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Riving, a Viking-age woodworking technique

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Re: Riving, a Viking-age woodworking technique

#81

Post by exDM69 »

jeromenerf wrote: post #78
exDM69 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the Granfors axe? I'm considering getting a right handed broad axe from them, but it is quite expensive. I have their froe and it seems to be great. I'm contemplating either buying one from them or going to a blacksmithing course in Estonia to forge one myself. The price is about the same but doing it myself would give me new skills and experience.

Great all around products from my experience. They look and feel good, they are easy to sharpen, take a good edge. Most axes are made for green woodworking/soft wood and using them on hard seasoned wood may work and dull the edge fast though. Hultafors, wetterlings and husqvarna also produce similar products in quality, sometimes cheaper. Granfors has a broader offer, when it comes to specialty tools, such as bearded…

Yeah, there are lots of options for splitting mauls, forestry axes and camping hatchets but the only right handed (bevel on one side only) broad axe I've found is the Granfors.

If you happen to know cheaper quality alternatives, I'm all ears.

Re: Riving, a Viking-age woodworking technique

#82

Post by scoggs »

mitchell_h wrote: post #61
scoggs wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

first up, awesome post! I grew up in much the same way(i'm 35, from lower middle class/upper lower class). If it was at all possible to do it our selves, we did because didn't have much choice. Today I live on a hobby farm and I still use all the same things I learned back when. i keep a hefty stock pile of "junk" for re-purpose and have rebuilt most of the building, motors, and tools I have. I've got 2 sons and they…

Haha, that's awesome and a hobby farm sounds fantastic. It's great you get to pass on the skills to your two sons. Just know, they might not understand it now, but one day even if they don't verbalize it and especially in the world we are in today, your boys will really be grateful for the knowledge they got from watching / working with you.

Re: Riving, a Viking-age woodworking technique

#83

Post by bachbach »

CPLX wrote: post #26
321yawaworht wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you guys come from? How do you know all this stuff? It's so interesting and I'm often surprised at the diversity of knowledge, experience and backgrounds on HN. For even the most esoteric of subjects folks here will have interesting input. I love to try and experiment, and like people who are passionate about things. Just wanted to get it off my chest. I love this place and it makes me appreciate life and it…

If you're at all into woodworking it's just a matter of time before an evening in the YouTube rabbit hole leads you to riving, or Alaskan chainsaw mills, or Wood Mizer demo videos, or silent Japanese guys that are wickedly good at joinery.

I'm going to put a plug for the Fine Woodworking and Fine Homebuilding magazines and websites here. They both also run excellent podcasts filled with inspiration and advice.

No connection to either, but they're institutions.

Inspired by Fine Homebuilding I'm setting out this summer or autumn to construct this building:

http://www.rodneydiaz.com/garden-shed/

If you've any desire to build your own house, accomplish a DIY or other wood built project - I have an especially good tip here.

Go to Amazon.com and search for "Fine Homebuilding on" or "Fine Woodworking on". These are incredible repositories of hard won knowledge on a specific topic for often literally $0.01 per issue.

The real benefit of all this wood using culture is though - is that you can say to yourself "I think I could do that" and this is invaluable.

Re: Riving, a Viking-age woodworking technique

#84

Post by shriphani »

exDM69 wrote: post #73
shriphani wrote: post #44

I recently acquired a gransfors bruks axe for a sculpture I was working on - and I have discovered a newfound love for scandinavian woodworking tools. My arsenal is almost entirely Japanese but I might convert over the next few years.

How is the Granfors axe? I'm considering getting a right handed broad axe from them, but it is quite expensive. I have their froe and it seems to be great. I'm contemplating either buying one from them or going to a blacksmithing course in Estonia to forge one myself. The price is about the same but doing it myself would give me new skills and experience.

I have used a bunch of carving axes - nothing matches the gransfors.

Re: Riving, a Viking-age woodworking technique

#85

Post by monochromatic »

tripletmass wrote: post #63
monochromatic wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Riving is the right way to start if you’re making your own dowels too.

