A week ago today I started work. After being on vacation for 10 days, on the first full day that Betsey and the girls were here, I started. I really had no idea what I was in for…and apparently, neither did they. There are no homes being built in the shop, right now, as a couple of customers are waiting on financing.
I start at 7 am. Most of you know that 7 am and I don’t get along very well. My drive is only about 15 minutes and I get to motor through a very beautiful, pastoral region, through Jössefors and into Öttebol. I am driving our red Volvo (we have officially named it “Erik the Red”) along narrow, curvy, paved roads and, although I have yet to see much wildlife, the oncoming traffic seems to interpret the lack of a painted center line as and invitation to use the whole road. I am on the alert for oncoming traffic, for sure.
Swedes have the reputation as being socially reticent and my co-workers have enforced this stereotype. Other than office staff, until yesterday only one man had spoken with me. Granted the foreman log-builder is an older man who speaks very little English (and I less Swedish). But yesterday I spoke with two (2!) other young men who have workable English and one of them has been helping me on my log work. There are only about 6 people of this staff of about 20 who do the log work. Others are carpenters and such, finishing the homes once they’re set up on site.
Magnus has been my teacher in this Norwegian style of log building (we are close to the Norwegian border and both the company owner and many of the customers are Norwegian). He has a pretty good grasp on English and he is teaching me the Swedish names for the tools and techniques. He has been patient with me and has apparently liked what I have done as he told me I should not get too good too fast. Apparently Thor and Odin may be offended.
Magnus thinks that this style of joining logs may be one of the most complicated styles in the world. I can believe it. That is not to say the difficult, but I have been writing a manual for myself (and will submit a completed version to the company after I have used it a bit) and the process for shaping the bottom of the log has, in my draft manual, 42 different and distinct steps. The tools involved include an electric Stihl chainsaw, a really great Swedish axe that looks a bit like a small, Medieval battle axe, hammer, chisel, electric hand planers, a large circular saw, one of those old-fashioned measuring sticks that folds in on itself, a custom-made scribe and the ubiquitous Swedish work knife.
This corner has been my training and I have made it with discarded scrap pieces just laying about. Many of the pieces are too checked or twisted to use for anything else, which has it’s own challenges. My progress is evident as the corner gets higher. I am pleased with my work, so far. It has been suggested that my next project, to start in a few days, may be a dog house, as then I will have to get two joints (knuts) to match the two logs below. Magnus says that if the dog rejects it I get sent home.
My training continues. Not sure when they’ll let me work on a real house!
All is well.
Kurt
