Jim Sannerud Video

Jim Sannerud just posted a great video on FB. It's a promo for a show that is airing this Sunday. Jim is a real inspiration to me, both because of his beautiful work and the fact that he turns green wood in a traditional style, but using an electric lathe. I've experienced a little bit of snobbery in the past about using an electric lathe, so it's good to see someone else doing the same thing and receiving such acclaim. Obviously that acclaim is because of his amazing work and not the method that he uses, but it still makes me feel better. Anyway, enjoy the video.

Spoon knife sheaths

Beginners to spoon carving often wonder what the best way is to protect the blade of a spoon knife (or protect yourself from the blade). There are loads of different ways that I've seen people use to tackle this problem ranging from the incredibly simple (I've seen people use an empty 35mm film case) to the wonderfully elaborate (check out Sean Hellman's lovely carved boxes on his blog).
I'll give you a quick run down of some solutions and particularly the ones I use. The best way is, of course, subjective and depends on circumstances.

This is one of the simplest and least elegant methods I've seen, but it works really well. It just involves a small section of foam insulation and some tape. This is the way that Robin Wood's knives were sold at Spoonfest, and one of my knives stayed like this for a while.

My first spoon knife was a Mora double edged (before I knew better). I used to keep the blade wrapped up in a bit of chamois leather. Then I bought my first decent knife from Ben Orford. I love the way that he wraps his blades in a simple strip of leather and I have wrapped the majority of mine in the same fashion ever since. It's very simple to do, but if you can't work it out, then hopefully this little video will help.

This method works well for me as I store my knives in a tool roll. If I were keeping them in a bag or tool box, then I wouldn't be satisfied with this as the wrap can come loose.

This is a slightly more sophisticated version of the leather wrap. I got this idea out of Wille Sundqvist's book: 'Swedish Carving Techniques'. It's basically a little leather envelope with a leather wrap to hold it on.

I've seen some very nice ones similar to this with a press stud to fasten it. As I mentioned, these wraps are great in conjunction with a tool wrap, but not all of of my knives fit in my roll, so I have to store them differently in my tool box.

This little pouch came with a Svante Djarv knife that I bought second hand. It works great and can be made on a sewing machine with the right needle.

The handles on my Robin Wood knives are too long for my tool roll and so I have made some little wooden boxes for them. The recesses for the blades can be burnt out or drilled and carved. Just don't use your knife to burn it out.

Axe makeover

There was a bit of discussion recently on the Spoon Carving, Green Woodworking and Sloyd Facebook group about modifying a Kent Pattern hatchet. This is something I've posted about before, you can find the previous post here. One of the things I had problems with last time was the thickness of the bit, as these can be thin on some Kent Pattern heads. So with the renewed interest I thought I'd have another go with a thick bit this time.

The shape of the head is roughly based on an axe by Hans Karlsson, which is very popular at the moment. The modification has reduced the weight from about 600g to about 500g, about the same weight as the Robin Wood axe. The photo below gives you an idea of what was taken off.

The majority of the work was done with a hand hacksaw in about an hour and a half (It could be done quicker if you can saw continuously for an hour). It's worth having a brand new blade in your saw for this. After the hacksaw I cleaned it up with a belt grinder and then re-ground the edge.

  

I pick up old axe heads like this from car boot sales for about a pound, so its great to give them a new lease of life. I'll be honest and say that aside from reducing the weight and giving it a new edge, I probably haven't improved it's performance much. Kent Pattern axes can be great carving axes as they are, in fact they're the axes that the English craftsmen of the past would have used. I think that the Scandinavian influence on greenwood-working has had a knock-on effect on our taste in axes ("I want the axe that Wille or Jogge Sundqvist use").  There's also the influence of Swedish toolmakers like Hans Karlsson, Svante Djarv and Gransfors Bruks. I've never seen a new Kent Pattern axe, which in a way is strange as they've obviously earned their place, but then maybe the vast numbers of available Kent Patterns make sit unnecessary for toolmakers to continue to produce them,

The Year of the Chair

I have decided that 2015 is the year of the chair. I've been wanting to make a chair for ages now, in fact I'd quite like to make several chairs, but I'll start with one. Over the last couple of years I've accumulated a few books on the subject to help me on my way.

