52 Weeks Of Carving - Week 15 - Spatula

This week has been a fun week for some projects getting done. My eldest daughter and I managed to finish our "spoon mule" - a shave horse type device for holding fine things to be worked on - like spoons. I'll do more on that in another post but it turned out to be a great project to do together, using purchased plans which were great to work off. 

I also made a raised cutting block! This simple project is something I've been meaning to make for years. It gives you good control with an axe at a height that is comfortable to work at. After putting it off for ages in the end it took me about 30 minutes to make it! I used some oak from the branch that fell in the drought last summer and for the legs I used some fresh cut hazel. I know the oak might not prove to be ideal as it is prone to splitting but this piece looked knotty and will do for now. The legs will shrink as they dry but I can always wedge them if they get loose or make some new ones.

Axe WorkShop

I've just come back from a great weekend away camping up in a wood in staffordshire learning how to use axes. It was snowing when we got there but that only added to the fun!

We also made charcoal over the weekend and you can read about that here.

A very snowy tent

 

First lesson - learning not to embed the axe in your leg - an important lesson!



Splitting wood safely



Chopping down some small trees that needed to be removed



Learning to tie faggots using a woodmans clamp



Base camp for the weekend



Jonny showing a method of sharpening an axe



A extra safe and precise way of splitting wood - good for blanks for tent pegs



Some rough tent pegs



Dan making a mallet



Some spoon carving lessons



A rough shaped mallet

The group stood with our measured "cord" of wood

It was a great weekend, I learnt some new skills and practised old one. I also got to spend quality time with my brother doing what we both love.

This was our second axe course (find a link to our first one here) run by different firms and they were for completely different things so it would be unfair to compare the two. This one was from a bush craft point of view where the other was more to practise the traditional skills of the men that used to fell trees with axes for a living. 

This was our third course with Survival school and we weren't disappointed. It was nice to be outside and dedicate yourself to learning bush craft skills for the weekend with no other distractions. Going back to basics is great fun and although some of the things you can make straight off the axe are a little rough round the edges its a great skill to develop and learn and one I hope I'll be using more in the future (even if it's just to split fire wood) and I'll use the knowledge I've picked up to help me. The instructor were great making the whole weekend fun as well as some good company from the other students. I love weekends like this!

Green Woodwork Stool

Every night I chuck my work clothes on a stool next to the chest-of-drawers, giving it little thought.

Humble little stool with some great memories

But I remember I had a great weekend making that stool.

For part of my 21st birthday present my mum and dad paid for me to go on a green woodworking course (in fact it's only a couple of miles from where I live now!), many of my friends were only interested in drinking at this age, but my obsession lied somewhere else completely!

Well used pole lathe

 I couldn't get enough of woodwork at the time (and still can't), I'd do it all day, read about it in my breaks and think about it on the drive home, so it was a great present to give me but mum was worried as it was "an introduction to grren woodwork".

But the course itself was brilliant as it was completely different to what I was doing in the week and taught me so much about the material I use. I got to use a pole lathe for the first time and a shave horse, as well as tools I'd never even picked up before.

Shave horse

 The stool I made was a fairly simple design, Ash legs split from a log then turned green on the pole lathe, which were then kiln dried overnight to fit into an air dried elm top that I cut using a large frame saw with an old bit of band saw blade in. I remember them saying they couldn't believe how fast I cut out the 2" thick elm, but I was used to spending most days sawing wood!

A happy group at the end of the weekend, some 8 years ago!

That weekend taught me a lot about a different aspect of woodwork from how I earn my living.

It's things like this that make me realise I'll never get bored of woodwork!

Shave Horse

After a visit to the Bodgers Ball the weekend before last, I was impressed by quite a few of the demonstrations, Robin Wood, Sean Hellerman and Mike Abbott's were ones that stood out. Mike's "Lumber Horse" took my fancy as I'd always thought about building a shave horse for myself but never have the timber to do it the traditional way (with a large slab of popular).

Last year I did make my brother a shave horse for his birthday but this was made using planed timber to be used in his workshop, in a kind of "saw horse" style. I wanted one I could leave outside with just a sheet over it in winter as I haven't got the space in my workshop. Mike Abbott's one uses 4x2 treated timber (something I normally have kicking round) and can be made in a couple of hours (the design is on his website www.living-wod.co.uk ), so Sunday night I thought I'd knock one together.

It's really simple to make and seems to work well (sorry that I'm in the picture!)-

I just need to renovate this old spoke shave I brought from a car boot sale (Isac Greeves) with woodworm in the handles and I can mess around with a bit of green woodworking (should be a bit different from what I do at work).

What has everyone else got as a shave horse or work holding device?

Tree Felling with an Axe and Chain Saw milling

My brother pointed this course out to me from the Green Wood Centre website and I thought it sounded like fun and as my brother had just brought a chainsaw mill he thought it might be a good place to get a few tips.
I went thinking that we wouldn't really get to fell a very big tree, just something to get a rough idea.

How wrong I was.

We started on a sliver birch about 12" in diameter and the other half the group (there were 6 on the course plus 3 instructors) tackled a tree of about the same size. This was so we could practice our axe skills learning what angle to cut at and how to place it safely without it slipping and cutting your boot (or worse). We did this whole tree with axes, no crosscut saw and it was a lovely feeling as it fell over, 180 degrees from where we had first wanted it to go!

The main tree we were to drop was a large oak, 30 inches in diameter at the base. The first cut was put in with a two man crosscut saw and then the "birds mouth" was put in with an axe, everyone taking their turn.

The final cut was then put in with the two man cross cut saw and although it sounds a little big headed my brother and I were the best on this. We could keep and even rhythm easily and at one point the rest of the class were going to place money on which brother would give in first! it took quite a while to drop the oak but it was a great feeling when it did fall, as it went it made that great sound you only get when a big tree falls over.

The hard work wasn't over though as we had to limb it up (sned it up) all with the axe and chop through the main trunk ready for milling on Sunday. Again my brother and me took great pleasure in pushing each other to cut through the trunk getting a big cheer when I made the final chop! I love the picture at the end and you can understand the pride the woodsmen in the past would have had when they fell a big tree by hand.

I will do the milling in another post as I've realised how big this one is!