Normal service will be resumed asap!

I’ve been rather tied up since last Monday’s theft.  Dealing with all the consequences which I don’t want to bore you with.  I lost my order book and I know I have a deer order to fulfil, but I now have no contact details.  I’ll be making it tomorrow.

However, just a quick note to say that I have had a lot of well wishes from people, some of whom I do not even know.

Here’s a couple to warm the heart.

On Thursday evening after the hard copy Craven Herald coverage went on the streets, I received a phone call, “Have you got your tools back?” I began to think he was about to say something like, “Well, they’re at the bottom of my garden/Give me some money and you can have them.” or something.  What was the outcome?  A gent of nearly 80 years who had been a woodturner for 25 years and a forester before that was offering me a box of tools he no longer required.  I called in to see him on Friday morning, the first day I’d been able to get back to the woods.  We had a good chat for 3/4 of an hour about making turned items, tools etc, and I left with a box of some very useful chisels, an axe, compass, sharpening gear, etc that Neil was pleased were going to a good home where they will be used and looked after.  I am very grateful.

This morning I received an email offering the  loan of a box of tools until I’m sorted out.  Again it’s someone I don’t really know.

There have been lots of others too.  Restores my faith in humanity, there are only a few bad ‘uns, and they are probably only bad due to bad circumstances.

Fortunately my business insurance includes theft of tools, so I will hopefully get some sort of reimbursement.

It’s wet today so I’m working on weavingthe seats of the dining chair set I’m on with.  The customer’s choice of clours for the Shaker tape is very good.  Picture to follow when the skies are less grey.

Many thanks to all my well wishers!

 

What I haven’t got

Stop Lock

Roof rack

Straps for rack

Takings Diary

Display folder

Little Book of Whittling

The Book of Knots

Small tarpaulin

Chainsaw sharpener

Chainsaw sharpening  hand kit

Chainsaw two stroke oil, half a liter

3 pairs used gloves

One pair new gloves

Cordless Matika drill

Duck tape

Log tongs

part ball of sisal string

50 meters nylon cord

Nails

Screws

Washers

Nuts

Drill bits

2 tins paint

Gold thread

Part used glue

Part-used tung oil

Tool bag and contents:

Tool bag

Froe

Axe

Draw knife

two wood chisels 1/2 inch & 1/4 inch

Sharpening diamond blocks 4 off

Leather strop and compound

4 foot wooden rule

2 sets small calipers

Hammer

Wooden clamp

Wood tap and dies set

2 screw drivers

2 cabinet scrapers

2 hoof knives

One chip knife

2 1 inch wood gouges

2 1 inch flat chisels

2 skew chisels

combination petrol and chain oil can and dispensers

2 Scotch eyes wood augers 1 inch and 1.5 inches

2 bowl turning hooks

Brace and bit and tennoner

First aid box for 50 & small one

Electronic power inverter

Phone charger

Dowel saw

Silky tree surgeon saw

conical diamond sharpener

Box of wooden stock items

4 dibbers

two rounders bats

15 elves

2 spurtles

2 mustard spoons

spinning top

2 honey drippers

Small wooden stool

Small, part finished Elm table

Half-finished chair front

Two bins of wood turnings

Bird box parts

Two planks of yew belonging student

Plank of beech wood 4 foot by 10 inches They were all stolen last night along with my Land Rover Ah well. Get up and start again, tomorrow’s another day. Last week I was in The Craven Herald in my bodgery see here. This week I’ll be in as the man who lost nearly all the tools of his trade in one go – blimey they leave you the tools of your trade when you’re bankrupt, my dad used to tell me.

 

The Smoke

Down (well I live UP North, yes?) to London last weekend to visit my daughter whose birthday it was.

Lots of trees, but not much variety, I had always noticed there were lots of plane trees, but not how many.  They are everywhere, and not much else in the streets.  They looked pretty good in their autumn colours, and loads of leaves to kick about on the pavements.

