24/5/6- 08-13 Teddy Bear Picnic Slough House Woods Binacre, Danbury, Essex

Nick and Katie Abbott have managed their wood for at least 20 years. They have built a great set – up for bodgers. Their usual regulars are their grandchildren and that is how it should be. After that there are the bodgers - Eric Rogers, Mark Biagent, Will & Sue Holden, Wiggy and Dave monk. Joseph Bloor from the London group was a relative newcomer due to his bursary from the WCT.

James was demonstrating his bowl turning prowess and although he had moved house recently and is totally out of practice, I would not bet against him at the ball next year. He has agreed to be on the WCT float at the Lord Mayors show on 9^th November. Katie and myself are on the Howe committee.

As per usual the shared lunches are the highlight of the weekend, between the heats for the swimming gala (well it did rain a bit).

17/18th August leather working course at the Cherry Wood project Ashwicke, Nr. Bath.

The course was run by Rob Exton who has been a supporter and volunteer of the Cherry Wood project from the beginning

I have been busy making tools for the last couple of years but suffer from poor or no blade protection. Acquiring some leatherworking skills had become a priority.

This purse was the first set exercise, swiftly followed by the wet forming of this leaf shape.

After lunch we were given a carbon steel craft knife and were shown how to wet form a case to fit.

Overnight the wet leather was dried out in the pizza oven. We then finished off with some edge finishing and carnauba wax all over.

The second day was up to us; hopefully we had acquired all the skills to make most simple projects.

So once we had discussed our projects with Rob and made a template, we were given the suitable materials and off we go!

1st project was a duel carving set case. Rob had shown us how to make templates and demonstrated the rationale.

My adze case was next, closely follow by twca cam cases and a very large curved knife (got a bit carried away with that really).

Thanks Rob, great course which I can personally recommend. Thanks to Tim and family for their hospitality and accommodation. See you soon at the project week. I cannot resist saying this again – my favourite venue, without a doubt!

Check out the website – this course gets booked up very quickly and is only run twice a year.

Thanks Rob, great course which I can personally recommend. Thanks to Tim and family for their hospitality and accommodation. See you soon at the project week. I cannot resist saying this again – my favourite venue, without a doubt!

Check out the website – this course gets booked up very quickly and is only run twice a year.

Friday 16th August visit to the new Bristol group.

Richard Andersen has started the group in a walled garden at Barton Hill.

When the vicarage was sold it was agreed that the garden be used for community projects. A food garden is well established on the site with some large poly-tunnels.

The roundhouse shown was built last year and makes a great storytelling environment as well as providing shelter. The cob walls with bottles and plastic panels let in plenty of natural light. If you have not seen Lloyd Khan’s shelter book then try to find a copy – it may give you some great ideas about shelter building.

I found an interesting drawknife with a maker’s mark I have not seen before – shown below.

 

The pizza oven was unusual as it had a flue. Note the large frog on top. Zoe and the garden workers were preparing lunch. Perhaps I should have stayed and not gone to the Barley Mow with a choice of 30 real ales!

 

Richard and Tom have done a great job setting up the resources and were busy sorting out a good design for a break.

Rural Pastimes Show Pestalozzi Village, Seddlescombe, Sussex 10/11th August.

This was the second year at this agricultural event for the Sussex group.

James Pumprey’s pole support was something I had not picked up on before – easier to fine tune, no hammering into the ground.

This year the organisers decided not to group the demonstrators together and sited them away from the main arena. They were not very happy and may well decide not to attend next year. 

Wandering round the mountains of farm equipment, I bumped into Mark (a local) with his tool collection. A very interesting and amusing guy.

He has also made a collection of miniature billhooks.

One of the visitors brought me a piece of rowan from his garden as it had just dropped its leaves. I spent some time with my adze and axe plus a few knife strokes to shape this free-form dish. I will let it dry for a month and then re-tool and oil it with some organic linseed oil from (Mark Allery).

He is a keen sailor and budding cedar strip canoe maker. He showed me progress so far – very different construction from what you may expect. Thin strips (1/4”) of cedar are bent around the frames and are then covered in woven glass mat and laid up with epoxy resin on both sides – very thin and very strong. Check this construction method out on the web.

Spoonfest 2013 at Edale Derbyshire 1-4th August

In this, its second year, there were presenters from USA, Ireland, Holland and Sweden.

This year’s help yourself woodpile was extensive – elder, rowan, blackcurrant, beech, sycamore, lilac, privet, gorse, plum, maple, aspen, willow, blackthorn, robina, whitebeam, hornbeam, holly and a few more. The wood was sourced locally by Robin and by John Mullaney.

It all started on Thursday evening with an introduction from Robin and Barn followed by a presentation from Adam Hart-Davis on his journey with green woodworking.

Friday was mainly about knife and axe safety workshops, presented to groups of ten by most of the well-known presenters. However there were also workshops on leatherworking with Mia Sable and Sean Helmann on sharpening.

Saturday and Sunday was all about making the most of the human resources available.

Sue Holden – axing    Steve Tomlin – spoon doctor  Owen Thomas twyca cams

Jojo Wood      Engraving with Jan Harm ter Brugge        Nic Westerman and

                                                                                    Adam Hart-Davis

Saturday Martin Hazel – working with burrs

                                                   Sean Helmann – Pimp your spoon / and maker of the pizza oven and sharpening workshops

Fritiof Runhall – spoons and ergonomics.

 

                                                    At the end of the event there was a spoon club: one hour, twelve carvers and five minutes each with a spoon and then pass it on.

Spoon song with everyone.

Apologies to T errence McSweeney who was discussing how to protect your body and Wayne Singleton who was carrot carving and Jarod Stone Dahl – no pictures.

Keith Matthews – his bark tool holder + carry box

                                                     Barn and Will Wall during the wacky races.

My Avios (air miles) trip to Jersey 27th July

I managed to cycle to Hamptonne – a Jersey Heritage collection of restored buildings – a very much smaller version of the Wield and Downland museum at Singleton Sussex.

I have not seen a Skep before; they used to farm bees in them. I did wonder if anyone does this now. I have since learnt that this method was common on the mainland.

They still use their apple crusher as part of the usual cider making process.

If fact they grew an orchard on the site to feed this monster. It was driven by a large cow, being Jersey!

The shovel (one piece of beech) was used to transfer the crushed apple to the press.

This large press has twin screws; they think that this is the largest working press of its type to survive. The base of the screw is similar to a ships capstan. I presume the screws were turned originally on a very large lathe. They do have water wheels on the island and they may have used them for power. That must have been some thread chaser, they were perfect.

This hanging oil lamp was traditionally filled with conger eel oil (eels being part of their diet).

They wanted to recreate the atmosphere inside the building by using these lamps, but apparently the smell is so awful they decided to keep the visitors and not to light them.

The lamp is in two parts. The first was fixed to a beam or wall – the right hand picture. The second fitted inside the first so it was possible to refill the lamp without removing it from its fixing. Apparently the Romans used similar lamps.

The lamps were only used downstairs (potential fire risk) as the roof was thatch.

This last image was to show a local design of sundial which can be seen all over the island.

The dial is made of local stone and the pointer from iron.

Perhaps the design was based on a wheat sheaf.

Just a quick note just to let you know that I am experiecing technical problems with my new laptop and Windows 8. Blooming thing will not let me upload pictures. I have written all my visits sibce July but have failed to getthem on the blog.