Tom Dunlap
With my wood a hatchet doesn't work, I tried. THe joint pounding is more than I will put myself through.

When I used my chipper knife drawknife to clear off wood I tried using my electric planer to finish the log. It took off wood but the finish was terrible. Better results came from starting with my 3x21 belt sander, various sanding discs in my 4" and 6" angle grinders as well as my dual action palm sanders.

The hardest and most mundane part of this whole project is hogging off the bark. Getting that dialed in will move these projects along.