Adzed Finish?

[Eric DeSilva]

I saw, a little while back, some cabinet doors that were hand adzed maple--no frames, just panels. Beautiful overall effect, especially since the cabinets were curved. Then again, it was the high end donor's lounge for the American Indian Museum in DC. Aside from the obvious answer of "become a master adzer and buy a sharp adze," anyone have any idea of a possible way of creating a similar effect using... say... power tools?

[george wilson]

If you want to see some astonishing sdze work,go down to the Mariner's Museum in New Port News,Va.,and look at the large Alaskan indian dugout boats. These are large ,about like Viking ships,made from huge cedar trees. They have the smallest,most precisely cut adze marks I've ever seen. It's been a long time,but I think the cuts are about 1/2" X 2",and so even they look almost like short thickness planer marks that overlap.

[Brian Kerley]

Ball mill in an air grinder? That might give you a similar effect. Angle grinder with cutting wheel and dish the surface out? Power planer probably wouldn't let you do it

[sullivan mcgriff]

Very small scrub plane ? or sharpen a beat up cheapo chisel convex and go at it.

[Rick Lizek]

Hand power planer and modified curved edge blades. We do it off and on with custom timber framing. Also do real adze worked timbers as well.

[Jamie Buxton]

Rick's got the power tool answer. Festool even sells special blades for their power planer to do this job. However, it does take some skill. Maybe not as much as the muscle-powered adze, but...

[Eric DeSilva]

Thanks for the ideas. I think I even have an old bosch hand planer... I'll have to see who might custom cut knives for it. Since its kind of useless for anything else, probably worth a go...