Riving, a Viking-age woodworking technique

I'm not OP but if (s)he's / they're my age or older (young 30's) we grew up in a time where, depending on where you lived and how much money your family had growing up, knowing these non-technical (in a computer / digital sense) skills was more of the norm. Think "handyman" skills.

I grew up in a household where my father worked in the cement industry. He made nearly all of our furniture, made a full deck in the back yard with an overhang out of wood, as well as created an entire 9.5' deep x ~35' long kidney bean shaped cement pool (something similar to this: https://i.imgur.com/i6eW9UM.jpg ) with a few of his buddies. Beside a cement mixer coming to do the initial pouring everything else was done by hand or with hand tools. I'm still in awe when I see the pictures (developed film in a physical album) of the entire process from start to finish. A grassy hill was turned into our family's happiest and most fun spot on our property all while I was an infant still. I would have loved to be old enough to have helped with that and just thinking about it gets my juices flowing!

Often when he wasn't working he'd have This Old House on the television (started in 1979. The VERY BEST wood working / handy man show NO CONTEST including anything that has come out since) and that'd usually spark off a new ideas for projects and after a trip or two to the local hardware store I was always his day laborer-type-helper. I carried boards on my shoulders, many-o-paving stones, dug many holes, held many things in place, wheelbarrow'd heavy things endlessly, carried buckets full of all sorts of materials, learned how to use every hand and power tool, and banged my thumb many times trying to drive in nails.

Any chance he had he avoided calling construction workers or any other type of service industry for help / to hire because he not only had the skills to do most things himself but he truly enjoyed the hobby of wood working and the craft of being a handyman, so to speak.

I'm really and truly grateful (especially these days) that I grew up admiring him and the type of things he did / liked to do. Just having grown up with that kind of role model and being able to soak up the skills, knowledge, and thought process behind a litany of different handy man skill sets come in handy at least once a week in my life. Also, having grown up slightly before the time when computers just started to become something for the average home, I was exposed to that side of things early and often as well.

The reason I bring all of this up is because my first and longest job I ever had (working with elementary school aged children, 5-10 years old, for an after school / summer camp program at the school I went to growing up) I got to see, first hand, how younger generations (through the kids that I took care of and in the later years via my younger co-workers) may have missed the type of exposure I had to "handy man-type things". Many friends I made at college and in my adult life never got into that type of stuff and would need to make a call to some sort of professional every single time anything more complicated than a light bulb burning out happened. I realized that I was lucky to have had that exposure and those skills and I realized that not everyone else was lucky enough to have had the same.

Being handy saves me money, allows me to customize all sorts of things for myself and others, gives me much more wiggle room when it comes to giving gifts since I can create and modify them, allows me to re-purpose all sorts of things to extend their usefulness, and generally be the type of person others can count on when shit goes down. It also allowed me to work part time jobs of the construction variety or similar things when I was in college and just out of college starting my own web development business when I needed to make sure I had enough money to cover my ass.

I find myself feeling really bad for younger generations that didn't have exposure to that type of life before everything became computerized and digital but I was ignorant in thinking it was only people younger than me. Not everyone is interested in that type of thing even when they have the chance to be exposed to it but looking back on it all now I wouldn't change a thing. I feel like I got two lifetimes of skill sets having grown up and come of age at the time where computers hadn't fully taken over yet and having hands on skills was the norm. I put both to use constantly and just having those skills to draw from has helped raise my value in the eyes of my employers and co-workers countless times and in ways I'd never have suspected going into a gig.

I'm not sure what else I was trying to get at but I'm always thinking about this stuff and rarely find the opportunity to try and explain where my head's at in terms of these topics. But, just like you, I'm in awe of the specific and sometimes very rare skill sets and hobbies HN community members tend to have. I love seeing that passion in general. Something about it reminds me of my passions and I get exactly how they feel even if I don't understand an iota of what they are doing / talking about. It's almost like a shared language of love for a hobby / task / skill / skill set / way of life. Everyone can see and feel that genuine type of love for something and it translates to all corners of the Earth (and now internet ;) )!

In Icelandic "rífa" is the common verb for "tear" (as in tearing things apart). Its plural middle voice [1] form is "rífast", literally "we tear ourselves", means to have an argument (as in a disagreement, not logic).

[1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/middle_voice

If you want to go down the rabbit hole on cool old school woodworking techniques, check this out: http://www.pbs.org/woodwrightsshop/home/

I rather like this video. I aspire to chop so well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fWo0P0MdJM

not exactly - saw makes the cut moving along the line of cut while axe - perpendicular. The significant point of difference here is that axe/wedge/etc. thus presses closed the vascular structure of the wood in the area of the cut, while sawing leaves it open - the result is that cut wood is easier to permeate by moisture.