Logs can be worked with an axe or an adze but the use of chainsaws presents its own advantages and its own skills for producing things out of logs other than firewood. Even with these tools, this should be considered a labour intensive hand craft.

Note that the use of a chainsaw is inherently dangerous. Appropriate safety precautions, gear ( chaps, steel capped boots, helmet, face mask ) and training should be sought before putting saw to wood. If you are unfamiliar with the safe methods of chainsaw use, please start here and also enroll in a local chainsaw safety course.


The first technique is cutting a simple flat sided notch . This is simply two angled cuts in the log which meet partway through the log, cutting a wedge out of the wood. This cut is familiar to log fellers though, of course they are not following a line. Cutting the sides of the notch to a fixed angle or to a premarked line and having the two cuts meet exactly is a skill.

The notch is used in log building in at least two different places. A rough notch is cut in each end of the log when positioning the log on the wall before final scribing and the notch cut is also useful when initially cutting out the wood for the final scribed notch ( this notch precisely fits the saddle of the log below it - more on this later). In log building, usually you are following a line when cutting.

In the rough notch, the objective is to cut as closely to the line as possible, leaving some of the line on. ( Here the line represents a 'rough' scribe used to drop the log closer to the one below it, as well as preventing it from rolling - preserving the angle is the most important factor ). When using this cut to begin an actual scribed notch, the cut stays as close to the line as possible but never going over it as here the line to which you are cutting is an actual scribe line to perfectly fit the log below it.

 Here's the same technique now being applied to an actual scribed notch. Notice how much more carefully this one is being cut. In addition only 1/2 of the notch is cut from each side, so a total of 4 cuts is used just to define the outer edges. If the scribe is such that the lines would not meet, then multiple cuts are made so that the wood can be knocked out within the scribe lines.