Spoon carving students...

Once Dolly got her head out of my Tupperware I got going with a bit of sharpening, a bit of chopping and a bit of carving...

We are having some wonderful weather here in Devon.

The Blackbirds have been pairing up and we have a few couples building nests close to the house. The boys are in a fighting mood, but they seem to rub along .

I've been busy with my new axe making kuksa and spoons.

And the Black birds have given me some inspiration.

I was asked by my friendMark Lane if I could take a group of his students from Embercombe and teach them the rudiments of spoon carving.

These students are all volunteers and have very little in the way of money, but lots in the way of enthusiasm and determination. They duly arrived bearing things with which they could trade for a day with me and Dolly;

locally made cider, wine and lots of vegetables from their allotments up at Embercombe.

We started the day with some axing techniques. I would recommend to anyone who is just starting with axe work to go buy some 6 inch nails and practice, with a hammer, gently knocking them in. This will help, to a certain degree, with your accuracy.

Once our blanks were chopped we moved on to some knife techniques.

Luckily I have a few MaChris knives that I could share with my students.

Lunchtime bought a wonderful Chick pea curry made by the students, we moved indoors as it began to rain a little.



Earlier in the day we had to borrow Dolly's personal stump. She was not a happy chicken, when we finished with the axes we put her stump back in the studio...Where it belongs....J;-)

They all did very well learning new skills, I'm sure we will see there spoons on show in the future.

We all had a great time carving and chatting. I will visit Embercombe soon and give the students some sharpening tuition. Looking forward to another curry...

Enjoy...J

Spoon carving with a new Axe...

I recently got in touch with Sean Hellman and asked if he wouldn't mind selling me one of his fine Granfors Brucks carving axes. I have been interested in this axe for quite some time now. 

Sean seemed quite keen on the idea and drove up to my home one Sunday afternoon. Sean and I had a great time swapping yarns about this that and the other, and he duly demonstrated the axe over a cup or two of coffee. 

It didn't take long for me to see that this might be a good addition to my arsenal. 

This axe is in no way a bushcraft tool. I have bought it purely for spoon and kuksa carving.

I wanted an axe with a slightly heavier head that would be suitable for splitting out waste wood as well as finer carving, a faster axe in fact.

Here's what Brucks have to say about it...

Swedish Carving Axe
A chop axe for hewing bowls and other wooden objects, artistic wood carving and architectural work. The characteristic curved shape of the cutting edge, carried well above the head's eye, the position of the edge in proportion to he handle, the rather thick bit and the big angle of the wide beveled face makes this axe a good carving tool. You "cut on the beveled face" with curved movements. This new axe pattern, based on old Swedish carving techniques, was developed by Wille Sundqvist, master craftsman and author of "Swedish Carving Techniques" in cooperation with craftsman adviser Onni Linnanheimo. The handle is "rugged" to give a good grip.

The axe has a 4 1/3" face and a 14" hickory handle and the head weighs 2 lb. It comes with a grain-leather sheath...

Now I've had a good old play with it, I think I can explain why the toe of the axe is higher than the eye.

It's all to do with being able to turn the axe out of a cut. You may wish to do this when cutting out the back of a curved spoon handle or the neck of a goose or kuksa.

Here is a photo of me cutting the back of a kuksa using the middle of the cutting edge. As you can see, if I wanted to turn out of this cut, the poll of the head would foul the work piece.

However, if I cut using the fine toe of the axe I can turn the cutting edge out without fouling the poll against the work.

And from above...

You can see that I can swing the head past the work, this enables me to slice finer curves than I would be able too with a Standard axe head shape.

So far so good.

I also like the way I can cut using a rocking motion, much like a clog knife.

Here I'm using the toe...

And I can use the heel of the bit in the same fashion.

All in all I am thoroughly enjoying my new addition and I would highly recommend giving Sean a call.

But don't worry bushcraft folk, this isn't the sort of axe that could usurp the H.Roselli for all round versatility...

Enjoy...J

Carving a Snow goose Kuksa...

Well now I've sharpened up my edge tools using the clay shale I found earlier this month I figured it might be a good idea to share some more Kuksa carving techniques.

I have recently added another edge tool to my arsenal, an adze.

Using the Adze will speed up my carving process, but I can still carve this kuksa using my hook knife only.

So I picked a nice billet of Birch and split it through, tapering both ends with my Roselli axe.

I turned the billet over and chopped out two large notches.

It now looked like a rough 'W' shape.

At this stage I bought out the knife and gave the blank a slight fettle so I could get a feel of its final shape.

And then the Adze...

With the Adze I removed most of the bowl.

Not a bad job. I'll have to finish it with the hook knife later.

Now it's down to some careful knife work.

That was about it for the first session.

The next morning I finished off the knife-work and applied some Tung oil.

Dolly lent a hand...

Now for some detail to bring the Goose to life...

Chip carved eyes, and a a little flame will get the magic flowing.

She's done !

I think she's FAB !

This was one of my most memorable carvings. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed carving the

 'Snow Goose'

Enjoy...

J;-)

Flint and steel...

 

I've been busy.

Just as well I have been using  my new Adze as I was given a bit of a challenge from a friend of mine who is studying for her degree in archaeology.

A week or so ago she asked if I could help out with some living archaeology. 

Lucy had been tasked by Professor Bradley to knap a flint adze and use it to make a wooden object.

 

Well, as promised, Lucy arrived at my home last week with a Hassochs flint adze she had made at Exeter university. 

Lucy knapped a Bur flint adze head, wrapped it with a little piece of leather, and bound it, with raw hide, onto a piece of seasoned Silver Birch. 

The flint head is described as uni-facial, whereby small flakes are removed at an acute angle with a hard hammer stone to reveal a strong, sharp working edge.

Little is known about the type of work for which this tool was used, as nothing much remains in the historical record.

 

We decided to experiment by hollowing out a short split billet of Birch. Whilst we were adzing away we discussed what might have been made with a tool such as this. Items came to mind as we worked.

Vessels for processing food, mortar and pestle, perhaps Kuksa, all sorts of things were discussed.

Apparently this type of tool pre-dates flint axe heads. It occurred to me that you could still fell a reasonably sized tree, by chopping round the tree beaver style.

Well I showed Lucy how to use the adze and set her on her way. With a lazy chopping action, being careful not to force the adze, it was surprising how efficient the flint was at removing waste wood. 

The small curled shavings it removed were not as clean or as large as a modern metal adze would produce, but it was surprising how speedy the whole process was.

We cut from each end of the billet into the middle, and then cleaned up the collected curls of wood and started over.

We got a fair way into the bowl before I ran out of time for the day.

Lucy has taken the bowl back to the university so she can finish the job.

As you can see, the flint head is held on by a small pad of leather and a binding of pig raw hide.

We used the adze for two or three hours, I was quite surprised that the flint lost little of it's keen edge.

Lucy also bought me a gift made by professor Bruce Bradley.

It's a beautifully crafted adze head he knapped from a piece of green sand churt.

He has made it in the same style, uni-facial.

I will investigate as to what type of woods were available at the time these tools were in use, and select a good shaped helve onto which I can bind my flint head.

In the mean time I will carry on with my Gransfors Bruks gutter adze...

Once Lucy has finished her bowl I will ask her for some photographs for a future blog.

Enjoy...

J