating hand hewn beams, New York.
Unlike the hand-cut pit saw marks in our photo above, a mechanically-operated pit saw leaves vertical saw kerf marks that are parallel as the pit saw blade was moved consistently and vertically while the log was pushed slowly through the saw machine. Also see WOOD LATH for PLASTER or STUCCO. I am curious to know about the saw marks on some redwood lath boards taken from a home built in the 's's.
The saw marks make an "x" on the face of the lath. I have joined several pieces dating hand hewn beams and sanded them but not so much as to remove the saw marks. My home is made of old growth redwood with the exception of the framing. I often wondered how the larger boards and beams were cut. I regret not being able to save more of of the lath but the only way to have done so would have been to strip it off, and then reattach. However I have been able to make some nice small projects with it.
MCL, Those X-shaped saw kerfs, had they been both straight and in an X with a more-acute angle would probably have been cut from a human-powered pit saw; but on closer analysis, nearly all of your wood's saw kerf marks appear to have some arc or curve that I will explain. And it's perfectly common to see a mix of saw blade marks on lumber in an older building; lumber may have been reclaimed from an earlier use or it may simply have been stored and mixed at the saw mill.
Dating lumber by saw kerfs has to be adjusted not only for the country in which the lumber was cut but even the area of the country, dating hand hewn beams.
For example in the U, dating hand hewn beams. and probably in Canada, powered pit saws, and later powered circular saws were in earlier use on the east coast of those countries than further west or on the west coasts. The West Coast also had powered saw mills before communities in the center of the dating hand hewn beams including water-powered circular saws and possibly water-powered pit saws.
John Reed, the first Anglo-Saxon settler in Marin was an Irish settler from Dublin b. constructed in the 's by John Reed, grantee of the Rancho Corte Madera del Presidio.
The creek waters furnished the motive power for the mill, which was the first in the San Francisco Dating hand hewn beams region to supply lumber. It would be very useful to know the dimensions of the sawn wood in your photos; otherwise we are not sure how reliably we can distinguish between a "straight" or "angled" pit saw blade kerf mark in wood and the marks that might be left if we're looking a a narrow perhaps just 1" wide wood strip that was sawn and then back-sawn using a large-diameter circular saw blade.
Earliest pit saws used a straight blade that moved in an alternating but straight line up and down - pulled and pushed by two workers, dating hand hewn beams, one standing on the log and another in the pit below the log - producing an X-type saw kerf, dating hand hewn beams. Those blades sometimes had a slight arc themselves, so even a pit saw blade kerf may not be dead straight - it might have a very slight arc, but the set of kerf marks in the wood will be parallel and for a hand-operated pit saw, they form an acute X-cut as you'll see above on this page, and the cuts are not spaced at very regular intervals.
Later pit saw blades including one I found in Cold Spring New York, were mechanically driven, perhaps by water power; those blades at least those I have seen were straight and produced fairly straight, dating hand hewn beams, parallel saw.
Arc-shaped saw kerfs are from a large circular saw blade or even from a smaller one - we can't say without knowing the size of the wood or having some measurement reference on your photos. But it is the case that in many communities smaller-diameter circular saw blades were in use well before those very large four-foot-diameter fellows like the antique inch blade we show blow Early circular saw blades were small and were used to cut lath and framing studs; those leave a curve that has a smaller radius or a "sharper arc" if you like.
Later saw blades got quite large; we've seen some several feet in diameter; dating hand hewn beams leave an arc with a much greater radius. Our photo above shows a inch diameter saw blade dating from the early s, dating hand hewn beams, for sale on ebay July by a vendor in Riverside California, dating hand hewn beams.
Where you see more than one set of arc-shaped saw kerf marks on a board the board was run through the saw mill twice; typically that was done for more-accurate sizing or occasionally to further smooth the wood. I've annotated two of your photos and will post it here and later up in the article above on this page. Thanks for the great photo examples; we'll keep some of these with the article as nice examples.
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Longer lengths are not a problem at an additional cost. The original color is a mix of browns and grays and can be washed to a more consistent tan color. For fireplace mantels, we detail sand all exposed sides and cut one side flat for installation against a wall or ceiling.
Original mortises or notches can be filled upon request. Mantel ends are cut square to the requested length and polished. Matching corbels in a variety of sizes and shapes are available upon request as well. The material is a mix of hardwoods, which the original builder would have harvested from the original forest adjacent to the building site.
The beams are usually square — 6×6, 8×8, 9×9, etc. and are typically hand hewn on four sides containing the original mortise and tenon holes and pegs. The beams will have an existing gray or brown patina which can be lightly sanded to reveal a rich brown patina just below the surface.
To process the mantels, we typically cut the back edge flat and straight, cut the beam to length and polish the ends, and lightly sand the exposed sides. Any mortises that are included in the beam, will be patched upon request.
Custom corbels can be cut to go along with the mantel as well. If you would like to do the labor yourself, you can place an appointment to select the timber from the yard. the upper framing is that there are no mortise holes in sleepers. Log cabins also have the same types of logs. Lengths can be up to Email: jcwoodworking oldreclaimedwood. Email Address. To try to revive an understanding and adoration for wood seems as hopeless as trying to bring back the horse and buggy. But to revive the eloquence of those times is indeed worthwhile.
Store: Route , Perkasie PA Reclaimed Barn Beams …old world appeal with new sustainability. Sawn Beams Sawn beams have a smoother finish. Mostly available with the original hand hewn texture while circular sawn and live edge beams are also available. The original color is a mix of browns and grays and can be washed to a more consistent tan color. We typically detail sand all exposed sides and cut one side flat for installation against a wall or ceiling.
Original mortises or notches can be filled upon request. Antique hand hewn barn timbers are our most popular beam product and are used extensively in jobs both contemporary and rustic. The beauty of the original hewn texture and patina simply cannot be duplicated. The material is a mix of hardwoods which the builder would have harvested from the original forest on or adjacent to the building site. The beams are usually square, hand hewn on four sides and contain the original mortise and tenon holes and pegs.
Being squared up by hand, each side of each beam and each individual beam is unique in texture. The reclaimed barn timbers will have an existing gray or brown patina which can be lightly sanded to reveal a rich brown patina while also keeping the original texture. The mortise pockets can be filled for an additional charge if requested. Sizes range from approximately 5×5 to 12×12 with occasional larger sizes available.
Originally used as sleepers or wall logs in the barns, these beams were flattened to a certain thickness by hand while the remaining two sides were left with the original live edges untouched. One live edge is usually cut off to be more consistent in width and installed up to the ceiling or wall.
The beams will have an existing gray or brown patina which can be lightly sanded to reveal a rich brown patina while keeping the original texture.
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