Hand-hewn texture?

[Jamie Buxton]

Eric Disilva's link has pics somewhat like the texture I have in mind. Okay, those are more structured than I'm thinking, but the idea is there: scallops in the surface of the wood, well-enough cut that they are the finished surface. A scrub plane would make long troughs in the surface, and isn't what I have in mind.

[Jamie Buxton]

Jamie, using an adz is not all that difficult, much easier than it seems before you try it. The adz has a compound curve, and you use that curve to control your cut. For skim cutting you cut closer to you so that the angle of attack is less, and cut farther out for deeper cuts. Its easy to master, and you can practice on a log.

Besides, Its fun....

Larry

Larry, have you actually done this kind of surfacing with an adze?

Here's how I'm visualizing it... I'm holding the adze by its handle. As I swing it, it and my forearm are pivoting on my elbow. If I move my elbow a sixteenth inch closer to the surface, the scallop I take out of the surface is a sixteenth of an inch deeper. This seems to me to be a problem. I think the scallops should be roughly the same size, so movement of my elbow more than a few sixteenths would be bad. I don't think I can control my elbow position that precisely. For comparison, if I hammer a nail, which is the same motion, sometimes I hit the nail exactly on the head, but often I hit it a little off center.

[Greg R Bradley]

I'm assuming that you are after the Adze textures shown in the Barker Manufacturing samples, particularly #11, 21, 31, 41. Any plane with a fixed blade is going to give you grooves, not adze scallop shaped "divots". I'm not knowledgeable about a scrub plane but assume that has to do the same. Any electric plane would do the same even if you could figure out a way to curve the blade. Actually the Festool HL850 with the adze style head would do that also if you didn't rotate the depth adjust as you worked.

What makes the HL850 unique is that it has a calibrated depth adjuster that you can easily adjust as you work. You can simply rotate the front handle and plunge 3.5mm down and then roll it back to zero. This lets you create the scallop shaped "divits" that look like adze marks. They also have fine and coarse grooved style heads. In each case the head is a massive chunk of aluminum with the correct shape so the blade is well supported and won't chatter.

In addition you have to realize that the typical electric planer is pretty crude, similar to a $20 hand plane sold by the BORG that you didn't sharpen or adjust. These are just barely useful for most uses and require a bunch of skil to function at all. The Festool planers are a completely different class of machine. They are heavy, stable, smooth, and don't chatter. The bigger one is more specialized and adds the extra head capabilities.

Here is a pic of the three rustic heads and the patterns that they leave:
ho_hl850_574521_a_08a.jpg

[Jamie Buxton]

I'm assuming that you are after the Adze textures shown in the Barker Manufacturing samples, particularly #11, 21, 31, 41. Any plane with a fixed blade is going to give you grooves, not adze scallop shaped "divots". I'm not knowledgeable about a scrub plane but assume that has to do the same. Any electric plane would do the same even if you could figure out a way to curve the blade. Actually the Festool HL850 with the adze style head would do that also if you didn't rotate the depth adjust as you worked.

What makes the HL850 unique is that it has a calibrated depth adjuster that you can easily adjust as you work. You can simply rotate the front handle and plunge 3.5mm down and then roll it back to zero. This lets you create the scallop shaped "divits" that look like adze marks. They also have fine and coarse grooved style heads. In each case the head is a massive chunk of aluminum with the correct shape so the blade is well supported and won't chatter.

In addition you have to realize that the typical electric planer is pretty crude, similar to a $20 hand plane sold by the BORG that you didn't sharpen or adjust. These are just barely useful for most uses and require a bunch of skil to function at all. The Festool planers are a completely different class of machine. They are heavy, stable, smooth, and don't chatter. The bigger one is more specialized and adds the extra head capabilities.

Here is a pic of the three rustic heads and the patterns that they leave:
ho_hl850_574521_a_08a.jpg

Yeah, that surface at the rear of the pic is what I've been thinking about.
Your comments about why the usual cheap planer can't do that make sense to me.

[Jim Matthews]

Here's a video suggesting the method - machine prep, adze finishing.

She's cute, too.

Not so cute is Peter Follansbee on choosing a hatchet.
He demonstrates the position for cutting with a shorter stroke.

If the project is large, I would want to do it with a longer handle.

I

[Dave Carteret]

+1 on a sharp adze and ten minutes.

Simulating this seems dodgy, to me.
It's like making new furniture appear old or "distressed".

Why not just perform the task by hand, as the finishing step?

I have to agree. If you want the look of something that's hand hewn, then do it by hand.

Built some kitchen cabinets for a friend. They wanted a knotty pine, hand hewn look. Well, the "rustic cabinet" shop they were looking at would take a smooth, round-faced rail/stile and make it look hewn by running a handheld electric planer over it. With only a little more work, I could actually take a rough board and plane it down to the right size & shape, leaving REAL planer marks in it.