Traditional Finnish Log House Building Process - 16mm Film Scan - English Version

[Applause] the carpenter chooses straight knotless pine trees from which to build a log house [Applause] [Music] the trees are usually felled in the mid winter while the moon is waxing these men are going to build a log cottage consisting of a small Hall a bedroom and a living room the site is on the Luther Keller farm in the parish of swarmin in southeastern Finland [Music] to make hewing with a broad axe easier the work is started with a normal axe with which the surface parts of the logs are cut off a quarter of an inch is left on each side of the log to be hewn with a broad axe lugs are hewn and the hewn timber is allowed to dry in the March wind bark is removed from the unhewn side with the logs to help them dry to provide thermal insulation an earth bank will be made inside the stone base coals will be left in the stone base for ventilation they're called cats holes using crosswise measurement the check is made to see that the angles in a timber building the underside of every log is shaped so that it fits the log under it the bottom log is shaped to fit the stone base the corners are sealed by means of thermal holes filled with tari wadding here in Finland buildings with horizontal logs probably go back to the great migration of nations at least as early as the 13th century we have had round log buildings with edge joints with round bottom holes in the 16th century builders started hewing war timber on the inside wall timber hewn on both sides as here dates for the 18th century feather Moss is put between the wall timbers and otário come in the joints of the corners doors and windows the wall timber is strengthened by fixing it with dowels placed in holes Ward through the timber the size of the hand borer is about one and a half inches when dowling enough room must be left for settling in the bottom of the holes a good inch per meter the holes for the dowels of the doors and windows are bored with a two inch drill the joints in the Timbers of the wall between the hall and the bedroom don't go through the side walls instead the Timbers are joined to them with dovetail joints the notch of the joint reaches the middle of the 6-inch timber this building will have long timber ends at the corners just like two other buildings on the same farm the notches of the joints are about half an inch deep on both sides the space between the wall timbers must be wide enough for proper thermal insulation the width of the space must be at least four inches in the outside wall the back of the lower timber is hewn evenly arched the shape of the lower timber is drawn on the upper timber with a stylus the timber being human is kept in place with a dog the groove between the Timbers into which stuffing will be placed is huge so that its sides are straight when a timber is laid on the one below the space for stuffing will be somewhat open on the sides this makes it easier to fill the space with moss the upper edges of the door and the window will be at the same height dowel pins strengthen the door and window openings dowel pins strengthen the door and window openings here the t-shaped dowel pin is made of one log just as it used to be long straight grained pine trees have been chosen as the wall timber the courses of timber a dowel that intervals of about five feet to keep the walls straight the lintel beam must be cut from a stout straight pine tree because this beam which binds the whole building is weakened by the window opening this plank will not be nailed down because it would present the wall timber from settling the window opening must be large enough to give a two-inch settling space between the frame and the lintel beam the joists are planed smooth before being placed in position and it yet the edges a little the way with a knife how the finishing is done with a plane the dovetail shaped scores of the joists are made when the walls are level with the joists the scores reach as far as the middle of the wall timber a dovetail fitting the sport ight Li is hewn on the end of the joist the old way of lifting heavy timber high is to roll it using logs and rope in buildings the pediments two are often made of logs the shape of the pediment is drawn using a model the ridge beam is made of two logs joined together with a hook joint because a log of the full language is not available the roof truss structure is very simple the trusses are supported by the ridge beam the walls and to supporting joists the roof trusses are nailed onto the ridge beam joists and walls the timber ends of the pediments and the partition walls are hewn level with the roof trusses are originally was fixed with pegs both of the ends and at the partition wall the final hewing of both the inside and outside walls near the roof and the ceiling has to be done before the roof is made finishing the wall timber with a broad axe is one of the most demanding jobs for the carpenter and this sort of an axe I makes it possible to turn the axe handle easily so that this axe can be used both right and left-handed this is necessary when hewing the corners the barge board is fixed onto the ends of the roof trusses and on the barge board comes