Sunday 8 April 2012

Shales...



spoon carving first steps

I have been having a great time recently with my carving, I have also been out and about with some good friends.
Mark gave me a call and suggested we took a day out and had a rummage round one of the forests here a bouts. He wanted to practice a little tracking and he also had an interesting geological anomaly that he thought would interest me.


The early morning was crisp with frost as we moved through the landscape.
We found a woodpecker's larder...


And some Red Deer droppings...


 And a place where a small rodent had consumed his stash of haws next to it's tiny home.



We stopped for a brew using one of Marks fangled folding fire boxes.

spoon carving first steps

I used a flint and steel to light it...

spoon carving first steps

Mark produced from his Bergen a couple of packets of wet meals, I chose chilli, it was very good. I'll post some information about them later.


Well eventually we found the anomaly...
I selected a few pieces and took them home.
I have tried to find out exactly what type of stone this is, I think it's a fine clay shale.
I dressed the shale on a flat brick using plenty of water and then finished the job with my King dressing stone.

machris spoon carving knife spoon carving first steps

It is good to know that with a bit of knowledge and a keen eye I can find a suitable stone for sharpening my carving knives. This clay shale is about 10000 grit, nice and fine.

machris spoon carving knife spoon carving first steps

Polishing up one of my MaChris bushcraft knives.

machris spoon carving knife spoon carving first steps

Well, with all this sharpening I guess I had better carve something.

machris spoon carving knife spoon carving first steps

Job done.

machris spoon carving knife spoon carving first steps

Enjoy...J














4 comments:

  1. that's a nice looking scythe you got there, do you mow with that?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yep ! She's sharp. She needs a bit of attention right now but I have mowed with her in the past....J;-)

      Delete
  2. excellent, i just bought one from an antique store that i'm working on restoring for use this summer...

    ReplyDelete
  3. love the idea of shale as a sharpener,i have an old slate honing stone here i got from the dump,i think it needs dressing though.

    ReplyDelete

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