Several months ago, Durham Urban Forestry decided that our remaining willow oak did not need to come down yet and could get by with a trim (mostly just one large limb). While it was partially rotten and had a lot of twist to it, I was able to make this small hewing bench and shaving horse. Other than some yellow pine I used for the vise uprights on the horse, everything is made from the larger pieces trimmed from the tree.
The hewing bench is basically a convenient place to use a hatchet for rough shaping of green wood. Unlike an upended stump, it only presents cross grain so the axe will not get stuck. The area around it also shows why I really did not want to do this in my tiny shop anymore. There are two 3/4" holes along the back for when I need to use a holdfast.
This is an English bodger’s style shaving horse—I did not have enough wood to make a German dumbhead style as was commonly made in NC. It turns out that it is really hard to make staked legs for a shaving horse this without access to a shaving horse, so they were just shaped with a broad hatchet. The fulcrum is three position adjustable for different sizes of stock. This also has 3/4" holes in a line on the back, but I have just been putting pegs in them to push against when I use it like a saw horse.
The hewing bench is basically a convenient place to use a hatchet for rough shaping of green wood. Unlike an upended stump, it only presents cross grain so the axe will not get stuck. The area around it also shows why I really did not want to do this in my tiny shop anymore. There are two 3/4" holes along the back for when I need to use a holdfast.
This is an English bodger’s style shaving horse—I did not have enough wood to make a German dumbhead style as was commonly made in NC. It turns out that it is really hard to make staked legs for a shaving horse this without access to a shaving horse, so they were just shaped with a broad hatchet. The fulcrum is three position adjustable for different sizes of stock. This also has 3/4" holes in a line on the back, but I have just been putting pegs in them to push against when I use it like a saw horse.
