Finnish/Earlier Scandi axes - Kirves

DeadboxHero said:
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A little trivia about this video from Marcus Lepola's blog:

"These films were filmed by Sakari Pälsi in 1936-1939. He filmed five films in total of different Finnish traditional crafts, games, fishing etc. The man making the axe-handle is Iivari Mattila from Renko, Finland. He was 80 years old at the time and he was also referred to as "The old man (äijä)from Rauhaniemen."


Bob

rjdankert said:
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Peeter Reeman is from Latvia,i thought...One of the original members of John and Jacob Neemann...

A Fantastic smith by any parameters,used to make these superlative-quality timberframing/Norwegian scribe tools...

Nope,sorry-Estonia,Tartu...
 
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Yessir.Frankly,i've lost track of the ins and outs of who/when participated in that wonderful cooperative(i suppose would be the term).
Just thankful to them for the exposure that they've provided for some of the brightest,the best craftspeople of the Baltic countries.

(Those three valiant small States,Germanic in their cultural essence to put it in a general manner,are slowly emerging from the deadening influence of the now-defunct USSR.It still lays heavily upon them,like some giant putrid corpse...But slowly they are making their way out from under it...
What filth any and all effects of Totalitarian regime are...mortal for crafts and creativity in general,among all the other effects equal to practically mortification...)
 
Looking for Neemann is a lot more productive than Neeman.:thumbsup:

Here is one of his videos:
The axe has the John Neeman mark.


Bob
 
Kevin Houtzager said:
See it like home depot: They sell stuff from other manufacturers. The axes are equall, but maybe the boxing isn't?
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I see what you are saying, but if I were Peeter Reemann I might be pissed if they misspelled my name. Apparently he worked hard to acquire his skills and establish his name in the trade. Since you guys pointed me to "Reemann" (instead of "Reeman") I've been able to find information and insight into his axes.

Much appreciated.


Bob
 
Agent_H said:
I find the old-school collared Finnish/Swedish/Karelian axes pretty interesting...
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Presumably some old-school collared Swedish axes from a Gransfors catalog (1920), along with a link to the study in which they appear:


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from
Rosander, G. 'Skogsarbetaren och hans verktyg', Kungliga Skogs- och Lantbruks- akademiens Tidskrift 1988


Some poorly-translated excerpts from this study:

"...For many years in southern Sweden, many different brands have been used, while in Norrland and the Dalarna the predominantly used was the Dala (sometimes called the Urafors) model and the Norrbotten model- as well as the Yankee and Turpentine models... An inventory in 1944 at 56 felling sites mapped out the tool and found that the American models dominated among the axes."

"...A few words also about the shaft of older axes... like a hen egg was the cross section [at the end?]... preferably use the twist-free root bit at the bottom of the trunk. Also good was the thickening along a wound on the trunk... Other woods that have come to use are ash, elm and hickory."
 
Kevin,i'm sorry,but i have a number of issues with your interpretations of events.
1.Chronology.
You're Very carelessly mentioning a number of events that are not at all certain:It is NOT known when the "collared" axes take their beginning,and as to the end of their manufacture,you're replying to a fairly recent GB catalog(thank you,Steve,btw).

2.I absolutely do Not accept your reasoning for Why the extended collar developed.Your siting the protection of the haft that,as a blacksmith,i think spurious at best.
This type of eye is Extremely laborious to produce(let me look around for a good visual material illustrating just how hard it is.Although,if one has never moved iron by hand at the anvil no amount of verbal or visual explanation may activate the right set of neurons:)).
Also,i don't believe that any parallel between the Langettes and the ext.collar under the eye is justified.Langettes have entirely different history,purpose,physics involved,AND they take nothing to make.As in your example of that fireman's axe above,they don't even have to be a part of the head(and often weren't).

3.I think that it's misleading to accord ANY evolution in the technology of axes to the military.Their main use by the military was as intended,i.e. engineering tools.Thus,the advances in axe design preceeded their adopting by the military,at least i've never seen an even remotely military-related axe that wasn't already a well-advanced example of it's general type.
An axe is not a weapon(arguably,but i do believe that strongly),but,even if/when used as such,Again,we see a ready,fully-developed Type of an axe,with all the technological/metallurgical bugs worked out....(quite naturally,just imagine how many other chores were performed with an axe besides busting heads or whatever....).

