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Paington Zoo bench. 2

The timber has been sitting outside my workshop waiting for my other jobs to be finished so I can complete making the bench.
I selected the two most suitable pieces of 3 inch thick planks, one of which had a slight backwards curve in, the other was thicker but straight. Ten minutes with the chainsaw and both pieces had the same curve. After raising them off the ground with a couple of logs, the centre line and overall shape were marked in chalk. I like working with chalk, as it can be rubbed off and lines redrawn quickly and easily.

I cut the left hand side back piece with a chainsaw and placed it on the right hand side piece, again using blocks of wood to keep it level. Using a black marker pen I marked the final profile.

This was cut, then both pieces were levelled up on the blocks and clamped together using sash cramps. Using a technique called ‘kerfing-in’ the chainsaw was run down the centre wavy line. This is a way to get 2 boards to fit snugly together -well, almost – especially as I was using a chainsaw and not doing a straight cut.

The outside profile was cut and the two planks were made consistently thick by holding the chainsaw bar as if I was going to cross cut the wood, and swinging it rapidly from left to right. You can get a very good finish this way on any plank of wood.

I want the bench to have a natural tooled finish, without any sanding, so all surfaces are worked with an adze. When done well, an adzed surface is not smooth and regular, but it presents a tactile, faceted and natural surface texture.

I enjoy using the adze, it is held in my right hand against my hip. This is the fixed pivot point. My left hand holds the handle half way down, and the left hand lifts and pushes the adze up and down. The adze swings in an arc, and the bottom of the adze is curved so a thin scoop of wood is cut off. The only down side, is that I sometimes suffer from back-ache and so I use it for short periods of time. The two back pieces took four sessions, about an hour in total.

The sun came out, off came the jumper, the edges of the two seat backs were draw-knifed into shape. Green oak is very easy to work with hand tools, and it is a real joy to work without to much physical effort.

The two smaller back posts are cleft to form triangular cross sections. These are hewn into shape along with the front legs and are given an adzed finish.

I have a dedicated splitting axe, an ex-army one with a protective metal casing where the handle joins the head. This axe is blunt and I have been known to bash rocks open in Lime Regis to find fossils with it.
My favourite axe is the Gränsfors Bruk carving axe, the blade profile is perfect and is a good weight for spoons or heavier hewing. With most hewing and adzing work I work across the grain, this avoids the cutting edge from following the grain of the wood and going off course.

The mortices had to cut by hand as the wood was too wide to fit into my morticer. Once a mortice is marked out I drill out as much of it as possible, and using large framer’s chisels I cut the sides square.

Dave came along for a day to give me a hand, here he is cutting a blind mortice in one of the two shorter back posts.

As the wood is shaped by hand with axe and adze, the marking out of mortice and tenons takes a little bit longer, as nothing is square. For this reason the shoulders of some of the tenons had to be kerfed in for a tight fit, I have found this to be the fastest way of getting a good fit.

Once all the joints are pegged together with wooden dowels, I use the draw-boring method to achieve a very tight fit, I cut off the top of the tenon if it protudes too far through the mortice. I use an adze again for this, the wood is green and so it only takes a couple of strokes.

The back posts and legs are all finished and it is time to fit the seat, more on this in my next post

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Wooden Bikes

I came across these whilst browsing the net, if I ever have the time I would love to make one. Great for down hills. Who is going to make the first UK green wood version?

http://www.blameitonthevoices.com/2008/02/philippino-wooden-bikers_25.html

a few more here http://www.flickr.com/photos/harley501/tags/woodenbikes/

and this one

That is it, if you want to see more do a google image search for wooden bikes

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Shaving horses

I love shaving horses and have made a few over the years. I love there simplicity and yet they are a highly efficient and usable tool, or as some of mine turn out to be, a work bench. In essence a shave horse is a quick release vice that you sit on, the cutting tool that is used with it is the drawknife.
Most of the time I like to work high, I have spent years on shaving horses that are to low for me and have suffered from shoulder and back ache.

The above photo was taken about 6 years ago, I still use it, but it is to low, especially for detailed work.

Made last year for a show where I only had a small space, designed for making fan birds on, hence the vice for holding the wood while I rive the feathers out.

A beast made from, ash, oak, Douglas fir and western red cedar. I have never finished it, but use it all the time in my workshop. The great thing about it is that is adjustable in almost every way. I was going to make a detachable chopping block that fits over the leg at the end. The dumb head is not fixed in any way and adjusts easily up and down, it wedges into place and a quick tap releases it so that it can be moved.

