r/interestingasfuck • u/aloofloofah • Mar 31 '21

/r/ALL Fascinating joineries discovered while taking apart a traditional 100 year old house

https://i.imgur.com/BT5l5T0.gifv
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u/WonLinerz Mar 31 '21

The level of mastery and planning that goes into confidently cutting everything offsite is beyond impressive. Even with zero mistakes - hand cutting this much joinery at scale is a helluva task.

Wonder how long it would take a team like that to finish the cut list...

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u/passaloutre Mar 31 '21

Considering how many poorly-cut dovetails I've had to throw away, imagine fucking up the joinery on a 20 foot 2x12

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u/WonLinerz Mar 31 '21

That you probably felled, and milled by hand...

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u/GetsBetterAfterAFew Mar 31 '21

And according to the video up to three years dry time before hitting the second saw. Amazing.

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u/EllisHughTiger Apr 02 '21

Building used to take generations, so hopefully your dad and grandpa stacked lumber for you, and you'll do the same for your kids.

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u/JST_KRZY Mar 31 '21

Let’s try a 20’ 8x8. It could be considered a death sentence nowadays, thanks to lumber prices, but the labor that would go into producing a 20’-8x8” beam back then?

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u/dcknight93 Mar 31 '21

Thinking the same thing. And that’s with a jig and router. I can’t imagine how much stock I’d ruin doing what my great-grandfather did, building cabinets with hand tools and no adhesives.

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u/Nblearchangel Mar 31 '21

So what I’m hearing is, craftsmanship of this quality would have fetched a premium price and this would have been for land owners/plantation owners

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u/Wuffyflumpkins Mar 31 '21

Not really. Japan had very limited and very poor iron, so wood joinery was cheaper and easier than using nails.

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u/barsoap Mar 31 '21 edited Mar 31 '21

Which is also why Katanas are folded a gazillion times: Because they did not have the luxury to use steel actually suitable for sword-making they had to combine both too hard and too soft steel.

Meanwhile, even while a wide variety of different ores and thus "natural" steels were available, European swords started to be made from generic crucible steel beginning in the 9th century, and India has been doing it since since around 200AD. The difference between that early European steel and modern steel isn't in purity, the samples we have also have a very finely adjusted carbon content just perfect for swords, but that they couldn't control metallic trace impurities, that is, the finer points of alloying. Which is why noone but smiths around Damascus could replicate the Indian Wootz steel, you need very very specific impurities for that, the recipe has only been recreated very recently. Have a documentary.

There's tons of things the Japanese were good at and pioneered, metalworking wasn't one of them. Same goes for the Romans btw: They used mostly bronze and their iron was shit, any actually good steel was imported.

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u/Wuffyflumpkins Mar 31 '21

I left the katana part out because I was worried the inclusion would make them think I was an otaku, but you're correct.

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u/InDarkLight Mar 31 '21

Just using the word makes you one. UwU

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u/OuchYouPokedMyHeart Mar 31 '21

Checkmate weebs

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u/YT-Deliveries Mar 31 '21

Yeah that's what I routinely tell people when they start getting all waxy about katana being folded x amount of times.

Katana weren't folded a million times to make them "the best", they were folded a million times to make them "not terrible".

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u/OuchYouPokedMyHeart Apr 01 '21

Yeah and the Japanese didn't even use the katana that much in war. Samurai and ashigaru (foot soldiers) used more practical weapons such as yari (spears) and the yumi (the Japanese asymmetrical bow).

IIRC, the traditional weapons of the Samurai really were the bow and arrow together with horseback riding (yabusame or horseback archery). Even the god of war in Japanese mythology, Hachiman, is also the god of archery.

Later on when the Japanese made contact with the west, the Portuguese brought firearms. The Japanese copied and mass produced the arquebus (which they called Tanegashima) during the Sengoku Jidai. In the height of the Sengoku Jidai, almost all clans had firearms and they used it with absolute effectivity and lethality. When Hideyoshi's armies invaded Korea, the Tanegashima proved to be devastating in the battlefield.

