Pimps, Faggots & Benders – Woodland Crafts at the New Forest Show

I don’t much care for big crowds at shows and normally I try to avoid them, but the New Forest Show is an exception that proves the rule. It’s a small big show, by which I mean that it still has a bit of a small feel and a larger element of traditional and rural crafts than some shows. Though it’s still pretty big and there are many acres of trade stands. I was with the Hampshire Coppice Craftsmen Group and we set up our pimps, faggots and benders at the village green end of the show.

Traditionally benders were made using bentwood poles, scavenged from the roadside hedges and a tarp covering, often more tar than paulin. Our shelters are more conveniently made with straight poles and the Hampshire group pitch accommodated a range of polelathes, hurdle and spar making and not least the faggots and pimps, of which more later.

Just around the corner from the Hampshire group members of the Dorset coppice group were demonstrating. Terry Heard makes besom brooms under the awning of his fabulous living wagon. Living vans were similar to shepherd’s huts but larger and better appointed, being intended to be towed behind a traction engine.

Terry was also making tent pegs with a traditional stock knife and the rounds of ash quickly transformed themselves into neat stacks of tent pegs.

These treadle lathes were demonstrated by Rod Poynting.

This superb collection of bill hooks, axe heads and other greenwood working tools caught my eye. The collection includes billhooks from the Moss family of blacksmiths in Surrey and Sussex and some Somerset Fussell’s hooks.

Another tool handle takes shape on the horse

This display of woodsman’s tools included a very nice U shaped shave for shaving the bark from poles. It caught my interest as I have an almost identical one that a friend donated to me. They are all hand made, often from old files and I was suprised how similar the two tools were. As we chatted I learnt that the tool had belonged to his grandfather and despite many offers he is not selling it. Meanwhilst the net he is making will be used for working with his ferrets.

Back at the Hampshire stand Alan Waters was converting a trailer load of birch faggots into a load of pimps. The traditional Sussex oimp is a handful of birch spray and cleft branch wood, firelighter and kindling in a single bundle. Each bundle of birch is chopped to length using a pimp cleaver, a massive single handed chopper with the birch clamped on a purpose built stand.

Twenty five bundles are then tightly compressed in a pimping engine and then tied with cord to make the roll.

A brief rest from wielding the enormous pimp cleaver. The strange alloy wheel is the front of Allan’s new Mare. A mare is a traditional barrow for use in the woods with an open frame for carrying cord, poles and faggots and a much larger wheel for coping with the rough ground. I’ve been meaning to make one for some time. both for using at my charcoal site and also for use at shows so seeing Alan’s has spurred me onto another project.

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Thunderstorm, a big candle & the next show

It rained a lot on Friday as a massive thunderstorm passed over and the view from my open fronted shed was impressive.

I looked in on this old fordson major which is a feature of a local woodyard. I tried to fit in my pocket to take it home with me for some TLC but failed. Clearly I need bigger pockets. I particularly liked the way the bramble is curling out of the engine compartment, but actually it’s all there and a lick of paint would do it wonders.

At the same time we were experimenting again with log candles, again with Scots Pine. The first one was not too successful though the smoke kept the midges away. This one lit very easily and before long it was roaring away. From the way it caught light I can see that the resin is burning before the wood does so it’s important that the log is not too old or too wet for the candle to work well.

I am away at the New Forest show all week, hence the sudden rush of posts. Hopefully Friday’s storm is not an omen for the show.

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The Log Loader

The hunt for tractor accesories has started well. My friend and Landrover guru Richard unearthed the remains of a transporter box from a scrap pile, the kind of thing that you used to see carrying a collie dog and a milk churn down the lane (at least we used to). At some point in its life it’s rusted through and been modified to serve as a platform for carrying logs, which is exactly what I’ve been looking for to extract wood to my charcoal site during the winter from fallen trees on the commons.

Although it seemed a bit of a mess at first it didn’t take long to tear out the badly rusted metal and weld up the broken angle irons. After a quick lick of red oxide primer, not quite good as new but certainly good enough to try out.