'Make a Chair from a Tree' by John Alexander, was, as I understand it, one of the first books on greenwood working. I'm sure I've heard Alexander credited as being the person to coin the phrase 'greenwood working'. Unfortunately the book is out of print, but there is an accompanying DVD available, which I'd like to check out.

The book is full of lovely illustrations and black and white photographs. Alexander describes the process of making a ladder back chair, beginning with design and then looking at tree selection and felling, then through all of the processes. All the necessary tools are discussed as well as some tool modifications to make your equipment more useful.

'The Chairmaker's Workshop' by Drew Langsner is very comprehensive. It is by far the biggest chair making book I possess and it contains every possible detail including how to sharpen your tools correctly. It also includes instructions on how  to manufacture some of the necessary tools for building Windsor and post and rung chairs.

There are a few sections of colour photographs, showing different styles of chairs, but most of the pictures are in black and white. This book contains everything you need to know to make chairs, plus lots more.

'Going with the Grain' by Mike Abbott was published about two years ago, making it the most recent of the three books and it definitely gives a very modern approach to making traditional chairs. Everything is explained so simply with loads of great colour photographs to illustrate the different stages. It's very different to Langsner's book, focusing on just one way to skin this particular cat. This makes it incredibly appealing to someone like myself , who has never made a chair before.

So I think Mike Abbott's book will be my starting point. Not only does it offer a very simple approach, but it also focuses on chairs with shaved rather than turned parts, which is the style that I would really like to begin with.
Watch this space.

'Celebrate your imperfections' or 'God bless you Jogge Sundqvist'

On Friday Julian showed me his new Schenitzen book and as always I was thrilled to be able to look closely and at length at some of Jogge Sundqvist's lovely and original woodcraft. He has such a beautiful and unique style and his carved decoration is second to none.

What Julian pointed out to me, however, were the number of irregularities and 'imperfections' and the lack of symmetry in a number of Jogge's carved items as well as the decoration. You see, the more carving you do, the more time you spend carving spoon after spoon, holding spoons, looking at, evaluating and meditating on spoon aesthetics and utility, the easier it is to get preoccupied with achieving some kind of unattainable perfection - the perfect design, the perfect shape, the perfect size, etc. And with that obsession comes the further preoccupation with symmetry of carving, out comes the ruler and you measure the hell out of everything, not to mention the heart and soul out of it in the process.

It was so nice to look at Jogge's carving, which is arguably perfect in every way, and yet see that these conventions of modernity are not necessarily adhered to. I'm not suggesting for a second that Jogge's work isn't meticulously planned and executed - I was just reminded of that truth I have heard many times that it can be the irregularity of a piece of work that bears testimony to its hand-crafted nature.

And so, in celebration of my all too often imperfect style of carving, here is my homage to Jogge.

I call it 'spatula in red' - it doesn't get much more imperfect than that - knots and all!

Schnitzen

One of my Christmas presents was Jogge Sundqvist's book Schnitzen. It's a lovely little hardback book with some fantastic colour photographs and line drawings, which is a good job because the text is in German. I could really do with brushing up on my Deutsche and by brushing up I mean learn some. Unless the text includes the phrases: ' I am 36 years old', 'what would you like to drink?' or 'it is very cold', I'm lost.

It's a real shame that it hasn't been translated into English, but I appreciate that there is not a huge amount of money to be made in craft books and translation costs money. Oh well, I will live in hope and enjoy the pictures until either a translation materialises or my German improves.

One thing that really stands out in the pictures is Jogge's carved decoration and bright paints, so last night I sat with Laura watching TV and pimped my Dave Budd hook knife and case in homage to Jogge.

New Years Turning

I turned this pair of bowls over the last couple of days using the final Birch log of a few I managed to score at the Elvaston Woodland Festival. The second of the two ended up with three knots in the rim that weren't apparent on the blank.

As soon as I saw them I anticipated that they would cause the bowl to crack, but when I looked at it this morning I was surprised to see that it had cracked on the end grain instead.

This may have been my fault as I didn't bother to submerge it in wet shavings for a while, which is what I usually do. The reason that I didn't use the wet shavings trick is that the last time I did, with bowls from the same tree, it ended up showing a bit of mould. It could just be one of those things, but I can't help feeling a bit responsible for this one.