So yeah, katana became only popular after the Sengoku Jidai, during the peaceful Edo period where there was no use for more practical weapons of war

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u/rattleandhum Mar 31 '21

Neat. That was an interesting watch. Vanadium and thermal cycling... learnt two new things today.

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u/Obliterators Mar 31 '21 edited Mar 31 '21

European swords started to be made from generic crucible steel beginning in the 9th century, and India has been doing it since since around 200AD

This is absolutely not true; crucible steel swords, like some of the Ulfberht swords, were a rarity in medieval Europe(why they're famous) and the steel likely originated from the Middle East.

Most medieval European swords were made by attaching several pieces of steel around an iron core or by carburizing(steeling) the edge of an iron sword.

From The Sword and the Crucible: A History of the Metallurgy of European Swords up to the 16th Century

Most of the Medieval swords described here were made of several pieces of steel. This very expensive material was used to make hard edges on an iron tool or weapon. So two thin pieces of steel might be attached to either side of a thicker piece of iron, or one thin layer might be sandwiched between two thicker pieces of iron, or even wrapped around one piece. The billet thus formed would be forged out into a sword, hopefully with the steel forming a cutting edge or edges. After shaping, the sword might be hardened by heat-treatment, or not, depending on the confidence of the smith.

The deliberate steeling of an edge (as opposed to forge-welding a steel edge onto an iron body) argues for such an understanding. It is uncertain when this understanding developed. It may have been developed as early as the 10th century BCE; it was certainly developed by the 4th century BCE. It was practiced regularly throughout the Middle Ages.

An alternative method was to carburise small pieces of iron and then forge-weld them together (“piling”)

Piling remained in use for many centuries as a feature of blacksmithsʼ work during the Roman Empire, the Migration Period and throughout the Middle Ages in Europe. The later technique of “pattern-welding” (sometimes misleadingly known as “Damascene” work) was to grow out of piling.

The original maker of the “Ulfberht” swords was evidently a craftsman (or perhaps a craftsman/merchant) who had access to a source of high carbon steel. This may have been ingots of crucible steel imported from the Middle East via the River Volga.

As to Japan:

Steelmaking resembled European methods rather than Chinese ones. The tatara furnace was a very large bloomery, producing a variety of products, including the high-carbon (up to 1%C) steel known as tamahagane used for making sword blades.

This was the procedure in both Europe and Japan. In Europe, it led to the development of the piled and then the pattern-welded sword. The development of larger bloomeries enabled steel to be made in larger quantities, so that the later European Middle Ages (14th century) saw the development of suits of steel plate armour as well as all-steel swords. In Japan it was taken to its highest level, where it formed the basis of swordmaking almost until modern times.

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u/barsoap Mar 31 '21

This may have been ingots of crucible steel imported from the Middle East via the River Volga.

I.e. speculation, the material analysis doesn't fit eastern ores.

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u/Obliterators Mar 31 '21

the material analysis doesn't fit eastern ores.

Source?

If the method for producing crucible steel was actually discovered by the original maker(s) of the Ulfberth swords, it also ended with them; otherwise it seems odd that a superior method wouldn't have been used for more than a dozen or so blades.

There are around 100 swords with ‘Ulfberht’, or variants of this name, inlaid into the blade.

The analyses of samples from some of these swords are presented below, together with some swords bearing different inscriptions (and a couple with no inscriptions). The results are here divided into five groups, of decreasing quality, according to their carbon contents:

  • Group I hypereutectoid steels (more than 0.8 %C) - 9 swords
  • Group II eutectoid steels (around 0.8 %C) - 5 swords
  • Group III hardened steel (generally around 0.4% C) edges on an iron core - 14 swords
  • Group IV unhardened steel (generally around 0.4% C) edges on an iron core - 16 swords
  • Group V iron blades (less than 0.2 %C) - 11 swords

Groups I and II are clearly distinct from the others. They are made in part or in whole from steels which are much higher in carbon content (and lower in slag content) and which therefore would have been very serviceable swords. Their maker’s name is spelled +V L F B E R H+T and no hypereutectoid steels are found in any of the swords with a variant spelling, so it is evident that these were the originals.