My most recent horse inspired by Ralph ( For Woodness sake), I first saw it on the paleoplant forum and then on the Bodgers forum. The seat is quickly adjustable up and down depending on what is being shaved. The dumbhead is easily adjustable, and apart from one piece, the horse was made using hand tools only. The seat was hewn from a large log of aspen and fixed using oak pegs into the seat supports.

These horses, on the whole, are for spoon making and fan birds, I can happily make chair legs and the likes on them, but some people may prefer something a bit more substantial.

I soon added a tool tray, not really a tray but a plank with holes drilled in it to hold:- chisels, axe, knife, drawknife and saws. This plank is held up with a peg near the seat and a small branch that comes out of the leg.

You may have also noticed that the red cedar block that I have put under the dumbhead does not come all the way to the end of the branch, this is because I like a little ledge to rest the fan birds on when carving the birds head or spoons with a knife.

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Ash

I have just been up to visit my parents in Mid Wales, with Lucy and Natasha. My parents, 2 weeks before had the tree surgeons in to fell a couple of smallish trees near the house, and they had a couple of longer bits saved for me. It is lovely ash, and fast grown, the tree in question only being 21 years old and 4 rings to the inch. I like fast grown ash because it is very strong. I once had some very slow grown ash from Dartmoor which was about 16+ rings to the inch, which I made into legs for a small bench. This bench was used as a step, to get in and out of the back of my van, and to display stuff on at shows. This bench was not treated very kindly, as ash was a strong resilient wood that can take shock, I managed to break 3 legs off it over the years, all snapped at next to the tenon. Slow grown ash is good for nothing.
This Welsh ash was very very dry, I had never felt or used fresh ash this dry. I know the old rhyme, see the rhyme here, says that ash can be burnt green, this is because ash does have a low moisture content, but this dry!!! I have a few tent pegs, 2 sets of legs for chairs from it, and a couple of side axe handles as it had a good curve in it, I was on holiday.

My new shaving horse, inspired by Rick Schuman at http://forwoodnesssake.wordpress.com/2009/04/08/old-dover-days/ I like the way that I seem to be floating in the air and not sitting on the adjustable seat


Lucy and me in front of a not so old oak tree, this is one of the oaks that has played an important part in my life. It has had a major lower limb rip off on the main trunk many years ago, and my parents have been advised to take it down. I am glad that they will not, as it is a major landmark tree in the area and a valued friend.

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Two knives

Angels from heaven have descended and delivered a Del Stubbs open sweep hook knife into my quivering hands. Oh how it shines, it almost generates its own light, its soft gentle curves sending me into ecstasy. The ultimate tool now completing my life.

Well enough of this flowery language, I do rate Del`s hook knife very highly, it is a joy to use and very well made and designed. Apart from making tools Del also carves spoons as well as fan carved birds, http://www.pinewoodforge.com/carved.birds.html, so he knows what is needed in a tool. I have mentioned in another post about trying to make a 10 minute spoon, and that I was unhappy with the hook knives I already own, mainly because of there tight curves. This knife leaves a far flatter finish, because it takes off a wider shaving, and so saves time.

I am impressed with its finish, you can use it as a mirror as all surfaces are so highly polished, not something you find on all tools. There is no point on the tip, instead it curves round (see photo). The back edge of the blade is also rounded. I have ground off the point on my Frosts as it gets stuck into wood or flesh.

The only point that I would say could be changed is the handle is too smooth, I much prefer Ben Orfords elm handles with lots of flats on, but may be that is just personal preference. These are not cheap tools because the exchange rate with the dollar is not so good at the moment, but I consider it a great investment and well worth the money.


left to right; Del Stubbs, Frosts and Ben Orford hook knives

The other tool I got at the same time was a Trevor Ablet woodcarving pocket knife, made in Sheffield. I decided to buy one after seeing Nicola wood`s videos on folding knives. Again a craftsman made knife and very good too.

I had to spend some time sharpening it. It seems to take a good sharp edge and I am liking it more and more, I did not think it would be to comfortable to hold, but I like it, as it fits my hand well. Carving with a folding blade is something I gave up about 20 years ago, but if we look at American tramp art and whittling in this country, much of the most amazing stuff was done with just a pocket knife, from captive balls and chains to fan carving figures and gypsy flowers etc. I am looking forward to using much more of it.

