The Armour Archive

I found this clip on the web via http://perkelesblog.blogspot.com/, it is apparently from Finland aka Barony of Aarnimätsä I belive from 1920-1940 of an old man doing traditional woodworking with a knife, an axe and perhaps a saw.
In black and white with no sound but I belive the skill speaks for itself.

It might serve as some kind of inspiration on how to do these kinds of crafts as an A&S

http://vstr1.nebula.fi/?id=5790585-1252 ... 40&a=1&p=1

Jesus, Mary and Joseph...

More proof of the old adage, just because you can't do it, doesn't mean they couldn't.

That kind of effortless mastery of making something real and tangible is why I got involved in all this in the first place.

Also, since I don't read Finnish, it's an awesome game of "what's he making now" with the answer slowly becoming easier.

I figured out what he was making at the 5:00 mark, pretty neat.

MY guess is that this was during the Depression. We employed a number of people to do ethnography during that period, and the Smithsonian recorded a bunch of traditional music, etc. People were realizing that a lot of the traditional stories, music, and crafts were dying and would be lost if they were not recorded.

According to my finnish speaking SCA friends this was made in 1938 by some finnish students of etnography as part of their exam/ thesis.
Unfortunately no sound recording device was availible.

The 1930's saw a great flourishing of ethnological research as part of the resurgence of nationalism during that time. Unfortunately some of it was directed by pre determined conclusions; but we are still lucky to have the basic documentations on things many of which were lost over WWII. (Or as I tell my students "ignore their conclusions, look carefully at their pictures!")

I have a books on European log construction as well as blacksmithing and even "The Double Edged Sword of the German Migration Period" (at least this is how I translate the German title) that dates to that time.

Actually while looking up how to properly sharpen an axe I saw some amazing modern videos of people doing similar things. As I recall a guy took a log, knocked it down to a few pieces and knocked out an axe handle with just a small axe in 30 minutes. These type of arts are not lost they are just practiced by small crowds.

Using Google tranlate ( http://translate.google.com/#fi|en| ) I got these translations, some of the words I split to get the results

viitakeinu (viita keinu) refers to a swing
mankelointi ironing
vittakytkyin ? kyt means coupling
nuija cudgel but we'd call it a maul
haastattelu interview (with the old woman)
kirvesvarsi axe in (axe handle)
jouluarkku Christmas coffin (box)
pärereki ? toy sled?
puukkopäreet ? puukko päreet is knife shingles, but he is making wooden splitting wedges first before the shingles
plotkapyssy ? pyssy is gun and it does function sort of like a pop-gun
makkaratikku sausage stick he makes a bundle of skewers
kukonjalka cock's foot- the rod with all the curls on it Christmas tree decoration?

Vittakeinu - vitta refers to vitsas that is those twisted branches he uses for tying the thing - keinu - swing.
mankelointi - well, ironing but without iron
vittakytky - again that twisted braches thing used ropelike, to tie something together - so kytky here would be something like leash
nuija , yes here a mallet
pärereki - shingle sled, yes a toy
puukkopäreet - yes knife shingles - seem to be roofing shingles and he also shows how they should be nailed to the roof - he told the guy filming how to get the biggest number of shingles possible from piece of wood and also that th thinner they are the less prone they are to rotting
makkaratikku - sausagepins - used for between the sausages if I am not mistaken, not as skewers
kukonjalka - cocks foot - a mystery, I suppose it is a decoration since he mounts it on crosspedestal

I haven't been able to watch it all, but I pretty much had to tear myself away. It was riveting. It never ceases to amaze me at how enthralling watching someone of great skill can be.

Thanks!
Christopher

The ironing, of all things, is what blew me away.

Anyone's interested in the knife he had in the beginning, it's called a puukko knife, and still carried in Finland as, essentially, the national pocket knife. I make them occasionally:









There's a few I've made.

Those are spiff, Hivemind. The design looks just about as multi-functional as a knife blade can be.

Thanks!
Christopher

Oo, pretty things!

So pretty the wife took the bottom one for a kitchen knife...

I've watched my dad turn trees to cabins with just a few hand tools.... but nothing so refined.

It's a dying art. This is why I love Roy Underhill so much. Reading/watching his stuff makes me think twice about reaching for a power tool when a hand tool is actually easier in the long run.

(The downside of power tools is that when they go right, they make work easier... when they go wrong, however, they tend to ruin stuff FAST)

Go to the blog page listed in the first post. Scroll down till you see "birth of aspen" and watch it.

When I was pulled in as a metals consultant on a viking boat project I noticed that they were using modern powertools when it was a lot easier faster and less dusty to use traditional tooling---a sharp drawknife beveled the ends of strakes faster, *quieter* than a belt sander!

(I was able to solve their annealing issue with the tremont nails being used as rivets by annealing them in large batches so they would cool slow enough to get soft too)

Maeryk wrote:Go to the blog page listed in the first post. Scroll down till you see "birth of aspen" and watch it.

I've read speculation that the predecessor to the more familiar clinker-built longboat was built exactly like that punt. A large dugout for the keel, with essentially clinker sides.

I've wanted to make one since I was a teenager. *sigh*

Thomas Powers wrote:When I was pulled in as a metals consultant on a viking boat project I noticed that they were using modern powertools when it was a lot easier faster and less dusty to use traditional tooling---a sharp drawknife beveled the ends of strakes faster, *quieter* than a belt sander!

(I was able to solve their annealing issue with the tremont nails being used as rivets by annealing them in large batches so they would cool slow enough to get soft too)

That reminds me, yesterday I was in a used book store& saw a couple very large books& thought of you, they were titled "Iron Age" and they were published in 1917, they appeared to be some sort of book on the production of Iron products, from what I could see in a quick flip through, one was for the first part of the year& the second was from July to December. each volume was ~4" thick.

I don't suppose you'd be willing to look up their phone number?

Thomas, you've got first dibs...

Destichado wrote:I don't suppose you'd be willing to look up their phone number?

Thomas, you've got first dibs...

I have her number stored in my cell, so that isn't a problem, she is closed on Mondays though.