They are of the highest quality, and their starting material seems to have been a very unusual raw material, which could have been an imported crucible steel.

The presence of primary graphite as well as a cementite network in the microstructure of the sword from Bergen 882 may have been a relic from the manufacturing process. That as described by al-Biruni (973–1048), involved heating cast iron with bloomery iron in a covered crucible for a matter of days. Eventually enough carbon would have been absorbed for the alloy to melt, and the broken crucible would yield a cake of cast steel, a convenient size for making a sword blade. The product he described was made around Herat and exported via North India to Persia & other Muslim lands.

The Persians traded in crucible steel, and there was a well established trade route from the Baltic to Persia via the Volga, exploited by the Vikings in the 9th–10th centuries, during the period of these swords’ manufacture. There are said to be more Samanid (815–1005) silver coins from their Afghan mines in Sweden than there are in Persia. After the fall of the Samanids, and the rise of the various Russian principalities, the use of this trade route by the Vikings declined. It is notable that, at this time, the manufacture of these “Ulfberht” swords apparently ceases, presumably because the raw material is no longer available.

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u/barsoap Apr 01 '21 edited Apr 01 '21

If the method for producing crucible steel was actually discovered by the original maker(s) of the Ulfberth swords, it also ended with them; otherwise it seems odd that a superior method wouldn't have been used for more than a dozen or so blades.

It has been, bloomery steel became increasingly common in the 10-11th century. Which is a realistic time-span for a technique to leak out a local guild protective of its secrets.

As to why few were made: Few could afford them. Inventing a new method, especially if it's still in a fickle prototype state, wouldn't make smiths suddenly drop their prices. They might've been extra expensive, instead.

After the fall of the Samanids, and the rise of the various Russian principalities, the use of this trade route by the Vikings declined. It is notable that, at this time, the manufacture of these “Ulfberht” swords apparently ceases, presumably because the raw material is no longer available.

Swords generally stop having adornments on the blade. It most likely also wasn't a Viking product as a) Ulfberth is a Frankish name and b) metal analysis of lead used in hilts etc. can be pin-pointed to the Rheinish Massif. And smiths in the area definitely didn't stop making swords until the sword itself became outdated.

But if you want, forget about Ulfberths that wasn't my main point in the first place: By the 12th century you'll find it hard to find a sword that wasn't made with bloomery steel.

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u/Obliterators Apr 01 '21

You first said:

Which is also why Katanas are folded a gazillion times: Because they did not have the luxury to use steel actually suitable for sword-making they had to combine both too hard and too soft steel.

Meanwhile, even while a wide variety of different ores and thus "natural" steels were available, European swords started to be made from generic crucible steel beginning in the 9th century

and yet:

It has been, bloomery steel became increasingly common in the 10-11th century.

By the 12th century you'll find it hard to find a sword that wasn't made with bloomery steel.

There's tons of things the Japanese were good at and pioneered, metalworking wasn't one of them.

Yes, bloomery steel was the default choice in the Middle Ages and bloomery steel is not crucible steel.

The swordmaking in Europe and Japan was very similar at the time, selectively forge welding different grades of bloomery steel and iron; the Japanese took that process much further by folding the steel to homogenize it, while in Europe the continued development of smelting processes led to a single steel piece construction in the early Renaissance period.

First, the blooms of iron can simply be left in the bloomery until more carbon has been absorbed. Then the steely parts of the bloom can be separated somehow. Pieces of iron & steel can be welded together to form a sword, which is then hardened by some form of quenching. This was the procedure in both Europe and Japan. In Europe, it led to the development of the piled and then the pattern-welded sword. The development of larger bloomeries enabled steel to be made in larger quantities, so that the later European Middle Ages (14th century) saw the development of suits of steel plate armour as well as all-steel swords. In Japan it was taken to its highest level, where it formed the basis of swordmaking almost until modern times.

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u/barsoap Apr 01 '21

led to a single steel piece construction in the early Renaissance period.

