Essex gathering

Last weekend I was at an annual gathering of green woodworkers at a private woodland in Essex. I arrived Saturday evening and set up my bed.

and was fortunate enough to arrive just in time for the evening meal

The rest of the evening was spent eating, drinking and chatting. It rained heavily Saturday night but I did not wake up until 9am when the rain had stopped.

Some people wanted to try carving kuksas so after breakfast

we headed off in search of a suitable Birch tree to fell

which we then cut into short lengths and split in half ready for people to use.


Some spent the day carving kuksas while others where making shaving horses and furniture.

Unfortunately I had to leave at 4pm so did not get my cup completed, but it will be finished soon.

Hardwick Wood

I have been at Hardwick Wood near Cambridge today with other green woodworking friends.

Activities included bowl turning on a pole-lathe, spoon carving, cordage making and of course eating and drinking. I was carving as small cup using my spoon gouge.

Unfortunately it cracked before I had finished it!

A couple more pictures from the Bodgers Ball

Here is one of the most beautiful Birch bark containers that I have ever seen. Birch bark has even been used to stitch it together.

Unfortunately I never did find out who had made it or where the Birch bark had been sourced from.

Here Dave Watson from Woodland Survival Crafts is demonstrating making fire using a pole-lathe as an adaptation of the friction firelighting method.

The Bodgers Ball

Last weekend I was at "The Bodgers' Ball" at Horton-cum-Studley. This is an annual gathering of The Association of Pole-lathe Turners and Green Wood Workers, and there were about 250 people at the event.

It was a great opportunity to put some faces to names (Robin Wood and Ben Orford to name but two) and to catch up with old friends. As well as being a social event there were also many competitions to watch and take part in. I entered a piece in the craft competition in "non turned treen" section and there were many other categories from spoons to chairs.


These were the entries for the "six hour chair making challenge"

and here is Ben Orford taking part and winning in the "Individual Log to Leg" competition, where from two sections of an Ash log, the competitors had to turn two matching chair legs as fast as possible.

Ben completed this in well under ten minutes.

There were also workshops taking place over the course of the two days.

including spoon carving and patterning, basic knife skills and safety, axe work and chair seating.

Amongst all the tents and tipi's it was also a good opportunity to test out my sleep system.

A nice find in the main arena was this Green-winged Orchid (protected of course by a wooden enclosure).

This was my first Bodgers Ball and I had a fantastic time and look forward to next years (wherever it may be).

You can read more about this event from Robin's perspective here

Weekend gathering

I hosted a gathering this weekend at my woods for a friends 50th birthday party.

The plan was to practise skills and to do some green woodworking, but we seemed to spend most of the weekend eating and drinking!

I made a chocolate bannock by using a cooking pot as an oven.

Here's the end result.

Although I had a sleeping bag, Saturday night was by far the coldest night I have ever had while sleeping outside! I did not sleep much and was up at first light making coffee and preparing for breakfast.



On Sunday I made a parachute tepee to enable people to shelter from the wind.

Bow-lathe

As my friend Robin at Treewright has just posted in a previous thread I thought I would promote him EVEN MORE!!! by showing you something he demonstrated to me when we were working together at the Scout Jamboree last summer.

Not everyone has the materials, time or space for their own pole-lathe, but a bow-lathe is a small and simple alternative. Below is a picture of Robin in action using his bow-lathe.

I guess you could say that it is based on the principle of the bow-drill, because you use a bow to rotate your work instead of foot power as used with a pole-lathe.

All you need is a stable base (I used a piece of scaffold board for mine) and two uprights fixed securely to the base. Drill a hole towards the top of each upright and insert a coach screw (or similar) through each, having ground a point onto each bolt to hold your piece of work securely. Use two nuts to secure the bolts in position.


At one end you can incorporate a simple wooden handle to tighten one bolt to hold you work.


and finally fix a piece of wood between the two uprights as a tool rest


Now axe a length of wood into a rough "round", place the bow string around using the same method as with the bow-drill and secure your work between the two bolts.

Now using a couple of bodgers chizels, move the bow backwards and forwards to rotate your work and turn the wood into whatever you require!

Green woodworking group gathering

It was the monthly gathering of our green woodworking group again today. The day started very well with me being given an old picture of a Finnish Skolt Lapp woman making cordage out of Reindeer sinew, by rolling it on her cheek. This is a method I have never encountered before.

If you look closely at the picture you can actually see the cordage the cordage vibrating as she rolls it.

Then I was asked to make a fire in a creative way, so decided to see whether the winter sun was strong enough to make fire using a condom and crampball fungus (as mentioned here). My friend filmed this piece of film for me and if you look carefully you can see the smoke starting to appear as the fungus is ignited.



This is my friend Will, turning out a Alder bowl on his pole lathe.

and here the children are also learning to use a pole lathe.

Everyone enjoyed the day, especially with the beautiful spring-like weather.

Simple bench or trestle

My friend Will and I made some benches for students to sit on when attending my courses. Will had seen these made and used as trestles by carpenters in Romania.

Two four inch diameter logs are split in half to form the legs. One end of each leg is reduced to a wedge shape as you can see below.

We marked the shape of the leg tops onto a Wych Elm log with charcoal and then made a series of cuts

then I chiseled out wood with a knife and batton to form the grooves for the legs to go into.

Each leg was then knocked into its groove and if necessary minor adjustments were made to produce a tight fit.


Once all four legs are in, you can cut off the bottoms of the legs to achieve the ideal height.