another board the so called drop board the projecting ends of the logs of the corners are half an inch longer than the thickness of the wall timber if the wall is six inches thick the log ends are seven inches long the log ends of the corners are as thick as the wall itself when making a shingle roof supporting shingles are placed first under the line board the line displays a good inch further than the drop a normal shingle roof has three layers the shingles in the first layer are short about a third of an ordinary shingle the shingles must be set the right way the shingles are about 17 inches long the length of one layer is five inches only every second shingle in the layer is nailed down the heads of the nails are hidden under the upper layer a well-made roof good shingles can last a quarter of a century [Music] the supporting shingles which went into place first arc us last [Music] to strengthen the edge skirt boards are nailed on the gables and ridge boards on the top roof it's the custom to give a party once the riddle the ceremony of raising the roof tree has its origin and the past when neighborly help was needed to raise a heavy roof tree the helpers were rewarded with a party under the living-room floor the earth bank beside the stone base provides thermal insulation birch bark is traditionally used to protect the timber structure under the floor against decay floor making begins by laying logs inside the walls the space between the wall and the log is about two and a half feet proper ventilation is vital to keep the timber there in good repair that's why ventilation channels are built out of brick and stone the corners of the log framework under the floor have hewn joints the floor joists which rest partly on the logs near the walls are laid in the crosswise directions between the wall and the joist next to it is a five inch wide space for earth filling this is covered with a plank the so-called earth plank there is an earth plank beside each wall the flanks are not fixed and are held in place only by the skirting boards in the middle there is a room that can be used for cold storage access is through a trapdoor in the floor there is enough settling space between the window frame and the lintel beam so the frame can be put into place and fastened with wedges the frame can't be nailed onto the wall timber because of the settling of the walls it can be nailed only on the dowel pins on both sides of the window [Music] a spirit level is used to make sure the frame is exactly horizontal and vertical the frame is then fastened with nails the window frames complete with panes and hinges can now be put into place a lot of hard wadding is put between the frame and the wall this is then covered by a broad covering board [Music] floor making begins with the border planks which are laid first inside the framework of the border planks the floor planks are fixed to each other to form a compact floor the floor timber consists of unaged planks with nuts broader than tops these are cut ready and laid alternately the floor timber is made of good dry pine to avoid twisting the floor planks are joined together with pegs the broad floor planks will dry and shrink before long that's why they are not nailed together putting the pegs at short intervals makes the floor firm and prevents it twisting in the warm room the floor timber will get steadily drier in a couple of years a narrow plank will have to be added it's easy to do because the floor timbers are not nailed together the skirting boards for this sort of floor must be stronger than usual because they keep the logs beside the walls in place the floor is finished by planing it's smooth the small hall and the bedroom will have double floors supporting boards are nailed onto the floor joists and onto them the boards of the lower floor tarred paper is put on the lower floor and on top of this a thick layer of dry sawdust this new building will have the same sort of ceiling as the farmhouse there is tarred paper on the ceiling and on it sawdust and planing chips as thermal insulation the traditional front door made of planks by the carpenters has forged hinges a joiner in the neighborhood has made the other doors and windows on the traditional model the covering boards and skirting boards are made by the carpenters themselves [Music] building the log house as traditional carpentry has been an inspiring job and an excellent chance for the carpenters to try and refresh traditional carpentry using tools many of which already belong to yesterday [Music] you

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Keywords: traditional, log house, log cabin, log building, cabin, cabins, wooden house, wooden cabin, finland, finnish, sweden, scandinavia, scandinavian, traditional crafts, woodworking, woodworker, woodwork, woodworks, carpenter, carpenters, house building, home, house, home building, building process, how to build a house, how to build a cabin, diy cabin, diy house, northmen, northmen guild

Id: HNTfLGt59qo

Length: 25min 10sec (1510 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 23 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/SometimesHippy]

Mökillä tavataan!

[u/Sirsafari]

Is that Ringo Starr narrating?