It’s already proving it’s worth and more versatile than I expected. At the coppice group open day it suddenly occured to me that I can use it for more than just extracting as it turns out to be the perfect hydraulic platform for loading logs onto the chainsaw mill. It really cuts down the time needed to move and load logs onto the mil, something I used to have to do with a combination of capstan winch, hand winch and cant hook.

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Lynchmere common – Birch, Scouts and Coracles

When a local scout leader from Liphook rang to ask about taking some birch wands for their scouts I was intrigued.

It turns out that the scouts are on a camp this weekend in the Wye valley and planning to hold a coracle race. When the scrub grows up very thick some of the birch is foreced to grow as long thin shoots which would be very suitable for weaving, quite like withies or hazel sun shoots.

I left this area of scrub intentially a few years ago to provide a source of future birch products, rather than cutting (or even worse spraying) as soon as it appears I’m trying to introduce a rotational approach and its time for this area to be cut this winter. I will be cutting for besoms, bean poles, pea-sticks and faggots, as I have not use for these thin shoots it’s great to allow the local scouts to use the and it’s saving me some work as well.

I am very pleased at the way we are starting to find more uses for the birch, it all helps to raise awareness of how the commons would have been managed for centuries, promote local products and move towards a more sustainable management approach in the future. I look forward to hearing how the coracles perform and another use of birch to add to the list. I’ve been promised some photos of the birch coracles and we’ve invited the scouts to come out and do some conservation work on the commons in the future.

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Polelathe – Bowl, blanks and hooks

I’m supposed to be preparing for the New Forest Show at the moment but other things keep getting in the way as usual. I spent most of the day repairing annoying electical faults on the big red 4wd tractor we use on the commons, and as a reward I treated myself to some more bowl turning afterwards.

This is one I finished yesterday and I quite like the way its turned out, despite the faults and knots in the grain which seem to add to the character with the spalting.

I want a couple more bowls to hold small turned items on my stand next week, so I prepared a couple more blanks and hope to find enough time to turn them before I leave on Sunday for a week in the New Forest – a bit of a woodsman’s holiday.

Also on the bowl turning front I managed to make a couple more handles for hooks at the show last weekend – just using up old blank billets which had dried out and were too painful to turn or had faults and had been put aside. I fit a piece of copper pipe as a ferrule and then part drill the hole into the handle before burning the handle onto the tool by heating ithe tang until it’s almost red hot with a blow torch.

Here are 3 more bowl hooks awaiting a sharpen and trying out. The shorter one is intended to be used for goblets and egg cups, at least that was the plan, we’ll see how it works first.

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Courgette cake – but with carrots

Carrot cake has become something of a feature at some of my shows. I had some at the bodgers ball this May and it went down very nicely with the Raspberry Vodkin, not that they were intended to go together mind you, it just sort of happened that way. At the time I promised Fion that I’d let him have Alison’s recipe, but failed to get around to it until now.

So sorry for the delay and here goes with Alison’s courgette cake – made with carrots!

first batch of ingredients

8oz of caster sugar
6oz of soft brown sugar (made up as 4 of light and 2 of dark)
12oz plain flour
2tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tblsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp salt
1 heaped tsp baking powder
and sieve all the ingredients into a bowl

in a second bowl prepare
8 floz of sunflower oil
1 tblsp vanilla essence (or 1 tsp vanilla extract)
3 medium eggs

final batch of ingredients
8 oz of coarsely grated carrot (or baby courgette)
7 oz raisins
31/2 oz of chopped walnuts
the zest of an orange (a bit optional)

pour the oil and egg mixture into the sieved ingredients and then chuck in the final batch to produce the most unappetising looking mixture. It should fit onto a 9×12 inch baking tin and then cook for 40-45 minutes at gas 4 (180 degrees C). Take to shows and watch it disappear as if by magic.

