Splitting a big Cherry butt

This massive Cherry butt has been serving as a leaning post in Derek’s workshop for a couple of years but is now destined to serve as chair legs. Quite a few chair legs I should think, provided of course that we can split it at all. It was a very good leaning post and it will be a shame to lose it – I’m not quite sure how I got conned into helping to split this one as quite clearly it’s not going to be easy.

A roundup produced 5 metal wedges and a maul (or beetle) for driving them in. As it was a garden cherry tree it’s likely to be fairly twisted grain and being the base of butt of the tree this will be even more pronounced.  Losing 5 wedges without managing to split it open would be quite easy.

We managed to get 4 of the wedges in the top as first the crack ran to one side and then the other before finally splitting down one side.

It might not look like it but these wedges are completely jammed in and the maul just bounces off them.  Time for the last wedge and some more muscle…

As the split opens down the side we recover the metal wedges from the top

Almost there but it won’t give up easily – With wood nothing is ever quite that easy and the one thing  you can predict is that it will be unpredictable. It’s splits quite well ,  considering,  but there turns out to be twisted fibres and a knot right at the base of the butt which fights us all the way.

Until it finally opens up revealing quite a heavy wind. The problem with garden trees is that they are often overfed and over watered, branch out in all directions and are normally unsheltered so the wood is much harder to work with twists and knots than the equivalent woodland tree. If it does get turned into chair legs then at least they will be strong ones!

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Adze, Inshave, Travisher and some turning too

Yes the Adze, Inshave and Travisher mean that I’ve made more progress with my chair seat. It’s turned out quite well as the weather has been awful so the workshop (in this case Derek’s workshop for most of the time) is the best place to be.  The Inshave is the tool like a curved drawknife in the bottom right of the picture (this one is Derek’s) and the Travisher is the one like a curved spokeshave in the top left of the picture (again it’s Derek’s).

It is fairly much the first time that I’d used my little hand Adze, let alone with Inshave and Travisher. The adze is one made by Mick Stanton (Fraughtwrought – he demonstrated edge tool making  at the Bodgers Ball this year) and I think Ibought it about 3 years ago. So thats how long it’s taken me to get around to shaping my first chair seat. But then I did have to plank the wood and season it to be fair! Anyway well done Mick  it’s turned out to be a great little adze, and although on the light side it is good for delicate work – though I am still getting the hang of it.

I haven’t finished the work on the seat, still have the final smoothing and some mistakes to cope with as well as the chamfering around the bottom edge, but it seemed best to get on with fitting the legs whilst I had the opportunity.

and then the stretchers as well. This is the centre stretcher of the 3 which forms the middle of the H shape between the legs.

At least it’s reached the stool stage which is a good step forwards. I haven’t made all of the sticks for the back yet or the comb (the solid piece of wood across the top of the back).

I have really enjoyed the work on the seat and fitting the legs somewhat to my surprise as it seems a little daunting at first.  But finishing the work on the seat and the components on the back will have to fit in around other work now – so the chair will be taking a back seat for a while (ooops) – and I need to find my Inshave and figure out what to do about a Travisher as I don’t have one and they don’t come cheap.

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First Scythe Course

On a gray drizzling Friday last week I ran my first course on Scything. A one day course for the South Downs Volunteer Ranger Service and an opportunity to use the skills and knowledge I acquired from my Tutors course back in June upon my poor unsuspecting students – though in the end they prooved more than equal to the challenge and maybe I was the poor unsuspecting Tutor!

Having planned for poor weather we took advantage of shelter in the local barn to get through the intruduction and setup of the scythes. I had a range of blades on display and also old English and European varieties of scythe from my growing collection, I had hoped to be able to use one of the English Scythes but all the preparation time went on getting the 6 snathes ready for the course and sadly I ran out of time to prepare the English scythe for use – But that leaves something for next time.

There is only so much talking that I can do without getting down to doing something and so we went out into the drizzle to cut some rough grass. Despite the poor grass and the light rain the group soon started to mow quite respectably which was very pleasing for me as tutor.

In the afternoon we headed onto the Lynchmere commons (there are more than one) to try cutting bracken. After cutting the grass we blasted through the bracken and I need to remember to have more than a couple of pitchforks to keep up with the mowers next time. I think everyone was impressed with how effectively the scythes handle bracken and light scrub. The neat windrows of cut bracken also make it relatively easy to collect and pile it for composting

The last part of the day’s course was to try cutting along rides and paths with obstacles (trees, holes and dead wood) in mixed scrub and brambles. Again I think that everyone was impressed that with a little thought and a change in the stroke of the scythe it can effectively cut and clear brambles.

In  Traditional style we celebrate the end of the day’s course and thank Dan (promoted from Tea Boy number one to Student) for mugs/buscuits and taxi service etc, and Rich who coped admirably with promotion from Tea Boy number Two to Tea Boy number one and making tea and coffee for us.

