Hello,
I made some pine tar there, with Leif Karlson a few summers ago while in Sweden. He does it every year just to keep the tradition going. We hauled, I'd say, around 3 quarts from this burning and since that is not so much I'm using it sparingly, mostly to dip nails. On the other hand we just covered the barn this summer with a mixture of Swedish pine tar, linseed oil, grown and pressed right up the road here, and lamp black pigment. In Finland, they eat tar.

Ken Hume, probably your article was one of the first times I came across such a focus on this Finish style, or technique, or method of hewing. I don't even remember it standing out when I visited the open air museum there near Helsinki some years back. These Finish axes are also real peculiar. I found one on the ground up there once and brought it home, put a handle on and it has been one of my favorite axes since. Though mine is not equivalent to a broad axe (PIILUKIRVEET), and not good for surfacing. But are you aware of any such categorization or do you have plans to make one up? I sure would like to see something giving the characteristics of let's say cross-grain hewing or along-the-grain hewing or this wavy Finish pattern. Just to compare and contrast, you know, and then choose.

This cleaving shown in the film could only be reliably done with Danish oak. The way they manage to the point of excess their oak stands, and all. It should have its own species designation, it's not normal, this oak.

I thought the videos were a bit weak on details and digital animation does nothing for me but the intent was clear and the project mighty.

Don Wagstaff - (not Cecile, to whom I am married)