The search for a perfect alternative birch vihta/sauna whisk for my area

The last time I had the opportunity to use a real birch made vihta was back in the late sixties; that was in northern Canada. I am a first generation Finn and the sauna and vihta have always played an important role in my life. Whenever and wherever we went for a sauna, vihtas were always on hand. The folks with the sauna always provided their guests with them. I never had the opportunity to learn about the making or the handling of them until recently.

As a teenager living in the Chicago land area, my dad had built a sauna but the sauna whisk was never in the picture. The traditional sauna whisk was made of birch which is pretty much non existent in this area except for a few which might be found in forest preserves and they are protected. There was no thought regarding an alternative to birch until I had a real urge to find one. There was something about the use of a sauna whisk in the sauna which was on my mind for years but never really came into play until I built my own sauna.

I had a big urge to experience the vihta again after several decades. The purpose of it is to massage the muscles and joints by beating one self with the vihta. The soft leaves are perfect for a great massage while in the sauna. Birch leaves give off a wonderful odor and the stained water after dipping it in a bucket of water can be used to wash your hair. It has some wonderful properties in there which makes your hair glisten with nutrients. I even drove 5 hours north to an area that had birch trees so that I could harvest a few for my sauna. But alas they were filled with worms and by the time I got home a few days later and was ready to use them, the leaves had fallen off.

I got on the internet and did a bit of research and found a few alternatives to birch vihtas. Many of them just weren’t available locally and what was were protected. If you got caught, there would be a stiff fine and jail time involved, so I decided not to pursue that avenue. I decided to try various other trees and bushes that were in my back yard to see whether they might be a good candidate. I have lilac bushes, cotton wood, elm, apple, cherry, juniper, maple and mulberry trees.

The elm, apple and cherry trees were all infested with worms and the leaves were almost eaten with big holes in them. The branch configurations weren’t quite right either for what I wanted. The lilac bushes were beautiful with large dark green leaves and perfect stems/branches however, although they added a wonderful odor in my sauna, they fell apart almost immediately. The juniper boughs are similar to cedar which also gave me a wonderful aroma to my sauna but I ended up with juniper needles everywhere. My maple trees had worms on them but I was able to harvest enough for one small vihta. The odor was magnificent but the leaves fell off very quickly. I think that the leaves weren’t quite mature enough during harvest as they were still light in color. They need to be dark green. I haven’t given up on maple quite yet and will give them another try in the near future, provided the leaves haven’t been eaten by worms.

The cotton wood leaves could easily be mistaken for birch from a distance. They have nice dark color to them and have big leaves about the size of a birch leaf. The stem is a bit longer and I wonder how they will hold out. My tree is too tall to get to the leaves but there are several not too far from me which I will have to try soon as well. I harvested some mulberry branches this morning. While bunching them together, I found a tick on one of the leaves. Fortunately I discovered it in time and cut the leaf off making sure not to make contact with the tick. Ticks will not jump on you; they will only get on you by contact. I finished making my vihta and stuck them into water like a bouquet of flowers and just got done using them. I dunked the leaves into warm water just before using them and to my amazement, the leaves held together. They did a wonderful job acting as a vihta although they did not give off any odor. I feel so relaxed after a great massage with the vihta. Mulberry branches will definitely be on my list.

Keep in mind that these sauna whisks/vihtas can only be used once. I thought about ordering a few through the internet but the shipping from Europe or Finland is just not worth it for one time use. More to come as I try making vihtas from different sources.

Can I Use Canvas Boards with Wet On Wet Technique?

I've watched all 403 Bob Ross’s “Joy of Painting” some more times than others and he often says not to use canvas boards for this technique. His reason was that because the middle of the board is cardboard which sucks up the medium used and you end up with a dry board. At the time it may have been the case as the panels were only single primed. Today, however, I can purchase triple primed canvas boards even at box stores like Walmart or other stores carrying paint/craft supplies. The drawback still is that the center is cardboard and like with pre-stretched canvasses, quality varies even from one board to another.

There are many reasons why most of us might want to use canvas boards. The obvious one is they’re cheaper. Another is that you don’t have to put it in a custom frame costing you plenty. I use both depending on what my purpose is. My goal is to enjoy painting but keeping my costs down. I paint every day. Sometimes I’ll do one and other times I will do two. In a years time this thing with painting could cost me a fortune.

I first began using canvas boards for painting portraits. I wasn’t sure how liquid white would get absorbed into the board and often mixed liquid white into the paint to thin it rather than onto the canvas board itself. Doing portraits need a soft oil paint and rather than going out and get ripped off by purchasing more paints, I decided to use my thick Winton oils by Windsor and Newton and just thin them down. Winton oils worked well for me doing the wet on wet technique so why not on portrait. My goal is to save money when ever I can. I’m tired of getting ripped off by paint supply stores and by manufacturers. When I discovered how well this worked, I decided to take it up a notch and try painting the entire board with liquid white and liquid clear.