The new scythe snathes held up very well, coping with both the grass and the harder work of bracken and scrub.  I do need to modify the way that I attach the lower crank handle to the snathe as with force being used it does soon start to work loose. We used almost entirely Styria blades and the new ones were not peened fully, which made the grass cutting much harder but left the blades less vulnerable to damage in the work on the commons.

I think the course went very well (I will welcome feedback both positive and negative) and with some slight improvements (more milk and more pitch forks) I’m looking forward to running the next course in the new year.

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A stable of shave horses

Last year I asked ‘What is the collective noun for shave horses?’. The answer for this year, at least, is a Stable of shave horses.

With so many other project on the go, I had abandoned (but not intentionally) my copy of ‘Auntie Gertie’s chair’ back in February when it became clear I could not finish it for this years Bodgers Ball. I am very pleased to be making some progress again this week. Mainly on the seat which is now drilled for the legs.

With some basic adzing of the seat, using a hand adze. The first time I’ve hand adzed a seat and it’s not the fastest or neatest job but I am learning a lot.

Derek has an interest jig that places the chair seat vertically for adzing rather than having to bend over and adze between your feet. Certainly easier on the back. It’s actually the top of the workbench (an old kitchen worksurface) which slides off to stand almost vertical for the adzing with the seat clamping between the two angled pieces of wood.

It’s is thanks to Derek  that I am making progress. There is always plenty going on in Derek’s workshop to distract me, and I got slightly caught up in helping to assemble the bow back onto one of Derek’s signature bow back windsor arm chairs.

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Snathes and nibs

There is nothing like a deadline to make things happen and I am not short of deadlines at the moment. With my first scything course only a few days away I needed to finish off the scythe handles (or snathes). I’d made up 6 of them and I needed the best 4 for the course to add to my original 2 handles (imported from Switzerland) so there would be a scythe for each of the participants.

Making a couple of prototypes has given me the opportunity to improve my design – though there is scope for plenty of further refinement yet. The handgrips, or nibs, are adjustable to cope with different sizes of user and accurate drilling of the holes for securing the grips meant I had to make a jig up. There is a lot of force acting through the nibs in use and on these European style snathes the lower one has a cranked (extended) nib as the snathe itself is almost straight. Getting the handgrips to fix securely onto the snathe has been the biggest problem so far.

I’ve made the nibs in pairs on the polelathe which seems to work well and results in a fairly simple but goodlooking handgrip.

Final assembly of the scythes went well though, as always, time had flown and there was no time to test each one – so they went straight into the course for their first testing.

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Steam festival and an odd besom broom clamp

Straight from one show to the next at this time of year. By the time I was set up at the Weald and Downland museum last Friday night it was almost dark.  The steam festival is always busy and  great fun so its a good show for me. The museum has a great setting and the engines slowly puffing around the tracks seems to add to the effect.

The Steam engines were rolling in all evening and more arrived the next morning before the show began. Having been in woodsmoke all week at least it made a change to be surrounded by steam and coke smoke.

Steam enthusiasts can be a very anorak brigade, but this bunch don’t always take themselves too seriously as the steam bicycle and steam gramophone on display prove. One of the best events in the arena is when 50 odd parents and children attempt a tug-of-war with a 10 ton steamroller. Ebenezer the steam roller eventually lost, but mainly due to the surreptitious use of buckets of water under the wheels to help it lose traction.

There are always plenty of engines parked around for the crowds to mingle with and admire.

Having spent the week working with bowls and needing to do some treen for sale I went back to my old spindle lathe for this show.

Nothing like some hard work to make the time fly and suddenly it was a spurtle past dibber o’clock and time to stop work again. Though working in the evening was made more enjoyable by the lights of the fairground engines.

I think this one ran by the bar all evening aside from the odd run to the bowser for more water.

This old besom broom was found in a cottage in Midhurst when it was cleared recently. Apparently 3 old sisters had lived there and amongst the remains of many years of life were two of these clamps for making a simple besom.

Clearly home made and just nailed onto a broom handle. I wonder whether anyone has seen anything similar? It seems that they would probably have been used in the kitchen/scullery or on the cottage yard/paths rather than for the lawns and would have had a more rectangular shape than the normal besoms. Thanks to Dave for bringing it along for me to see. I took plenty of photos and will aim to make a replica soon (at least it’s in the list of projects to get around to).

Before I knew it, the show was over and time to pack up and go home again – sold out of rolling pins again.

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Earthburn 2010 – photos on gallery page

If you haven’t had enough yet I’ve uploaded more of the photos from the Earthburn to a gallery page. Either select the Gallery tab above the blog title banner or follow the link here.

Earthburn Gallery

These only cover the building and burning of the charcoal kiln, the photos from the coppice courses will follow soon.

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Earthburn 2010 – and a polelathe too….

