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Riving, a Viking-age woodworking technique
- patrickyeon 8y agoA while ago, I ended up watching a video about making roofing shingles using hand tools, which uses the same technique, but on only ~footlong logs. https://youtu.be/UZA1J8RHltY?t=555 https://youtu.be/UZA1J8RHltY?t=555
- DannyBee 8y agoIf you want to scare yourself some time, watch the shingle sawyers do this with power tools. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDKYGoIoukg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDKYGoIoukg
- jaggederest 8y agoThat's interesting, but riving them with a shingle axe looks faster to me. At least the guys I've seen do it. And there's no wasted material, or very little at least, compared to a saw kerf. (An example here, not using a shingle axe but a froe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FjpmFwVLtM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FjpmFwVLtM )
- defen 8y agoI had to stop when it got to the guy casually smoking a cigarette and manipulating logs while not looking as they came out of the 2-foot-diameter spinning blade of death.
- DannyBee 8y agoThere's a video somewhere that's even worse, where the guy is also doing the 2 foot diameter blade by hand as well instead of it being autofed.
- jonnycomputer 8y agoI rather like this video. I aspire to chop so well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fWo0P0MdJM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fWo0P0MdJM
- oh5nxo 8y agoThe wood looks like somewhat dried aspen, not the worst to chop. Not to dismiss her skill, at all.
- yborg 8y agoI would imagine this wood-working technique wasn't unique to the Scandinavians. For one thing, a wedge is much simpler to make than a saw.
- timmytwotime 8y agoTo your point: a saw is really just a series of sharpened wedges
- trhway 8y agonot 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.
- jeromenerf 8y agoFrench have a word for people producing wine barrel material: "merrandier". A "merrandier" will select trees (usually straight oak of a certain age), put them down and to size (the logs are then called "merrain", hence the name), split them using wedges, along the grain, them resplit using a froe (called "départoir", which is just a dull blade with a lever), then refine the smaller bit using a specific tool (called "queue d'hirondelle"). The resulting bits will be send to the barrel maker to be shaped into staves (called "douelles"). Riving is at the heart of the process, and is meant to provide longevity in resistance and impermeability.
- GlenTheMachine 8y agoThis 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 know whether they used wood blanks. It's also used today by "green woodworkers" - woodworkers who specialize in building using non-dried wood. This mostly includes chair makers, but also some others. You can buy riving tools from a lot of places. Lie-Nielsen makes a very nice riving froe. You can also find antique ones at almost any antique woodworking tool show.
- vinceguidry 8y agoThe article was hosted on hurstwic.org, which is a website dedicated to teaching Viking martial arts. It does not claim that riving is purely a Viking technique. I suppose it could have mentioned that, but I doubt the author ever considered their article making it to the front page of HN.
- metaphor 8y agoAhh, makes sense why the author would make such a sadistic comparison: Making a few cuts with the axe into some of the oak logs on the site made me realize that a leg bone would be no match for this axe.
- TimTheTinker 8y agoSadistic? 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.
- geoffpado 8y agoI think he meant sadistic purely in the context of woodworking, not in the context of military.
- pavel_lishin 8y agoI wish the photos were bigger - as someone who has no idea about woodworking, it's hard to tell what's actually going on in some of them.
- curtis 8y agoPlanks created by riving can have a triangular cross-section rather than a rectangular cross-section. The first picture at http://lumberjocks.com/MattNC/blog/37466 http://lumberjocks.com/MattNC/blog/37466 is a good example.
- dfc 8y agoYou can create "rectangular boards" by riving too.
- evasote 8y agohttp://www.greenwoodworking.com/RivingArticle http://www.greenwoodworking.com/RivingArticle Jennie Alexander, an amazing woodworker who just passed away last week, wrote on this topic extensively. Check out her books 'Make a Chair from a Tree'
- xbryanx 8y agoHer profile on Lost Art Press is a fantastic read: https://blog.lostartpress.com/2017/05/25/meet-the-author-jennie-alexander/ https://blog.lostartpress.com/2017/05/25/meet-the-author-jen...
