Cooking and eating

Since getting my pole lathe working I have been making some wooden bowls for my kitchen. As much as I do like my porcelain bowls, being that I can stick them in the microwave and cook stuff instantly, I find it detracts from the joy off eating from my own homemade wooden bowls. My breakfast bowl is nice to eat from as it has aged nicely and everyday I use it, it brings back memories of making it and the journey it has taken. So having made some wooden bowls I wanted to make some pieces to cook with.

To that end I have made a nice little trough and serving spoon out of some rippled willow. Was an absolute bugger to carve due to the rippling wanting to break off and do its own thing. But they came out rather nice after a little perseverance and oiling. The trough will be a wonderful addition to serve food or to make dough in for bread as it follows the traditional pattern which is somehow find very pleasing. Whether it is its symmetry or its functionality I don't know but it just seems so nice.

Now too test them out and see how they age after use.

First Bowls On Lathe And Some Sheaths

after finishing the lathe last week I decided to test out a couple bowls on it. had to grab my tools from my workshop in Hull, and axe out some bowl blanks of sycamore.this was taken from the nursery just down the road from me and the guy there is wonderful and lets take a few bits every now and then.

I flattened the top using the axe then marked the circle and sawed the corners off. Used the axe to then carve the round bowl shape from the bottom upwards.

Then the mandrel

turning the outside first and then the inside

nice thinned core. this shot shows how fine the shavings are on the bowl. not the fast turned clean marks that medieval turners made but still very good.

having used the lathe for the first time its work perfectly well and has enough weight to handle turning bowls but not too heavy not to transport. Really want to show the lathe to sherwood forest who gave me the oak to make the bed and legs. I may have to turn them something nice in return to thank them.

But also having thought about re-enacment this year i felt it time to make some tool sheathes so i can stop hiding away tools from the public. I have to say over the past couple of years doing woodworking displays in front of public, they can easily spot out modern items very well. the amount of times people have noticed the "Made in sweden" mark on my gransfors axe has annoyed me so much. so for authentic tools they need authentic sheaths.

The axe, adze, and gouge simply have folded leather cover that was shaped to follow the form of the blades. Whereas the knife require a little more precision by mark the sheath fit it perfectly. After looking through archaeology books with surviving sheaths i decided to follow this article for a scandi sheath as the result were virtually the same as the originals (though the suspension strap isn't).

Making a New Pole Lathe Part 2

Have finally had chance to do a write up of building my new pole lathe. After Christmas and the recent weather I have been tinkering with my oak bed to make it fit for purpose.

Step 1 fitting the legs to the bed

Axe the legs to fit the holes in the bed. The legs didn't sit flush initially but I just trimmed them until they were fairly level and just above my hips.

Once level, test the bed to make sure it handle any extra weight. I tested it by sitting on bed to support my whole body weight. This is done because the lathe will take many forces when uneven bowl blanks spin.

Step 2 Mark up the legs

These markings make it easier to line up the legs to get the same fit and height. Numbering the legs to the holes also works very well.

Step 3 Create the poppets

Select a suitable piece of wood. preferably straight grained.

Saw the piece to length. Remember to leave a little extra length just incase.

"you can take more off, but you can't put it back on"

Next mark up and cut the tenon to fit through the slot.

And repeat to create the second poppet

Next couple of stages will be sourcing the metal centres for the poppets though these may require an entire post focused on them alone. Then the tool rest set up will follow afterwards.

Hopefully my next posts will become more regular showing more update as I go.

Again any questions please feel free to ask.

Some Carved Bowls And a New Tool

having done a bowl carving course a couple of months ago I have finally got the tools (and time) to have ago at carving some bowl and troughs. the first ones where done fort paull back in august where i was able to carve two bowls out of some willow. this was the first time i had chance to test out a hook tool i had made which worked well cutting across the grain of the wood but blunted cutting along the grain, and after sharpening 4 times i came to the conclusion that the tool had not been hardened enough. But the bowls turned out great!!! and i was able to give one of them to a friend who works at skidby mill.

I was able to re-harden the hook and get it too work later on, but not bad for a piece of car spring i got for free.

The start: two car springs 

unwinding in the forge

Left: forged blade

Right: grind put on the blade

heating up to curl the blade with a hammer

sadly i forgot to take photos after this point as its very fast work and i need full concentration to get it right. I have to say making ones own tools is a great experience and it gives a great feel for the craft at hand. still have another hook to make so when i get chance will have ago.

Quick update

Only a quick post today. Spent Sunday doing some re-enactment with the Savilles Household at croft castle near wale and I was lucky enough to do some bowl turning on my pole lathe whilst I was there (thanks to gary ball for bringing some poles). Was a fantastic venue and a fun day out with lots of public who were very interested in the pole lathe and how bowls were made.

I was only able to produce two bowls out of sycamore as I had to keep stopping and starting throughout the day. But was great to see adults and children who were interested in medieval bowls and medieval history.