Once the Earthburn is underway there can be long periods without any excitement, or even much in the way of activity. Plenty of time – in theory – to take in the other activities around the site. Owen Jones ran his course making Oak swill baskets, Jeremy Atkinson was making wooden clog soles, Neil McCloughlin was teaching Hazel hurdle making with Terry Heard (tent pegs) and Alan Sage (gate hurdles). A local broom maker, Stan Card demonstrated his brooms and somewhere along the line I’d also agreed to demonstrate on the lathe. I was going to post on all of these here but it’s too long to do justice so I’ll start with my activities and post again on the other courses which were fascinating and quite unique to see them all together in one place.

I was demonstrating bowl turning on the polelathe and also ran a Have-a-g0 session on another one of my lathes. For the bowl lathe I’d made yet another bed and set of legs before coming away and fixed the original stability problem by increasing the splay of the legs – but I forgot to increase the length of the legs with the result that it was a little too low, even for me, in practice. Fix one problem and introduce another one – typical.

I don’t get a lot of photos of me on the lathe – and it’s even more rare – well a first actually, for someone to sketch me on the lathe – so thanks Kat, I think you had a lot of patience to do this much in between visitors and helping people on the have-a-go lathe.

The have-a-go lathe was busy and it was good to be able to start people off and then leave them to find their own way at their own pace.

Gemma succeeded in making a pestle in only an hour and a half without having used a polelathe before. I’ve often throught about making pestles and mortars so this might also help me along in making a prototype . If I can make them fast enough to sell at a reasonable price I reckon they will be popular.

Some longer legs should get the lathe upto a comfortable height (for me) but I have a little more work to do on the workrest arrangement to make it equally good for bowls and spindles. Not a lot of time this week as I am making some scythe snathes for my first course on Friday, but perhaps in a week or two – before the autumn shows start. Ouch where has all the time gone!

Have to run now and work on the scythes – will post later today on the oak swill baskets,  clogs. tent pegs, hurdles and brooms – with luck!

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Earthburn 2010 – Day 2 onwards

As you will have realised, I didn’t get the chance to post any further updates during the Earthburn last week. Now finally back home after leaving the Earthburn on Friday and going down to the Weald & Downland Museum for the Steam Festival (where the smoke smelt entirely different but I probably fitted in quite well) I can catch up with the story.

The burn started slowly and deceptively gently. Here Mr Jameson tends to the hay and soil covering as the burn creeps down the stack. By late on the first evening all was going well and in the ‘hurry up and wait’ nature of things it looked as if the hard work was over for a while. By just after midnight the top of the kiln was starting to collapse noticeably as the top tier of wood burned. But  I decided to get some sleep and missed all the excitement in the next few hours.

Under the gently exterior the burn was gathering pace and beginning to build up heat. Around about 3am the burn broke through the top of the kiln as woodgas was released and ignited. For the next hours the team fought bravely (or so they told me over breakfast) to contain the burn using water, soil and a few bits of tin lying around the site whilst the heat was gradually reduced and the last of the woodgas burnt off. In my opinion birch has something of a habit of doing this, especially when it’s still slightly green – quite easy to lose your eyebrows and even with my small oildrum kilns it can just about blow the lid off when the gas mixes with oxygen. So I can imagine that controlling a stack of several tons of birch 8 feet tall and 20feet across is quite a dangerous occupation. No wonder a few charcoal burners used to go missing from time to time.

So I missed all of the dramatic photos in the early hours of the morning and by breakfast time it looked as if everything was under control – except that the kiln had reduced in size dramatically overnight.  Alan Waters and Mark Cox debate the next course of action.

Peter Jameson demonstrates just how comfortable the one legged charcoal burners stool can be when you’ve been up since 3am.

One of the team drew this very authentic sketch of the scene using willow (artists) charcoal to hand.

As Thursday (day 2) drew onwards the kiln became progressively more peacefull with the last of the moisture and volatiles driven off the fire is burning right down to the level of the hearth and the smoke is starting to turn bluish. It prooved to be a quieter night though still busy as the hay and earth covering is constantly being tended to whilst the wood contracts under it to prevent the fire breaking through again.

The winds were light throughout the burn which was helpful, but it doesn’t need much movement to fan the flames and make it hard to control the burn evenly around the kiln so these screens were erected, gate hurdles covered in hessian, to reduce the air flow over the kiln.

Jimmy on watch over the kiln inspects the drawing his son Jacob has made of the scene, complete with his dad’s coffee mug.

Unfortunately I didn’t get to see the kiln opened as I had to leave for the next show on Friday. It’s not as simple as leaving it to cool, as you do with metal kilns and oil drums as it’s not possible to completely seal the covering. So the fire has to be put out by using water – though its the boiling of the water into steam which actually stops the fire by reducing the heat and excluding the oxygen, rather than by dowsing or drowning the fire. Once it’s been ‘steamed’ the coals can then be collected, sieved and bagged.

Alongside the charcoal burn were a number of greenwood courses taking place and some demonstrations – including the polelathe so I’ll post on these next.

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