Where to get hand hewn post/beam?

jeepinmatt

jeepinmatt

#1 WEBWHEELER
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Mar 24, 2005
Location
Stanley, NC
I'm looking for an old hand hewn post to use in our house construction, roughly 8"x8", with a 10'4" minimum length. Just need one. Anybody know where to get one or have one laying around? It will be load bearing so it needs to be in pretty good shape. I'd really like to find one this week. Thanks in advance.
 
We had several old beams from a barn I helped salvage at my old job. I dont think any were that long, but I will stop by tomorrow and take a look.
They were all really nice chesnut beams, planned on using them for mantles.
 
I bought all the exterior wood (log siding, false corners, and live edge siding) for my log cabin/shed from Boone Custom Forest Products. I paid extra to have all the log siding and false corners hand hewn to give the proper authentic look. They have a guy they use that they outsource the hand hewing to. I am VERY happy with the product that I got. I can take some pictures tonight of their work if you like. I only have pictures of the building from a distance which do not show the hand hewing very well.

boonecustomf
 
a_kelley said:
DIY. Slab a log with a saw slightly over size, then make your hew marks with a adze or hatchet. Skip tooth rip chain ftw. Screw some 2x to guide the bar, and go to town.
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I'm seriously considering this, especially since I have wood laying around to do it with. But anything I make will not be dry enough, and I worry about dimensional changes and cracking (and it taking me a month to actually get it done).
 
Seriously, check with local saw mill guys. They might get you a log of whatever or have 8x8 rough sawn already. Not sure what a board foot goes for now. I have made log home logs from bigger logs, and hand hewn the finish. It's actually relaxing to me. I did it with a 19" log saw, ten " circular saw, and electric hand planer set for bear. Oh and hatchet for the hewing, adze would've done much much better finish. Took about 8-20 hours per log start to finish. Memory fuzzy on that.
 
My thoughts would be to use a 6x6 post and wrap it with a decorative 1x. That way your structure is something that can be designed and sealed, if calcs are needed. Same goes for the beams. LVL or dimensional, wrapped.

Something like this:

Rustic Hollow Wood Beams & Posts Wraps | Hewn Elements
 
Tobacco Pine Reidsville
336 616 0003
They have a Facebook page with a little info. They salvaging out old tobacco sheds. Some serious ruff cut posts & beams. Good source for roof tin. $1.25 a foot last I saw.
 
@a_kelley

Yep, they can do that because they can control and test the lumber they use in them and design around that. There is probably some engineer out there that would design a beam off a 1000 year old piece of timber, but good luck finding who that is. Our sizing software works off of published values for common wood species used today but we can only get a calc sealed for the engineered lumber we stock at our lumber yard.

Down in the back woods where Matt lives, this might be less of an issue. Mecklenburg county wants almost everything engineered nowadays
 
broncosbybart said:
My thoughts would be to use a 6x6 post and wrap it with a decorative 1x. That way your structure is something that can be designed and sealed, if calcs are needed. Same goes for the beams. LVL or dimensional, wrapped.

Something like this:

Rustic Hollow Wood Beams & Posts Wraps | Hewn Elements
Click to expand...

The beams in our living room are made like that. Three pieces of roughly 1" thick wood screwed together, then the guy hand hewed it some, and stained them. Everyone who comes over thinks they are real beams.
 
If you want to do a fake beam let me know and I’ll put you in touch with the sascho rep. These are some samples he brought by the office for us.
But it may take him a little bit to get them done.

960d93cb935b6331745cf8f22d3390ac.jpg
6279bea7536399ea8301b9441d4b33ef.jpg



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
broncosbybart said:
@a_kelley
Down in the back woods where Matt lives, this might be less of an issue. Mecklenburg county wants almost everything engineered nowadays
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Shoot, over here in little Mecklenburg, our property taxes are almost as high, and our building inspections department is probably worse. I may live in the woods, but they are trying to drive me out!
 
Then use a lvl/stock material and wrap with fascia and call it a day if inspectors are all about it being stamped. Plus they you can take months to finish it with no worries :)
Edit: grrr why does everything convert ASCII faces to icons. It irritates the crap out of me.
 
jeepinmatt said:
Shoot, over here in little Mecklenburg, our property taxes are almost as high, and our building inspections department is probably worse. I may live in the woods, but they are trying to drive me out!
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Just wait 'til this upcoming appraisal cycle. Rumor is that tax valuation is going to be significantly higher than the last cycle (last cycle was widely criticized for undervalue).
 
a_kelley said:
Wait, what? Isn't that standard MO? Values can only increase, never decrease.
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That's true, but Meck supposedly undervalued the last one so there may be an abnormal jump instead of following what would be the normal trendline, as the last appraisal was off the trendline. The tax value and market price have nothing to do with each other around here anyway, so I'd rather the tax value stayed low.
 
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Derail..........

Fabrik8 said:
That's true, but Meck supposedly undervalued the last one so there may be an abnormal jump instead of following what would be the normal trendline, as the last appraisal was off the trendline. The tax value and market price have nothing to do with each other around here anyway, so I'd rather the tax value stayed low.
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I just wish they didn't steal from me in the first place. Sells tax, income tax, property tax, capital gains tax....and Every governmental fee known and made up. I get we have to fund stuff. But they don't budget like an honest household or spend. Inflated government is just an excuse for legalized theft in the form of taxes.........all the way to small towns....
 
Fabrik8 said:
Just wait 'til this upcoming appraisal cycle. Rumor is that tax valuation is going to be significantly higher than the last cycle (last cycle was widely criticized for undervalue).
Click to expand...
Wait. What dumb SOB "criticized" the undervalue?
 
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