As part of my professional development I decided to take part in a cultural exchange trip with Norway. I have been interested to learn more about the Norwegian craft skills since my apprentice took part in a log cabin building project which was built and situated in Papar Stour. Their tradition of building with and shaping wood with axes really interested me. Atle Ove Martinson who also organised to Stova project is now working with the Osterøy museum near Bergen. They are working to preserve traditional craft skills and are keeping these skills alive.
The Project was to run two courses. One on how to build a traditional weaving loom and the other was the teach people how to weaving traditional akle and valmal. I took part in the building project. It was everything that I hoped it would be. One week using only hand tools to shape and construct the weaving loom. The roughing out was done with axes and really took it toll on the skin on you hands. The axe was also used to finish the timber to quiet a high standard before finishing it with a plane.
Two of the things which impressed me the most was there use of what was called emnet. It is finding the correct shape of timber for the purpose. Having very few trees here in Shetland this way of thing was a bit of a revelation to me. Instead of have to create joints you just find the correct shape of timber and was used for both the støyrer (uprights) and the Kløyser (holders). They also have a very interesting way of using pins to hold the loom together which I hadn't seen before. Instead of drilling straight holes they used a tool called a navar which bores a conical hole. The pins are also conical and it creates and stronger join which is also much easier to take apart. Having in the past had problem with using straight holes and dowel I am keen to use this technique but I am having problems sourcing the tooling in the UK