The first thing I did was to take a 9"X12" canvas board which was only double primed, covered 1/3 of it with liquid white. The middle section, I covered with diluted soft white thinking that it may be a good substitute for liquid white should I run out. The bottom 1/3 I covered with liquid clear. I just let it sit and see what happens. They were all still wet and slick after 24 hours. Just to see if they would last another 12 hours, I thought that I'd let them sit over night. 12 hours later they were all still wet and slick, ready to go. So 36 hours later the canvas board still had not sucked up either of the liquid white or liquid clear.

I have now used various size canvas boards up to 16”x 20”, the largest, I found and covered them with liquid white and then painted a landscape. Most of them were completed in a day. My problem was that the larger size boards began to warp, but then as I recall I had the same problem using acrylics earlier in my learning to paint period. The way I solved that problem was to secure all four sides of the board using tacks or screws….no, not through the board! I used a piece of luan plywood slightly larger than the largest canvas board I could find and then screwed small screws into the luan along the sides of the canvas board so that the head of the screw would secure the top, bottom and sides. I used two on all sides giving me a total of eight screws holding the board well in place and keeping it from warping.

I like doing many of my paintings using colored gesso and mix my own colors for the background thus saving on waste. Let’s face it folks, there is a lot of wasted oil paints using this technique costing you and me plenty. By doing most of my backgrounds in acrylic gessoes, I save a lot of oil paint. Acrylic gessoes also add texture. I discovered that for some reason the liquid clear disappears over Gesso after a few minutes. Two coats are needed over acrylic Gessoes. I apply the first coat over the entire board and let it sit for about 5 to 10 minutes. If the board looks and feels dry, I'll go ahead and add a second coat. This usually does the trick and allows me to finish my painting with out problems.

Liquid white and liquid clear work better on a fresh white canvas board right out of the package. Once more gesso is added to the board whether black or other colors, liquid clear seems to get sucked in while liquid white does not. So do what I do, add a second coat of liquid clear if need be and go about your painting.

Here are some paintings I did on canvas board:

a wet on wet technique on canvas board

another wet on wet using canvas board

using acrylic gessoes for backgrounds saves money

canvas board painting using liquid clear and liquid white

For more art stuff visit me here:Markku-artist

 

More on the Kip B1 sauna heater

You would think that replacing an old sauna heater with a new one would be a simple task, pop out the old and pop in the new. But, not these days, apparently, not even for a skilled professional like me. I’ve installed a few in my day and have been around saunas all my life. Considering I’m 67, that’s a long time. The Harvia Kip B1 has had more problems than I bargained for when I bought it in November 2016. There are plenty of U.L regulations involved with these heaters than there were in the past so that the novice and new users won’t do something stupid and end up killing themselves. But sometimes, things can just go overboard.

I like my saunas between 180 – 190F which even for most Finns like me is a pretty comfortable zone although there are those that like it much hotter. The Kip B1 just couldn’t get past the 170F without the heat sensor kicking the unit off. There is a high temperature limit control which shuts the unit down if it senses that it’s too hot in the room. But of course the limit control is set to a much lower temperature which may be suited for the novice. There is nothing mentioned about this in the installation guide, which seems to be lacking quite a bit of other important detail. An addendum has been added to the paperwork as a separate updated installation guide, which also leaves out important information i.e. heater calibration. Apparently the calibration controls the temperature of the sensor; when to shut the unit off, should there be a problem.

Another problem I was and still am having with is the timer mechanism. It’s inaccurate and shuts off at various times, but on average, right around the forty – five minute mark. Okay, I suppose that I can work around that but when the time lapses after the second hour (the hour on the timer, not real time), the high temperature sensor switch shuts the unit off tripping the reset button. I contacted the folks where I purchased the unit from (Almost Heaven Saunas) and rather than telling me straight out that the unit needs to be calibrated for my specific use, they had me move the sensor probe to various different spots on the side wall of the installed unit to see if that would make a difference. Nope! It kept doing the same thing, tripping the high limit control switch. The temperature sensor probe is mounted on the wall using a metal sensor housing which is nothing like the installation manual shows. Anyone with a half a brain knows that any metallic object in a sauna is going to get hot, hot enough where it can cause severe burns if touched. Just by putting one’s hand near a metallic object you can feel the heat radiating from the object. Common sense tells me that if the heat temp sensor is mounted into a closed metal housing, it’s going to get mighty hot inside the housing giving the sensor a wrong temp reading and consequently shutting down.

The warranty states that the user under any circumstances is not to change or deviate from the installation manual. If this has been done, the warranty becomes null and void. Therefore, I had to play their game until I was told otherwise in making changes. It wasn’t until a few months went by, frustrated as hell, ready to file a discrepancy complaint with my credit card company; they finally told me that I needed to re-calibrate the temp control unit inside the heater. This was to be done by a qualified licensed electrician which would have cost me plenty for them to come out. Because I had been a remodeling contractor, I was allowed to make the calibrations myself.

