![]() An adze is an evil spirit that takes the form of a firefly unless it is caught at which point it turns into a human and when in human form, it has the ability to possess others and cause their negative traits to heighten (for example it would make someone's jealousy intensify or increase bitterness) often those possessed by an adze would become witches or other malicious agents. Last edited by Tom M King 04-16-2015 at 7:42 PM.Users of this ability can either mimic the traits of the adze or are one, in the tradition of the Ewe people of West Africa. Once we got it over to the old house, I saw some places where the hewer of the original Oak sills had done the same thing, so we ended up with an exact match of texture anyway. It left a texture that I didn't really like, but the beam was going in a place where it would rarely be seen, so we said we'd go with it, and work on it with a gouge later. Gregory would get the adze caught in the wood once in a while, and have to lever it out. The beam came out of a standing dead Silver Maple, and was nice and dry, but not split all to pieces yet. The link below is one of my helpers using an adze on a replacement beam we made to match the others in a 1784 house. I know some people demonstrate an adze being used back towards their foot, but as many adze finished beams as I've seen, I've never seen any where the tool was used with the grain. The only reason I can think of that they bothered to adze the top was to keep from dulling the saw blade with a dirty side. They would have squared the log up on the ground in the woods, which made it easier and lighter to handle, and left all the mess in the woods to rot. Some were sawn on two sides, but about a third of them were hewn on one side. These particular ceiling joists were sawn out of hewn 8x8s. Occasionally you could see where he took a stroke a little too deep, and since the edges were below the surface, it tore out the grain a little on both sides. Most of the beams had the texture really smooth from a smooth adze operator. I showed him the telltale breakouts of grain, which proved the adze was used cross grain. He had always thought that an adze was used with the grain, and the operator used it coming back at his foot. And practice!įunny, I was in an 1847 house attic that I'm working on today with a Preservation Specialist. Make sure that tool is scary sharp before you start. ![]() I have used a hand adze a few times, and you are in for a real workout trying to match the finish on that cabinet. I bet the originals were smooth, not full of divots and scallops, because it was the *officers* dining hall, not a dingy barn for the common troops. They were made to go back and chew up their work and make it look like what the common conception of an adzed finish should be - rough. Which was not the case, because the finish off a properly wielded adze should be as smooth as a planed surface, given a skilled worker. They were chastised for using machined timbers. But the timber framers who did the job were told they did it wrong. When they commissioned the recreation of the building (the originals having been burned a very long time ago) they specified an adzed finish on the beams. Whilst visiting Fort George at Niagara-on-The-Lake I was asking about the woodwork (naturally) and the museum interpreter told me an interesting story about the ceiling beams in the Officers Mess.
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