OK these are mainly limes, but there were some pretty big plane leaves:

See the size of the sycamore next to it!

We went on the top of this building; The Blue Fin:

There were trees on the top!

It’s an extension of the canteen, rather more formal than the bodgery canteen, but it has some fruits, which turned out to be edible, but rather seedy:

The Strawberry Tree (Arbutus unedo), it’s a broadleaved evergreen, and the seeds are on the outside of the skin a la strawberry.  Doesn’t taste anything like strawberry though!  Native to the Mediterranean and Ireland and a member of the heather family.

In the middle of the Barbican (or Barbican’t, as we rechristened it, not being able to find anything doing on a Saturday morning) we saw a heron sleeping on St Giles’ church

It is a seriously strange ghostly place, will not be revisiting there in a hurry:

All those dwellings and hardly a soul about (it was All Hallows Eve) at 11am.

Maybe London looks prettier when it’s all put away for the night:

 

Head down bum up

Very busy in the bodgery making chairs.  I’m using a chair stick to make sure the set of six matches.  This is a stick with all the relevant measurements marked on it – height of front leags, where the rung mortises are, splat height and widths.  I find it very useful, it was used in days of yore too.  It’s very quick using a gauge instead of measuring everything.  When I had 12 asylum seekers visiting in summer to help make a charge of logs up for the charcoal kiln I made a length stick and a thickness gauge, made it very easy for everybody, and overcame any language difficulties.  Mind you it didn’t stop one guy from insisting on carrying about 1.5 cwt logs on his shoulder and running with them.  He had been in the Somali army and had to run with sand bags to make defences when the other side were advancing, how easy we have it!

Here’s a photo of my day student of Saturday

He had a good time on his birthday making a stool.

The autumn colours were rather drab, as it was wet most of the day (but dry under the tarp in the bodgery).  Then the sun came out and the colours were rather fine.

I’ve taken the top section for my blog header.

Mind you, today it was very wet and windy all day and the River Wharfe rose quite a lot quite quickly.

Never mind day indoors tomorrow learning how to be a tutor – for free.

 

Commuting

Strid Wood is about 10 miles from home, so every morning I get into my Land Rover and join the throngs on the road:

Strid is under the mist here:

I’ve been making bowls recently, practicing for when we take the big Birch tree down in our garden.  I want to make a dough trough to commemorate the tree and my father who planted it some 30 years ago.

I made a carving block yesterday that holds the blank whilst gouging out the inside .

Doesn’t look much, but it makes the job much easier, especially if you sit down to work.

I’m also experimenting with a new knife,

it’s actually a hoof knife for farriers, but the pattern is much like a crooked knife used for carving inside bowl shapes:

The above isn’t really a fair test for it as the timber is casualty Balsam Poplar, supposedly no good for anything but matches, and very fibrous.  It was also just about dry by the time I tried smoothing down the earlier cuts.

 

Last Orders

Autumn is well on its way now in Strid Wood.  I had a short stroll round at lunchtime yesterday and this is what I found:

These look harmless enough (they’re not in my fungi book, again!)

But this one is definitely not:

Destroying Angel, one of our more poisonous fungi – note the white gills and large ring distinguishing it from edible mushrooms.

(Amanita virosa, A. verna, and A. bisporigera) and death cap (Amanita phalloides) produce some of the most poisonous compounds known. As little as 30 grams, or half a mushroom cap, is fatal to a healthy, adult human. Amanitin poisoning is not a pleasant experience. The onset of symptoms does not begin for at least 10 hours; death may be delayed for as long as 10 days, which complicates diagnosis. When the toxin finally affects the victim, it causes severe abdominal upset, followed by liver, kidney, and circulatory system failure. The poison is usually fatal; there is no known antidote; and the progressive effect of the toxin causes the victim terrible suffering. It says here.

