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.

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.

Holiday Holland, and some nice tools

this past week I have been on holiday in holland with my girlfriend and whilst visiting there were some lovely historical museums that we visited, with some wood work related history.

the first museum we visited was called Archeon located near Alphen aan den Rijn, Though calling it a museum is an understatement. It focuses on living history re-enactors recreating the living conditions of High Medieval, Roman, Iron Age, Bronze age, Neolithic, and further back. While all these areas were interesting with roman massages, neolithic bread on a stick, and medieval seal making the area that interested me the most was the bronze age. The re-enactor in that area had a wonderful collection of bronze axes in that just seemed too amazing not to look at. She asked me and the public to setup the axes in he chronological order, which i had correct. The two on the left being the earlier as they would work but the handles would eventually split. The two in the center were later and better designed to incorporate the strength of tree branches and having the axe head slotting into the head. This design must have given better results with fewer broken handles but again the wood would most likely spilt eventually. the axe on the far right was the latest design for bronze axes which incorporated the bronze head with a socket for the handle to attach too. This design would have been given the best longevity to the bronze axe and this design was even incorporated into the early iron axes of the iron age.

I certainly enjoyed the axes and the knowledge behind them. She couldn't help and show off her collection bronze knives and arrow heads. I also got to have a go with a bronze axe  in peeling an ash log, although it had been heavily used by other members of the public.

In the archaeology section of the museum there were some lovely medieval finds from holland, Including a lovely axe/hammer and an adze. I wonder what kind of workman would have used an axe and hammer at the same time?

Not to mentions a lovely selection of medieval bowls and some excavated spoons. It is interesting to see how simple they are and how they undecorated. simple and useful utensils :-).

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!!!!!!

Long Time No Post

Have realised I have lapsed greatly on my blog. With my last post being from last year alot has changed since then. I have finished my medieval pole lathe and have been turning at events. Also I have moved to Sheffield which means I will have to find a workshop for my lathe an tools.

But until then I will be carrying with the spoon carving to keep my wood cravings happy. Here is some of the work I have done last night, working on a ladle out of some beech and some eating spoons out of sycamore.

Over the next couple of weeks/months I will be posting more :-)

Volunteer Work

Today has been a very interesting day. I have been in talks with Peter Wood from Greenwood Days about volunteering on his courses. Greenwood Days is where I first learnt about green wood working about 3 years ago so it was wonderful to see the place again after all this time.

The workshop is based in a lovely woodland which is brilliant to work in as it gives one a sense of tranquillity whilst you work. Also it allows Peter to show people what to look for in a tree for wood working. But it was wonderful to work there in the outdoors and not having to worry about making “too” much mess.



But we worked on creating a bodgers muddle out of some ash which after two attempts did get better, couldn’t quite get it working properly. But after that we working on refurbishing all of Peters shaving horses to get them ready for his courses this summer which was good fun

By volunteering I hope to improve my skills by trying my hand at anything. Whether it is sharpening or making cups of tea it will add to my skills base and expand my knowledge of working wood. I look forward to working with Peter in the near future.