Wayne Batchelor, a fellow Sussex member of the Association of Polelathe Turners (APT) is a keen reenactor and on the Sunday was demonstrating with the Living History group. He brought his small bow lathe and was busy making drop spindles which is hard enough to do, let alone on a bow lathe.
Somehow against my better judgement he persuaded me to have a go on the bow lathe. Each to their own, it’s not my idea of fun – as the roles of hands and feet are slightly reversed from the polelathe – but then I have an old landrover to carry my stuff and there is no doubt the bow lathe is very compact. Working out how to brace the chisel one handed and prevent chattering on thin work like drop spindles I did not manage to master in 5 minutes.
Then back to my pitch in the woods. You could almost call me a bodger with a very small stack of chair legs.
But I spent some time bowl-turning when I could get away from the production of dibbers (still very popular even at this end of the season – clearly a recession buster) rounders bats and rolling pins.
Butser Ancient farm were demonstrating at the show and Fergus was smelting copper using a charcoal furnace and with a clay lining. Unfortunately the wooden pipe from his bellows (something like a tuyere on a forge) burnt through when the clay cracked. I had a go at making a replacement using a birch stool leg that was to hand,
The main effort was to drill through the end grain using my brace and bit, unfortunately the only bit of the right size I had with me was damaged so we had to work a little harder. Though a proper bodge job we got there in the end and the new pipe worked well, though I didn’t manage to get free from my pitch to see it in action.
December is a month of partying and gift buying. Only three searches peaked in this month, but all three are worth mentioning. Two of them – furnace filters and furnace humidifiers – we will return to in February. For now, just remember these two plurals.
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