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Polelathe – Weekend at the Weald and Downland museum

Last weekend was the Rare breed show at the Weald & Downland open air museum. The show is only one day but I decided to go down on Saturday and demonstrate as well to avoid the mad rush on Sunday morning. I’m glad I did as I had plenty of time to set up and a steady stream of interested visitors throughout the day. In many ways I enjoy these days more as there is more time to spend with visitors and less of an hectic feel but still a sense of anticipation of the show to come.

The weather was unseasonably cold and rather windy, so no sunny photos but the working collection of hand machines in the woodyard caught my eye. In the background is a monster bandsaw with the band running right around the smaller wheels whilst the large wheel is hand turned. I’m not sure of the other tools but I think one is morticer (chisel on a swinging weight) and a drill.

And there is the timber crane itself. With its massive post and jib you automatically expect it to need an enginer but it runs very smoothly and evenly by hand to lift large logs from the wagons across to either the racksaw or the sawpit.

In the evening the wind died down and I spent some time preparing blanks for the show day, just enough that I can spend as much time on the lathe as the demonstrating needs, and to speed up making replacement items as I don’t tend to keep any stock. My german bottle opening hammer came into its own – I forget the name but the translation is something along the lines of ‘friday after work hammer’ which comes with a bottle opener instead of a claw.

Had a very busy show day, after a downpour first thing in the morning the rain stayed away though the wind was gale force. I spent the whole day tied to the lathe with rounders bat’s being the top seller of the weekend. Then it was time to packup before the wind blew my shelter away though at least it was in the dry. As a result I had no time to see the show and totally failed to take any photographs of the show itself, except for this one of a half completed barn roof which caught my eye in the morning.

I also failed to sell any of my new shaving bags – though I came close on occasionk, and have managed to barter one for half a dozen free range eggs. Not dispirited though as the weather forced me to keep them under cover and I feel that they will start to sell soon.

My friends Robert and Carol were working in the forge next to me on Sunday. I took this photograph of a giant pair of log tongs as a record for Robert so that he can make another pair to the same design.

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polelathe – what price shavings?

For some time I’ve been trying to work out what to do with my shavings. The pile under the lathe in the shed had built up to over a foot thick and I am producing a lot more than I can now use. Judging by the questions I get at shows there is a lot of interest. Recently I’ve started bagging the lathe shavings for bedding (a friend’s chickens love them) and separately from the shave horse shavings which are great for fire-lighting.

So thanks to Matt and his oak shavings at the recent QECP show I have some hessian sandbags and will try to sell the shavings when I am demonstrating. Matt also pointed me in the direction of shavings for use on bbq’s both for firelighting and also to provide ‘wood smoke’ flavour.

My experience with my friend’s chickens is that they prefer my green (dustless) hardwood shavings to the commercial pine shavings, so they should be worth a premium. I’m going to start at £2 a bag, which appears to be around 1.5 to 2kg gross. I’m looking for a premium price as I only have a limited supply and I think the local hardwood should be worth more than the commercial pine shavings.

I’ve prepared 8 bags and we’ll see how I get on at the Weald and Downland’s rare breed show this weekend. I should have been doing all the urgent things on my list today, but I could resist trying to make some progress on another bowl, unfortunately I didn’t quite finish it show I hope to get back to it on Monday when I get back from the show.

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Greenwood – modifying my chainsaw mill

I started planking with a chainsaw using the Logosol Timberjig, a simple carriage that attaches to the chainsaw bar bolts and allows you to make straight ripping cuts in conjunction with a guide rail which you can make up yourself. For around £100 it allows you to find out whether a chainsaw mill is right for you and to make simple planks from timber that otherwise would be firewood.

You can upgrade the timberjig with a lightweight guide rail and two adjustable log clamps into the big mill system which allows more accurate cutting and simple raising and lowering of the rail.

I still have and use the big mill system, particularly for the odd log or small job which is too large to manhandle onto my M7.

I bought the top of the range M7 chainsaw mill because I was impressed with the logosol design combining lightweight, ease of assembly and use with really good quality results. Faced with a couple of large jobs I looked hard at buying a mobile bandsaw. Parking and security for the bandsaw would be a problem for me. The chainsaw mill is a fraction of the price enabling me to buy a top of the range mill and saw rather than a bottom of the range bandsaw mill.

