I put an addition onto someone’s house once. She wanted the ends of the exposed beams extending past the walls to the barge boards to look chopped. “As though somebody had used an axe on them.”

I did what she asked, but it was embarrassing. I could have used my rig axe to make a nice smooth cut—something that looked like properly dressed timber. Instead I haggled the beams in a most uncraftsmanlike manner. She looked at them and said, “Make them rougher.” Sigh. I was glad to be done with that job.