Re-calibrating was a fairly easy and straight forward process except for an arthritic old man lying on the floor working in cramped position trying to get to the control unit from underside of the mounted heater with about 7” to work with. Once I finally got to the unit, I followed instructions to the letter, making sure that it was done correctly and then putting everything back the same way that it was. I’m currently testing the heater as I write this and already had to go in and reset the limit control as it shut the unit off at 180F. However, the unit did come back on; where otherwise I would have had to wait until it cooled down totally. I thought, since I had the sauna fired up, I would go ahead and use it rather than wasting all of that heat and energy. After resetting the limit switch and waiting about five to ten minutes, it was nice and toasty at 197F and just turned the control knob off rather than seeing if it went to 200F. I wasn’t interested in getting it that hot but I was curious to see whether the limit switch would pop off again. As long as I got it above my comfort zone, worked for me and left it at that.

Obviously, the limit switch should not have gone off and there are still problems with the F***en thing and am not done with it yet, but I am headed in the right direction. It’s time to contact the wonderful folks at Almost Heaven Saunas again to see what more B.S. is involved as if I didn’t already know. Like I said, warranty crap, got to follow the game, makes them feel more important.  I just cannot believe the stupidity in the design of this heater nor can I believe that this is an actual Finnish manufactured product. If Harvia tried selling this piece of junk in Finland as it is, here in the US, they would be laughed out of business. As a matter of fact, after talking with a relative in Finland, I was told that Harvia has a bad reputation there as people think that their saunas are junk! They too can't even get a decent löyly from their units.

So I got a hold of the folks at Almost Heaven Saunas and once again I was directed over to their tech guy at their factory here in the US out east. He had me send him some more pics and then told me he’d contact me. Nope not to this day! I had a suspicious feeling that he would just blow me off and sure enough he did. Figures! I also had a feeling why the reset switch would pop at a certain temperature but wanted confirmation from these so called experts and an okay to make the necessary adjustment. Well…at this point I just figured the hell with it! I’m tired of screwing around and just take care of it anyway. Today, I used my sauna without any problems. My biggest complaint is that there is not enough of löylyä. That’s a Finnish term for the event that happens after throwing some water on to the rocks. It's a shot of hot air coming at you after throwing water on the rocks. This event only changes the way it feels in the sauna and not the actual temperature as one might think. To achieve the proper amount of löylyä you need to throw a bit more water on the rocks than what they tell you in the manual. Because the elements are so close to the top of the heater and following the instructions of placing the rocks 2 inches below the rock cover rather than placing the rocks 2 inches above the elements like all other manufacturers tell you, this does not give you enough space to entirely cover the tops of the elements as per instructions. Therefore, I’m stuck with throwing a few ounces versus cups of water on the rocks which has little or no effect in creating the löyly. That too will be taken care of very soon.

Jan 17,2017.

So the tech guy from Almost Heaven Saunas finally decides to give me a call. He wanted me to move the sensor around. I guess since they have no answers theirs is to move the sensor around. I told him that I've already done that from previous instructions. I also brought up the question regarding the placement of the sauna rocks and its problem with löyly. Interestingly, for an expert he had no answers.

March 16, 2017

I finally have my sauna working as it should for now, maybe and average around 190°F. The thing shuts off at 192°F. I suppose that I can live with that. I and other Finns I know with the same heater, feel that this unit is a piece of crap and so is the timer!

May 26, 2017

Since I've had the heater now for 6 months, has time changed my mind about the Kip B sauna heater?

Answer: No it's still a piece of junk with sporadic problems. One time it'll work perfectly and then the next time I'm right back to square one.

Would I recommend it to my friends?

Answer: Not in this lifetime!

What advice do I have for those wanting to buy the Harvia Kip B series heater?

Answer: Buy something else if you can afford it. If you are a beginner sauna user, it's fine for you and will get up to 140F in about an hour. If however you are a seasoned user like myself and absolutely must have this heater, I suggest going with the next size up for better performance. Although the major components are made by Harvia, I'm willing to bet that a lot of the U.L safety controls, timer/thermostat and switches aren't and rob power from the heating elements. I'm also willing to bet that these heaters are not, let me repeat that, are not assembled by Harvia in Finland! This size heater (6kw) is supposed to heat up the size of my sauna up to 180F within an hour or so, my old one did. This heater will not and will take a little over 1 1/2 hrs when working as it should. Other times 2+ hours if I'm lucky.

Before I purchased the Harvia Kip B sauna heater, I always looked forward to using my sauna. These days, I reluctantly turn it on wondering what's going to go wrong with the unit today. This is wrong and should never happen. The sauna experience should be an enjoyable one not one with constant intricacies!