Sawing Logs

The time has come to cut off the extended ends of the big beams under the deck. We'd had a few discussions about how to do it, and what sort of shape we wanted them in, and finally settled on a simple angled cut done by handsaw.

Noel used a pretty simple method to make sure each cut is the same. He took a couple pieces of scrap wood (in this case leftovers from the stair construction) and clamped them on at a set angle (in this case he just used the angle in the scraps).

Then it was just a couple of hours of sawing away at the beam.

When I came out near the end of the process, he had supported the beam on a stack of scrap wood to keep it from breaking off as he got to the bottom.

The cut came out pretty cleanly, considering it was done by hand with a fairly dull handsaw. I need to take a look at the saw and see if I can sharpen it.

I was actually lobbying for the curvy edge, but the angle looks very nice, and will pretty much disappear once the deck sides are done and the landscaping is in.

I think it's pretty interesting how the pressure treatment got into the wood. You can see that it penetrated a lot deeper on the outside edge of the wood.

Only three more ends to cut off. The hard one will be the one by the stairs, where it won't be possible to make a nice long smooth stroke with the saw.

posted by ayse on 06/02/12