Much respect,but such would be my $0.02....:)
 
Ok,the best graphic schematic that i know of is in the book by Lars Egander,that i don't own,and the (ill-gotten)illustrations from which would probably not be cool to post here.

But here's a well-illustrated process by a man whom i,personally,consider The best axe-smith working today,James Austin:
http://forgedaxes.com/?p=1280

This drwan-out,most complex process,has much to do with early metallurgy,and is a Complex,a Multi-factorial(to use a fifty-dollar word) issue...
It must be,and is to be studied,and many interesting things are discovered in the process...And we can't just write it off to protecting the haft,i'd just not be responsible...

Again,this is what i'm replying to,in part:(my quote deal,as well as my internet connection altogether,are working Excecrably...:(...)

Kevin Houtzager said:
After the middle ages collars became shorter again, since firearms became more and more commonplace. And trying to block a bullit is out of the question.
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jake pogg said:
...But here's a well-illustrated process by a man whom i,personally,consider The best axe-smith working today,James Austin:
http://forgedaxes.com/?p=1280
...
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That's an interesting page, which includes this photo:
Swede-B-080-200x150.jpg



By the way, here's a Hults Bruks catalog from the 1890s that shows some collared axe patterns that they were producing:
http://hultsbruk1697.se/vintage-axe...0s-Hults-Bruk-Catalog-ilovepdf-compressed.pdf

And a page about Urafors which more recently made this collared axe, dated between 1920-1960s.

9d5e8d_97272d77402145c487d94ec7bef2d24d~mv2.webp

from https://www.traditional-tools.com/single-post/2017/07/11/Urafors-Yxabrik-History
 
Thank you,Steve.

In my hurry i've posted not The most pertinent link,here's a slightly more expanded,informative one:http://forgedaxes.com/?p=1186

(there's a very serious amount of information on Jim's site,i'd Very much recommend reading as much as one could stand....).

I'm not sure how to put it in a nut-shell,bit in more or less brief:A bloom that was produced by the Reduction process was in need of Much further "refinement"(forging,welding back on itself,forging out again,etc.,ad nauseum).
All that stretched the impurities and the Si slag that the bloom contained in a directional manner,giving the starting chunk of iron that "fibrous" nature.(As well as a certain size and shape.The "fibrous" nature of the chunk became Finer the more that process was repeated,thus the term,"fining" in old English usage).
ALL that has acted as a number of limiting factors on the smith,making his subsequent choices NOT random.
The direction of "fibers" especially dictated how the future tool Had to be constructed,in order to distribute the stresses on even the material alone,before the specifics of the tool itself were even considered.

Understanding the "bloomery" process would really help one understand more about these,the pre-Industrial tools and materials,and the design features that stem from thence...
 
I must beg pardon for somewhat of a confusion in re: the term "Fining".
Late 18th-early 19th c.c. things were rapidly changing in England.
Use of steam,mining mineral coal and it's use in metallurgy,have eventually all contributed to where majority of iron was no longer Reduced in a "bloomery" furnace,but iron was melted to liquidus and cast as "pigs" of cast iron(non-forgeable at that point).
For further processing the pigs were re-melted,and the excess carbon burned out of them in a Puddling,or the "Fining" process,thereby the term migrated,now to mean the reduction of Carbon(producing the so-called Wrought iron).
These bars of WI,"wrought" under a big steam-driven hammer,have thus replaced the bloom iron of the pre-Industrial age.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finery_forge
Eventually,it all turned to the Bessemer process(oxygen forced right through the smelt,allowing the C content to be regulated),and that's where we pretty much are today.
My point is not(only)to bore you to tears...But it is this:The new(?) methods starting second half of 18th c. have given people a more Plentiful supply of steel of a more Predictable quality.
That,plus the increased power of machinery,have changed the methods of production of tools.
Earlier in this thread we have an old display of Billnas factory process stages,where these very same "collared" axes are forged out of a solid billet of steel.
So,even a change in technologies of Such magnitude did not(at least abruptly) change the essential design.
I think that it's an important thing to note,for those of us trying to unravel things by going backwards....
 
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