On a more pleasant note there is regeneration taiking place around the bodgery because of the higher light levels from last winter’s thinning work.  Even a couple of oaks:

After lunch I completed the assembly of the first of the six ash dining chairs I’m on with:

Then I sawed out a bowl-carving block, but more of that anon.

 

Little and large

Today I’ve been assembling a dining chair.  While I was shaving down the splats for the ladders I noticed the shavings making patterns.  I modified my shaving a little and these came out:

The splats survived the dual purpose shaving too and the chair shows signs of being a success.  The little trees’ branches are quite sturdy as the wood is dry ash, must be a Christmas decoration in the making here.

There was a parcel waiting for me when I got home – seemed rather large.  I was expecting either a measuring calliper for the lathe, or a hoof knife (I’ll post on this later!)

This was inside:

I was expecting some callipers about 1/3rd that size, the photo on eBay had no scale, and I just assumed it would be about the size of the one I have been using until the thread stripped on the adjuster nut.  Well I suppose it’ll do the same job, and it’ll go with the large 4 foot (count ‘em!) folding rule that came last Friday to replace the two foot which I managed to break at the hinge (leaving the rule out forgotten one night under the lathe must have made it stiff).

 

Spoons and rungs

I’ve been rather busy recently, what with a WWOOFer, an exhibition, making a set of chairs, etc.

Here are some carved spoons from a junk shop in Malton, they seem decidedly foreign, especially the star-shaped hole on the lower one.  The carved decoration is pretty inspirational though; there are mistakes aplenty, which made me think we are now very used to seeing “perfect” (looking) artefacts produced by machines.  Hand -made objects are much more lively.  I now feel more comfortable with the finish on my bowls.  Here’s the detail on the old chip carved letter-opener:

You’d never get a machine to produce work like this and for it to vary each time one was made!

I’ve been feeling a bit like a machine producing rungs for a set of dining chairs, here they all are drying at home:

Once they’re dry I’ll be making the legs, free-form at the back and turned for the front.  I’m also making the splats for the ladder back, three each time I brew (the steamer goes on the brew kettle.)

The exhibition in Strid Exhibition centre, went well

Some interesting work inspired by Strid Wood from a local artist Joy Godfrey and potter Chris Bailey is there as well as some of my furniture:

I’ve added the glass platter as my header for now.

Meanwhile, Autumn draws on with a ground frost this morning and Poached Egg fungi appearing in Strid:

 

Wild About Wood

Just back from Castle Howard, North Yorkshire where I met Saul Blenkarn, swill maker.  He’s from Hexham and if you want to contact him his phone number is 07818 452 322. He was taught by Owen Jones. Beautiful baskets and a great way of displaying them

I loved his simple shelter, makes mine look way over the top, I feel a redesign coming on for next year’s dos.

I had a great pitch, just in at the entrance, in a grove of small Hornbeams, the first stand visitors encountered, and they all certainly seemed to enjoy my true bodger weekend, turning out the rungs for a set of 6 dining chairs – that’s a whole lot of rungs, nearly got them all done though.  The children were very interested as always, and one of them after having a late go on the lathe, helped us pick up the horse shavings.

This was the first woody event at Kew at Castle Howard arboretum, and seemed to be a success as they will be holding it again next year.

Back to Strid tomorrow, hope the midge repellent fire is not required again

 

Looking forward to felling and thinking about extraction

Food for thought! (Click on the previous text to browse the book where this appears)

There are going to be horse extraction demos at the Wild About Wood weekend I’m working at this weekend – I don’t expect it to snow though, or for the horses to be so burdened!  The chapter whence this photo comes is a fascinating brief overview of heavy logging in North West (?) America around the turn of the 20th century. No chainsaws.

And if you think the horses are somewhat overloaded – look at these poor beasts – must be about 20 people on there, and they are going from Hebden Bridge Station to Hardcastle Crags’ Gibson Mill, which is by no means a level journey!