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.
So are you a timber framer, Implume? I certainly won't claim to be experienced myself. But if you've spent much time in that community, you're well familiar with what a nicely done hewn timber should look like, and I agree that sometimes it's heart breaking what happens in the name of "rusticness" (or is that "rusticity"?). We've got some old timbers that we use as examples of hewing, and people don't believe it was done with an axe until you shine a light at it sideways, to bring out the scalloped shape of each cut.
Back in that day, people were building homes and barns for their grandchildren, and the practical workmanship is astonishing.