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Bench for Paignton Zoo

Through Andrew Cowan of Arbor Ecology I was introduced to Kevin Frediani, Curator of Plants and Gardens Paignton Zoo, which is only a few miles away from where I live. The outcome is that I am to make a bench for a show garden at the Devon County Show, which afterwards will be installed at the Zoo. Kevin is very keen on sourcing and using local material and craftsmen.
The bench is to be be made from a fallen oak in the wildlife reserve in the Zoo, so our first job was to safely cut the trunk from the root plate and sit it on the ground. In the photo below, you can see this oak partly obscuring a woodland path. The path is an old track way dating back to when these were ‘working woodlands’ and coppice and occasional standard trees were taken out of the woods for use. Paths originally built for carts are quite narrow and, being overgrown, a tractor could not extract the tree; so we had to convert it before carrying it out. Dave Ellacott the Reserves Warden also participated in this work.

I would have liked the butt to be cleaved into quarters and then into planks, but because of the way the tree fell, we could not get wedges into the bottom end. The butt forked at the top and I did not feel confident that we could accurately cleave through the fork. So Dave ripped down its length and we split that quarter out with wedges.

Jenny is standing on the first quarter to be split out from the butt and its starting the second split along the pith. It is always good to have a couple of narrow metal wedges as fat wedges spring out from the wood. We used 2 metal, 1 plastic, and a couple of wooden wedges to split this open with.

The only things holding the top quarter on are a couple of cross fibres which had to be cut before we levered it round to the chainsaw mill. Cross fibres occur when the wood does not split evenly and strips of wood are attached to both sides of the split.

Dave screwed a flat plank to the top side of each quarter and ran the chainsaw mill across and under the plank. We got 5 good 3-inch thick quarter sawn planks out and a number of split triangular sections, plus what was left that Dave will use for various projects.

The only way of getting them out of the woods was to carry them and we soon gave up the carrying and pulled them instead. These may not look very big but they are extremely heavy. Just as shire horses pulling logs or carts speed up on an incline, we found ourselves doing this quite instinctively as well.
It is great working with other people, as I tend to work on my own most of the time. I really appreciated that Dave could call in help from other people. If Dave and I had had to remove all the oak on our own, I would have not have had the energy to walk back to the van at the end of the day.

We had to tie a rope around the rear end of the plank as it wanted to slip off the track, down the hill.

At around this point we saw the first bluebell of the season.

I wanted to use cleft and/or quarter sawn wood as it is the most stable and will not warp and cup as it dries out, but we would have had to cut the tree into smaller pieces anyway as the chainsaw mill was too small for the diameter of the tree.
The wood is now all at my workshop, and next week I will start making the bench.

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Wooden flowers

I had an email from Ana, a young lady from Spain and woodwork student. Ana spent some time last year working and learning various new green woodworking techniques in my workshop. She went back to Spain with a couple of knives I gave her.

“I have a nice story for you.
I took my knife with me, and went to the river to get some dead branches for making small gypsy flowers in my spare time.
When I made them I put them in an empty water bottle. Now it comes the good part..
After about a week I had a look at them and realised the bottle wasn’t completely empty… And one the small branches had reached some water and started to grow a new plant!! Now I’ve taken it back to the river and put it into the ground 😀

Here’s some pictures of it”

That`s what I call sustainable, collect some willow and carve flowers from it, and display them in a bottle. When the roots have grown plant out and repeat next year, If one person in a hundred did this every year we would soon have more woods. If you stick some willow into the ground it will just grow as will hazel and some other trees. You can cut them to the ground and they will just grow again, weave them into structures, these are very versatile trees.

A gypsy flower, as I call them, is a wooden flower carved with a metal blade. They have traditionally been made by the travelling community and were sold along with their other wares. When making them at shows some older ladies occasionally tell me that their mothers would buy them off the Gypsies when they came through there town or village.
The great thing about them is that are made from hedge row materials all you need is a knife and maybe a drill or awl. The materials are available all year round, hazel is one of the best, but anything works, but I prefer to work willow seasoned. I have also use oak and alder off cuts from the billets I use for the pole lathe, these are first rounded off on the shaving horse and then made using a draw knife.