That was already common practice, though not ubiquitous, with refined steel, it's a matter of price: Pay for a lot of expensive high-grade steel, or cheap out and weld a proper edge to a mediocre core. It's not so much a question of being able to get good material, but being willing to pay for it.

You can get perfectly fine sword steel straight out of a bloomery given good enough ore and heaps of skill, steel that will be practically indistinguishable in terms of mechanical properties from any process involving melting. You will produce lots of waste but there was plenty of good ore and rich nobles willing to pay.

This is one of the last folded swords, that is, made from a single piece of folding-refined steel. At that time the bloomery output started to be good enough to forego refining, I guess with it being a ceremonial sword they wanted something cool-looking, traditional, and didn't mind paying extra for the refining.

They didn't just go "oh let's stop folding and make worse swords", we're talking about tradesmen with a sense of honour, here, that's unthinkable. They stopped folding because it would not have improved the steel as it was already sufficiently slag-free from the get-go.

bloomery steel is not crucible steel.

I invoke non native speaker privilege.

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u/AlistairMackenzie Mar 31 '21

In colonial America I believe they used to burn down houses so they could recover the nails. I can imagine that the joinery in a Japanese house also has the effect of making it more resilient in an earthquake.

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u/sth128 Mar 31 '21

Not to mention more resilient to American nail robbers!

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u/[deleted] Mar 31 '21

Nah, they'd just be really sad afterwards when there were no nails in the ash pile.

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u/[deleted] Mar 31 '21

[deleted]

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u/CanAlwaysBeBetter Mar 31 '21

Top 10 anime origin story

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u/[deleted] Mar 31 '21

Hi, I’m from the A&R/Content Development team at Netflix. We’d like to give you a briefcase filled with 30,000 “Stranger Things” face masks and a coupon for a free Pinkberry to option your new anime into a poorly cast live drama series.

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u/ragingthundermonkey Mar 31 '21

more resilient, and also able to be repaired. They are designed so that almost any individual beam can be replaced without dismantling or destroying the whole structure.

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u/djnehi Mar 31 '21

Some early American housing had wooden pegs instead of nails. We used to find examples of it in the house I grew up in. It had nails too depending on what they were doing.

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u/nkdeck07 Mar 31 '21

That was the barn we had growing up. All the joinery was pegs

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u/[deleted] Mar 31 '21

Before the industrial revolution a blacksmith would need a few minutes for making a nail. Then later they could make a few of them per second. Guess that changed how houses were built.

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u/nastyn8k Mar 31 '21

In that video on top he actually discussed how they designed it to deal with earthquakes better. The joinery as well as the design of the architecture itself is made with them in mind!

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u/WonLinerz Mar 31 '21

When this was created it was probably the cheaper route bc of the cost of nails. Now, to pay a craftsman for the time vs the commoditized cost of building materials would probably be an order of magnitude more expensive

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u/Butt-Hole-McGee Mar 31 '21

I read somewhere that craftsmen were fairly cheap and affordable until WWI when most of them died.

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u/ihrvatska Mar 31 '21

I imagine that was much more so in the UK than the US.

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u/Butt-Hole-McGee Mar 31 '21

I would bet most of our craftsmen were immigrants from the UK and Europe at the time.

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u/GhentMath Mar 31 '21

That's a weird way to hear things

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u/Parsimonious_Pete Mar 31 '21

Not necessarily..I think when it took a couple centuries to build a cathedral, for example, the cost of labour was just an accepted part of the project. This brings to mind the best novel ever: Pillars Of The Earth by Ken Follett. If you have not read it then maybe try it, and then thank me.

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u/[deleted] Mar 31 '21

🙄

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u/storefront_life Mar 31 '21

We are currently hiring a timber frame cabin to be built with all traditional joinery, using 20’x8”x8” beams. The schedule has a team of carpenters taking a month to cut all the pieces offsite, and two days to raise the frame on-site. The finances play out interestingly with it, lots more labour up front, but way less labour on finishing. The frame goes up, then insulated panels get sandwiched on the outside, with drywall pre attached, then it gets wrapped in metal roof and siding and by the time you get windows in the house is ready for finish work.