Can't wait to do more turning next year with the society and maybe a few more crafts such as spoon carving and bowl carving. 

Homemade Bowsaw

Finally got round to finishing off my bow saw that I've been making. Having done little bits to it over the past month or so decided to finish the entire thing in a day, plus having some new spokeshaves was time to test them out aswell.

After having the two side pieces cut out I marked up the tenons the drilled them out. I got a length of hazel and cut the joints in them and carved the to fit with a knife. Then mocked it up all together with some modern screws to see how it fitted and make adjustments accordingly. the overall fit was good and was able to test it out on a piece of hazel.

After the test I took the saw apart and used my spokeshave to round off the side pieces so the were nicer to handle and more pleasing to the eye. To do this I tried a similar technique as the pullstroke in spoon carving. Placing the side piece on my sternum and on my leg I was able to use the spokeshave without a vice which was nice. Also was nice to sit outside in the nice weather carving :-)

after doing the side pieces i did a bit of work on the middle piece and then reassembled the saw using some twine in stead of linen and if worked a treat. the final bowsaw. Gonna be awesome to use it at medieval shows in the future, plus the whole thing only cost me £2.50 aswell. Bargain, Beautiful and it works.

Mediaval IPad (Aka Wax Tablet) Finished

Last night I finished off the wooden blank for the wax tablet and decided to make the wax for it. Luckily there are lots of articles online about how to do this. Most just suggest using charcoal or lamp black to make the wax black, so I ground up some charcoal into powder because it was ready available.

After chopping up the beeswax I placed it in a home made double boiler and mixed in some of the charcoal powder.

It felt almost like some form of alchemy waiting for the black colour to show. After a couple of tests, this was the result (compared to the original colour).

When the wax was ready then came the time to pour. Now this was the interesting bit. Had to be very quick as the wax dries very quickly  so to get an even surface and get the wax into the corners. But after three attempts at pouring and scraping out, i finally got the wax into the corners and an even-ish surface!

Its not as perfect as I would like it but its very good first attempt I feel. Plus I have have learnt lots of things for the future when I make an entire set of them.

A Few Different Projects

Having made a couple spoons at re-enactment events I have decided to try my hand at a few different wood carved projects to test my skills a little. Not that I'm getting tired of spoons, just that I would like to try something I haven't made before.

The events at tamworth castle and bolsover castle have highlighted the fact that I do not have an authentic bow to saw up wood and spoon blanks. Instead I have been using a bacho laplander folding saw which is less than authentic and is a pain to keep hiding all the time. So I have decided to build a bow saw myself. So far I only have the two side frames of the saw.

Also while at my event at bolsover castle I found some lovely straight grained ash in the fire wood pile. Not being one to waste good wood I split a piece into planks and one of the planks I made into a wax tablet. This was just for a bit of fun and it turned to be very interesting subject to research. Having had a look online there are some wax tablets that survive in Poland (see second image) which are like books in that they have a front cover and back cover and the tablets in-between have both side with wax on them.

The tablets have the town archives of Torun written on them, and looking at how many survive there must have been many more to accompany them. Imagine making those tablets constantly. Fingers crossed I get some time to attempt a few more in the future.

the final project i have been working on has been turning a ball on my pole lathe. the ball is going to be used for games of bandy ball at re-enactment events with the Savilles re-enactment group. I have to say trying to turn the perfect sphere on my pole lathe for the first time is not easy. you look at it and think one side is too lumpy, there too short, or even to pointed so you are forever trying to perfect it. but here are some of the photos through the stages of production.

Overall I think it will work and even though its not perfect it won't matter if its being hit with bandy ball sticks. I hope they like it.

New Axe Handle and Some Spoons

Last year an axe handle i had made snapped due to too much force being placed on the neck. Since then i have been holding onto the axe head with the hope of making a new handle at some point, but i felt very content with my left handed Gransfors Bruks carving axe so I left it. When my girlfriend came round to my place and wanted to do some spoon carving she had to use my left handed axe even though she was right handed. To that end I have been working on a new handle, taking my time to make sure the wood dry's properly. here is the new handle with the wedge hammered in.

Also had to check how the blade aligned with the handle. Nice and straight.

Can't wait to test it out!!!!!! and hope my girlfriend will get some good use out of it.

Apart from that I have been working on a couple spoons over my days off. these three have been made out of some sycamore and I decided to have a play with decorating the handles, or as a work colleague calls it "jazzing it up". Its interesting to decide what decoration you want so far in the design and that one has to be so careful with the axing so as not to ruin the design. But then again there are so many different methods of decoration that one can blag it a little. But out of the three I like the handle with the dot on the top, somehow it just compliments the teardrop bowl so well and gives the spoon its character. Though this is just my opinion, what do other people think? Perhaps I should be looking at making more teardrop shaped spoons with other designs just to get a feel.

Tiny little know in the bowl.

Now all thats left is to oil and use them..........and make some more. also need to get making a cooking spoon for a work colleague. Back to work!!!!!!