- csours 8y agoFun fact, this is the same root as Riven.
- wnoise 8y agoOr rift.
- arnarbi 8y agoIn 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 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/middle_voice
- koverda 8y agoReminds me of a scene in "Happy People", a documentary about life in the Russian taiga, where the hunter fashioned a pair of skis by splitting a tree. Link if you're interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cPhWpprLmM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cPhWpprLmM
- legulere 8y agoThe word ski even etymologically comes from a split piece of wood. The cognates in German (Scheit) and apparently also Icelandic (skið) and English (shide) actually still mean that. (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/skīdą https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic...)
- agumonkey 8y agoI wonder if there are people revisiting non powered 'machinery'. Instead of using your hands directly (which are probably super inefficient), why not make rail to guide the force ?
- ommunist 8y agotwo-handed tools guide the force pefectly well
- ProxCoques 8y agoSee also this technique in the making of an English longbow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68L7n5Shd3I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68L7n5Shd3I
- jkraker 8y agoIf you want to go down the rabbit hole on cool old school woodworking techniques, check this out: http://www.pbs.org/woodwrightsshop/home/ http://www.pbs.org/woodwrightsshop/home/
- NightlyDev 8y agoRiving(rive) means tearing or splitting in Norwegian and English. The word comes from Old Norse and is commonly used in Norwegian, but I didn't know it also was an english word. To me "I couldn't open it, so I had to rive it." sounds like Petter Solberg(known to mix norwegian and english) trying to speak english. "It's not the fart that kills, it's the smell" (fart meaning speed in norwegian, and smell meaning crash)
- samstave 8y agoso would "rivendell" mean to "split a forest" or something along those lines?
- danielvf 8y agoA “dell” is a valley usually surrounded by woods, in English usage. I don’t think it means forrest.
- wyattpeak 8y agoSplit valley[1]. The "deep valley of the cleft" reconstruction in the article feels a bit forced for Tolkien, but I can't see immediately that they weren't his words. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivendell#Etymology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivendell#Etymology
- KozmoNau7 8y agoThe Danish translation is "Kløvedal", literally "cleaved valley".
- bagacrap 8y agoIf it is a word in English outside of a wood working context, it must be obsolete. I don't think you'd have much luck being understood if you slipped it into casual conversation.
- shriphani 8y agoI 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.
- exDM69 8y agoHow 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.
- jeromenerf 8y agoGreat 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 axes.
- exDM69 8y agoYeah, 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.
- shriphani 8y agoI have used a bunch of carving axes - nothing matches the gransfors.
- lstodd 8y agoYou need wood that'd fit into your stove but only have (maybe fallen) trees around? Well, duh. That's what you do. You cut it to the convinient length, take an ax and split 'em. The crafts and stuff grow from that. How do you think boards were made before sawmills? I mean, really, people were building log cabins for thousands of years before vikings. How do you think the logs were cleaned of bark and brought to more or less uniform diameter for that? This same technique and instruments.
- Gustomaximus 8y agoThe modern equivalent still common in Australia and probably other countries where you turn one log into 5 fence posts: https://youtu.be/rILXrWcav_Q https://youtu.be/rILXrWcav_Q
- oh5nxo 8y agoFunny, 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?
- lostlogin 8y agoI’d be wanting chaps at a minimum. Kickback with cuts like that must be easy to achieve.
- Gustomaximus 8y agoNot 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.
- ommunist 8y agoWhy wouldn’t he split dry log?
- exDM69 8y agoI do this kind of woodworking as a hobby. A lot of the material I use has been riven or split from firewood or yard trees. I mostly use dry or half dry wood, but sometimes also green stuff. It is a bit time consuming, but not that much when I take into account that I don't need to be transporting stuff to a sawyer and back home, then to a shop with jointers and planers and whatnot. I can do it all in my home shop with a handful of tools whenever I want. Here's a gallery of a firewood project I made for a contest earlier this year: https://m.imgur.com/gallery/TCgqd https://m.imgur.com/gallery/TCgqd