
Riving, a Viking-age woodworking technique - sea6ear
http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/manufacturing/text/viking_woodworking_riving.htm
======
GlenTheMachine
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 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.

~~~
321yawaworht
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 its peculiarities more. When I was in high school I
dreaded only observing greasy nerds interested in techy stuff. It's been a
while but HN has really shown a different side of the world to me.

Thanks!

~~~
CPLX
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.

~~~
mcenedella
Links??!?! :)

~~~
dredmorbius
Youtube search is actually pretty good. Toss in the terms suggested.

~~~
yellowapple
I'm having a bit of a difficult time finding relevant results for "silent
Japanese guys that are wickedly good at joinery" on YouTube; the results tend
to leave out the "silent" part.

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evasote
[http://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
Her profile on Lost Art Press is a fantastic read:
[https://blog.lostartpress.com/2017/05/25/meet-the-author-
jen...](https://blog.lostartpress.com/2017/05/25/meet-the-author-jennie-
alexander/)

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exDM69
I 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)

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NightlyDev
Riving(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
so would "rivendell" mean to "split a forest" or something along those lines?

~~~
wyattpeak
Split 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)

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patrickyeon
A 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
If 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)

~~~
defen
I 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
There'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.

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jkraker
If 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/)

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koverda
Reminds 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
The 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...](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-
Germanic/skīdą))

------
curtis
Planks 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
You can create "rectangular boards" by riving too.

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csours
Fun fact, this is the same root as Riven.

~~~
wnoise
Or rift.

~~~
arnarbi
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](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/middle_voice)

------
ProxCoques
See also this technique in the making of an English longbow:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68L7n5Shd3I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68L7n5Shd3I)

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lstodd
You 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.

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pavel_lishin
I 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.

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Gustomaximus
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](https://youtu.be/rILXrWcav_Q)

~~~
oh5nxo
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?

~~~
Gustomaximus
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.

------
shriphani
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.

~~~
exDM69
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.

~~~
jeromenerf
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 axes.

~~~
exDM69
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.

------
agumonkey
I 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 ?

------
yborg
I 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
To your point: a saw is really just a series of sharpened wedges

~~~
trhway
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.

