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.

Making a New Pole Lathe Part 3

Have spent the past couple weeks finishing off the lathe so will try and make this the last post in regards to the construction.

Step One: Prepare the Metal Centres

once the material is found, grind the centres.

I like to have one center bent so I fired up the forge to bend the center

Step Two: Placing centres in poppets

Drill hole into poppets.

once the hole has been drilled take a mallet and strike the center until it sits perfect. Then simply check how the center looks and line it up with the other taller poppet and mark where the other need centre needs to be.

Step Three: Tool Rest Assembly

To start take the actual tool rest and mark a line where it sits level

This marks out where the support for the tool rest needs to sit (just below the line). so drill the hole there.

split a piece of wood and hammer into the hole. then place the tool rest on top.

Note: this tool rest alignment is for a left handed turner. for right handed reverse alignment.

Step Four: Treadle, Pole, and Done!!!

The lasts step for the lathe are to source a decent sized pole, some wood for an A-frame, and the treadle. When you have sourced all of this the last thing to do is tweak it all until you are happy with it and test the lathe out. I tested out a piece of sycamore to see how the lathe performed and I am pleased with the results.

If anyone has got any questions or feedback about this project please leave a comment on this blog.

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.

Making a New Pole Lathe Part 1

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.

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.

Bowl Carving Course

Last week I attended a bowl carving course with robin wood, and I have to say that was an eye opener to the skills needed to carve bowls.

I turned up on the wednesday and pitched my tent and spent first couple hours sharpening my axe since I had a couple hours to kill. We started by selecting and splitting some willow into sizeable pieces for the bowl mate and removing the bark so we could draw the design.

The first tool we had to use was an adze which was to carve out the inside of the bowl and was actually a lot easier to use than I thought. first came the big roughing cuts to remove as much mass as quickly as possible and then came the more gentle smoothing cuts. After getting to grips with the adze the results showed

After the the adze came the the gouges and hook tools to smooth off all the cuts and make it nice.

Then came the axe to remove the waste wood to give shape to the ends.

and finally finishing of the outside with a push knife and a spokeshave to give its final shape. The push knife was a fun tool, like a drawknife but the opposite.  The finished bowl is at the bottom.

hoping to make a few more some time soon :-)

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.