1950's
The four sons of an enterprising farmer from Savo, Evert Rautio were brought up to earn their living from the woods and farming. Brothers Esko, Kauko, Jouko and Hannu were used to the hard living. The farming, log cutting in the woods, hunting, digging ditches was very physical work. No wonder they had the enthusiasm and desire to seek for a solution to ease the strain of manual work.
There was no money to buy tools or machinery but whole lot of inventive minds and creativeness. In their small workshop, the brothers put together all sort of gadgets from scrap metal, old engines and abandoned machines. A stone extraction carriage, circular saw, even a tractor were built. A pre-phase of a balk hewing machine was developed to assist to hew an Egyptian square timber balk with a machine, not by hand. The electricity was supplied with a self-made generator for their own and village use.
”The machines which had brought us our income, we’ve always had to build ourselves.”
- Kauko Rautio