Rive first, true the dowel later; use a trivial cylindrical hydraulic cavitation method, extract dowels...only what trivial method was that again? Packing group twice, cavitate once mon. I suppose you take off your ring and stick it on one side of the branch, push it with a series of hardwood staves while a friend brakes the stock so that a density minimum always appears true, ahead of the ring, and then continue unt…

What?

Re: Riving, a Viking-age woodworking technique

#86

Post by metaphor »

geoffpado wrote: post #28
TimTheTinker wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadistic? Ancient armies regularly hacked at each other with these battle axes, along with swords, spears, and other sharp weapons. It was as normal as guns are today.

I think he meant sadistic purely in the context of woodworking, not in the context of military.

Correct.

I own a table saw and have been working with wood as a matter of practical necessity for the past several months while renovating a home; this article wouldn't be the first time I've stumbled upon the term riving in the context of woodworking.

So when a 17-image photojournal describing a manual woodworking procedure concludes with a battle axe pose remarking on its ability to chop through a leg bone, the prose struck me as aggressively misplaced. I mean table saw and chain saw accidents are relatively commonplace and surely claim a fair number of limbs every year, but the efficiency of a woodworking tool in its misuse case isn't typically paraded as a metric of merit...unless you're an organization dedicated to combat training...then the prose makes complete sense.

Re: Riving, a Viking-age woodworking technique

#87

Post by metaphor »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #36
geoffpado wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he meant sadistic purely in the context of woodworking, not in the context of military.

I thought he or she was calling severing a leg with a battle axe sadistic (which I disagree with, depending on the context).

Given what I believed to be strict woodworking context and before GP shined light on the combat training mission of the host organization, that's exactly what I was thinking. I hadn't realized that the intent of the photojournal was to demonstrate manual riving as a means of fabricating a weapon handle.

Re: Riving, a Viking-age woodworking technique

#88

Post by TimTheTinker »

metaphor wrote: post #86
geoffpado wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he meant sadistic purely in the context of woodworking, not in the context of military.

Correct. I own a table saw and have been working with wood as a matter of practical necessity for the past several months while renovating a home; this article wouldn't be the first time I've stumbled upon the term riving in the context of woodworking. So when a 17-image photojournal describing a manual woodworking procedure concludes with a battle axe pose remarking on its ability to chop through a leg bone, the pro…

Thanks for explaining. I appreciate the reply and respect your position, though I still don’t quite agree.

Re: Riving, a Viking-age woodworking technique

#89

Post by GlenTheMachine »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #75
GlenTheMachine wrote: post #4

This is an interesting article, but riving is not specifically Viking. It was the primary method of producing workable wood blanks from tree trunks in every civilization that used wood blanks. Which is to say, it was used all over Europe and Asia (at least), for at least the last 2000-plus years. I'm not as familiar with the woodworking traditions of Africa or pre-European-contact North or South America, so I don't k…

> It's also used today by "green woodworkers" - woodworkers who specialize in building using non-dried wood. What's the advantage of that technique?

The wood is stronger, as stated by several post above, because the wood fibers are intact all the way through the piece. This is important for chairs in particular, because they take quite large stresses for their size and weight. Apparently green wood is easier to carve as well - I don't have direct experience of that. And finally, it can be steamed and bent. That's how you get the curved wood pieces in chairs.

Re: Riving, a Viking-age woodworking technique

#90

Post by Gustomaximus »

oh5nxo wrote: post #67
Gustomaximus wrote: post #62

The modern equivalent still common in Australia and probably other countries where you turn one log into 5 fence posts: https://youtu.be/rILXrWcav_Q

Funny, I'm always knee deep in long shavings when cutting that way, much shorter knotty lumps which won't split with an axe. Matter of wood, or special chain perhaps? Birch, pine, spruce and normal cutting chain&teeth, in my case. Or maybe there is a non-obvious technique?

Not an expert but I'd suspect it's your timber choice. The specific tree is also important as you want a clean and straight trunk.

I'm Australia based so usual timber for this is; iron bark, jarrah, blackbutt and red gum. We have pine but I've never seen it used as split posts. Only round posts that have been treated.

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