Hewing the traditional way in Finland

TW · February 17, 2012, 03:16:05 PM

Theese pictures show how I do when I hew logs. This method was used in most of Sweden and Finland in the old days.
The broad axe has bewels on both sides and a very thick blade. This particular one is made by a factory called Billnäs Bruk in southern Finland. Single bewel broad axes are almost unknown here.

TW · February 17, 2012, 03:23:34 PM

Broad axe

This picture shows the technique when a wall is hewn smooth after stacking.

Normally wall logs were rough hewn on the ground and when the walls were stacked they were further hewn smooth.

Jim_Rogers · February 17, 2012, 04:39:38 PM

Thanks for sharing.

ChrisGermany · February 17, 2012, 04:52:35 PM

Thanks for sharing, TW. Love seeing how people from other countries and/or past times hew timber.

What tool do you use for peeling your logs?

Bill Gaiche · February 17, 2012, 08:48:16 PM

Welcome. Nice photos and it is intresting to see what other people do with there timber, bg

WDH · February 17, 2012, 10:24:07 PM

Excellent! That is a labor of love, for sure. The old folks did not have portable bandmills

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TW · February 18, 2012, 02:13:30 PM

The bark knife is uppermost. I sit on the log stradling it and push or pull the bark knife.

The tools below are a caulking iron and two log scribes.

Fallguy · February 18, 2012, 08:27:21 PM

TW do you hew the log while it is still green? If so why not hew the log with the bark on?

TW · February 19, 2012, 01:04:26 PM

The logs are green of cause. I remove the bark because a chalk line is not visible enough on spruce bark. Some old-timers apparently hewed un-barked logs. I have been told that some old-timers tacked a straight batten to the top of the log as a guide and this may well be the explanation why they did it.

ChrisGermany · February 20, 2012, 12:48:55 PM

I don't know how accurate anything on this page is, but it has some very beautiful images and a lot of information. Thought you might enjoy reading, if you haven't seen already:

http://www.hhogman.se/loghouses.htm

TW · February 20, 2012, 03:11:06 PM

The text seems fairly correct. A good introduction to our way of doing things. I live in a border region between Sweden and Finland where people speak an oldfashioned dialect of Swedish and refer to orselves as swedes while we live in Finland. The building tradition is also a kind of mixture of Swedish and Finnish features.

Cedaralaia · December 17, 2012, 06:40:27 PM

I was very excited to find this thread. It seems to be extremely difficult to find information about this type of broad axe in english. My interest in the piiluja stems from the one my uncle gave me that belonged to my great grandfather. He brought it with him to the USA when he immigrated from The Old Country (he was a Swede who came from western Finland). It was forged by his grandfather, that would be my great great great grandfather. I have a thread about it at http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/997531-Finnish-broad-axe-new-haft-and-hang?highlight=finnish+broad+axe if anyone is interested in looking at it.

Quote from: TW on February 17, 2012, 03:16:05 PM

The broad axe has bewels on both sides and a very thick blade. This particular one is made by a factory called Billnäs Bruk in southern Finland.

That looks like a real beauty of a piiluja. I would like to see more pictures of it if you wouldn't mind posting some. One of the few bits of information that I have been able to find on the net about these axes is a Billnäs catalog from 1928 that shows piilujas on page 11. Here is the link to the catalog http://digi.lib.helsinki.fi/pienpainate/secure/showPage.html?action=page&type=lq&conversationId=6&id=338807&pageFrame_currPage=11&pageFrame_currFrame=2

Quote from: TW on February 17, 2012, 03:23:34 PM

This photo almost brings a tear to my eye. Those are some beautiful axes. That piiluja on the bottom looks very much like mine. It would make me very happy to see it or a similar one in action. Does anyone know of any links to videos of this traditional type of Finnish broad axe in action. It doesn't matter what language.

One more thing. How sharp an edge do you put on them? I would think you would want an edge that is close to razor sharp for hewing.