The mill uses two handcranked log rests to move the bed up and down in 1/4 or 1/8inch steps to enable accurate cutting. The saw carriage incorporates a magnetic clamp which allows the accuracy to be maintained across the cut. Particuarly when using the Logosol single piece milled bar which reduces the kerf (width of cut by 1/3) improving cutting and reducing waste.

I use the mill with a Stihl MS660 which is easily powerful enough for most jobs and I don’t recommend using a relatively small saw for planking as it will be driven very hard.

This oak tabletop planked from a log using the bigmill shows how useful it can be to have a chainsaw mill. The oak was lying over a boundary bank in position where fences made it hard to extract. It might not even have been used for firewood otherwise and I like the ability to cut the wood as I choose, leaving waney edges where possible. I can later resaw to remove the edges if necessary.

The M7 comes configured with a log bed of 7ft and guiderail lenght of 18ft for processing logs of 8-17 in length. It can be extended if you need to plank monster logs,

But for some time I’ve been toying with reducing the logbed with to allow me to plank shorter logs which effectively turns it into the woodworkers mill.

In the usual Logosol manner the woodworkers mill is based upon the M7 concept but with some parts left out and reconfigured.

By drilling 4 more holes, 3 on the support beam and one on the guiderail I can use it as a woodworkers mill and process logs in the range 4 to 8 feet in length.

Having tried it out once like this it seems likely that I will normally use it like this and only use it in the full configuration for larger jobs.

 

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Polelathe – At the Queen Elizabeth Country Park show

The Queen Elizabeth Country Park (QECP) is right on the South Downs below Petersfield and in the shadow of Butser Hill, the rain shadow that is. The view from Butser Hill is one of the classic views from the South Downs, north into the Western Weald, east along the Downs and south down to the coast and the Isle of Wight. I joined the Hampshire Coppice Craftsmen Group (HCCG) for the show over the weekend. Before I left I knew the weather on Saturday was likely to be terrible, so I was at least vaguely prepared for the wash out.

The constant rain was drained our spirits, the clouds obscuring the hills and sometimes the site as well whilst the wind made sure that little under the shelter remained dry. Ever the optimist I noticed a slight brightness in the view from the shelter, but unfortunately it was only relative and the weather rapidly worsened as the photo shows. My credibility as a weather forecaster took a big hit with Dave Lister and Toni Brannon who were mystified at my annoucement ‘it’s looking brighter in the west’.

I was proven to be right eventually, and luckily for us Sunday dawned a much brighter day, the view from the shelter was transformed and our spirits rose again as we dried out and the visitors came to the show.

There was a good line up from the Hampshire Group with a wide range of coppice products and demonstrations for the visitors to take in and to help raise awareness of the need to coppice woodland.

Les and Toni Brannon’s wide range of coppice products included traditional chestnut gate hurdles, besom brooms, hay rakes and tomato stakes right through to kindling, plant labels and small turned garden items.

Next to my pitch were Matt and Tori demonstrating shingle making from cleft oak. I’ve wanted to learn about shingle making for some time so it was good for me, if not for them, that I could ask questions all day long. Their six week old baby is starting green wood working at a young age.

They run a timber framing and green wood business which is not far from the showground. Matt even found some time to work on a timber frame, apparently destined to become a composting toilet.

Dave Lister, hurdle and spar maker, showed us how to think laterally to find new uses for traditional products. One of his recent successes is a log shelter constructed from woven hazel hurdles. I can see it will be a big hit with the new owners of wood burning stove that have only just realised that buying logs from the filling station is quite expensive.

Another of Dave’s products is the washing machine drum bbq burner. It works as a brazier and as a barbecue, the stainless steel drum is relatively light because of the mesh which also allows the heat to radiate around it. Something we really appreciated on Saturday evening as a hardy few of us stayed overnight on the showground and the gale set in.

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