I have been making gypsy flowers for over 15 years now, and first started by using a knife and thin bits of seasoned willow. These were not very good and some time later I started using a drawknife on a shaving horse, the flowers got bigger. Some of the people I have met over the years have only used a knife to make them, and very often just a folding pen or pocket knife. These flowers are medium size being 3 to 5 inches diameter, I have on many occasions tried to make large flowers with just a knife and find it difficult and painful on the hands.

Small flowers made with a knife, like the ones I used to make.

The picture above are small flowers made with a knife from willow, note that I always leave the bark on, from 1.5 to 2.5 inches across. They are made from dry willow. I also make smaller ones that are only an inch across that are great for button holes etc.

Made from green hazel, and these are 4 to 9 inches across, the bottom right hand side one has the petal curving anti clockwise at he bottom and clockwise at the top. Old seasoned willow can get a bit brittle if kept very dry and it helps if you can increase the moisture content of the wood by keeping wet for a few days.

Again made from seasoned willow, these are 3 to 5 inches across. I love the ones with the bark on, the bark just does its own thing in an unpredictable way, I love this chaos which is in contrast with the tight curls of the flower.

A collection of of finished heads drying out and waiting for sticks, these have been made from green hazel. I use sticks from 1/2 inch up to 2 inch for the really giant ones.

I have already posted some pictures of Sue Hinton making flowers at Westonbirt click here to go to the post and scroll down to the bottom of the page

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10 minute spoon

After chatting to Robin Wood about green woodwork, production work, and about Ion Constantin, spoon maker, from Slatina, that Stewart King and Robin filmed in Romania. I decided again to see how quickly I could make a spoon, I am sorry to say that 10 minutes was not achieved, my fastest being 16 minutes and 25 for the big one. This is not fast enough, my family and I will be going to the workhouse.

The link to the video is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7yipq2xd7o

I find this process very interesting and how it can inform and change all my other knife work. I love a well made spoon, the time spent on achieving perfect form and a beautiful hand worked finish, but as we all know there is not a very big market for a £25 or more spoon, so we need to reduce the price and the only way of doing this is by compromising. It has got to function, we can not compromise to much here, but the look and design can change, the finish can be rougher the knife marks and cuts bigger, in other words bigger `flats`. We can not compromise on wood, we can use willow and alder which are some of our softest woods, or cherry and sycamore, but we must use them green, just felled. Do not try doing this using slightly dry wood it will slow you down and will be harder on the hands.

One thing that would have shaved a few minutes off my time is a suitable hook knife. Frosts hook knife? No, because it has a too tight a curve and also it has an angled bevel which should be rounded. My little Ben Orford knife is too small, so I am going to have to make my own hook knife with the right shape and edge geometry etc, a carving adze would help as well, just to take the bulk of the bowl out.

I have decide to use a shaving horse and a drawknife to save my knife holding hand, I find that the intense knife work even for 10 mins can be very hard on my hand and to be honest I rather look after my body.

These are not the most beautiful spoons but there is honesty in seeing tool marks, and we have become conditioned by the plastic society that needs a smooth sanded surface with a gloss finish. I want to sell spoons, and the only way of doing that is by finding the price people will pay and making a spoon to that price. So lots more practise for me.

The woods that I have used are cherry, willow and alder buckthorn. I will also be practising and refining the design and process and maybe one day I will be able to make a spoon in 10 minutes.

If you would like to buy any spoons do have a look at my website for details of how to buy

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Nutcrackers

I have for some years been trying half heartedly to make one piece nutcrackers as seen in “Treen for the table” by Jonathan Levi. Until a couple of months ago I have only been using dry ash and not steaming it properly. The bent piece has been splitting out, even with using a supporting strap. Anyway I got some willow, just cut, and decided to try again and wow, no need to stream the wood just bend it round into place and tie it off.

Finished willow nutcrackers, the coin is an English £1. The cord is made from willow bark

The wood is split from the log, axed down into an even plank and then drawknifed. The bark is taken off carefully, I try not to cut into the wood as this is the bit that gets bent. I have a template which is placed on the wood and drawn around as in the photo. The middle is cut out with a bandsaw or copping saw and with willow it is just bent, with ash (far left in the photo) I steamed the wood and then bent it. I tie them to keep them in place. Carving is best done when the wood is still green.

They work very well and are a great looking piece of traditional treen. I would say that they would not last forever, especially if heavily used and history bears this out as there are only a few surviving examples of this type of nutcracker.
I do have a few for sale, contact me for details.