7th September 2007

Today is a much more free-format day, with a series of short workshops.

Charcoal Burning - Brian Williamson

Alongside todays workshops there is a charcoal burn. The burn is being done in two 45 gallon oil drums. Both drums are the same, except one also has a lid. The fact that there is only one lid calls for two different mthods. Each drum has had one end cut out, but leaving a lip for the lid to rest on. The other end has four holes in it, each being about 2 inches in diameter.

The first drum was packed with logs of about 3-4 inch diameter and about 9-12 inches long. On top of this some smaller wood was placed to allow a fire to be lit. The fire was lit and fed until a good ember bed had been established. At this point some small diameter green branches were sprung across the top to hold everything in place. Then the drum was carefully inverted and stood on four pieces of crock to create a small airgap around the base. The fire is now at the bottom and starts to dry out the wood in the drum.

The second drum was placed on crocks with the open end uppermost. A fire was lit in the bottom, and wood aded until a good raging fire was burning in the drum. Then logs as above were added until they came just above the rim of the drum. After an hour or so, the logs will have slumped, allowing the lid to be fitted. It should be place on branches allowing the smoke to exit around its perimeter.

From here on, the method is pretty much the same for both drums. During the drying phase, copious amounts of thick white smoke is emitted. This feels cool and damp to the touch. After maybe a couple of hours, the smoke will start to clear to a bluer hue and become drier and warmer. At this stage it is worth shaking or banging the drum as this will give a more even burn. If the smoke returns to white and damp, then leave again.

Once the smoke is consistently blue/clear then the burn is complete. A check can be made by removing the lid. Caution as once air is admitted to the drum, the vapour can spontaneously combust. Check by taking a piece from the top and banging it on the drum. If it breaks apart as charcoal, then the burn is complete. If not, and you are quick enough, you can replace the lid and continue the burn.

The next phase is to close down the burn. This is done by sealing all holes and gaps with crocks and sand, ensuring that there are no gaps left. The drums should now be left overnight to cool.

Before opening the drum, test with you hand that the drum is cold. Then remove the lid. The charcoal can now be removed, sorted and bagged ready for use. Using this method a burn can be complete within 24 hours. If started early in the morning, then the drums can be safely left overnight whilst they cool. They should not be left unattended overnight whilst in the burning or cooking phases.

Sharpening - Brian Williamson/Dave Jackson


A blunt edge will reflect light, whereas a sharp edge will not. Also running your finger across the blade, not along it, will give an indication as your finger will glide over a blunt edge, but a sharp edge will bite. Sharpen to a finer angle for thin wood, and a steeper angle for bigger stuff or where it will be subject to a higher risk of damage such as when laying hedges. The temper of the steel will also affect how it is sharpened.

A grind wheel will produce a hollow-ground edge. Use one to create a basic bevel, and keep cooling in a bucket of water to ensure that the steel keeps it temper. Hone using the basic bevel to set the angle. Coppice tools do not have separate grind and honing angles. Use a canoe stone for billhooks and axes. Use plenty of oil to lubricate the stone, ensuring that the swarf is carried away. Finish using a fine-grade stone.

A skew chisel has a slightly convex shape to the grind, or it can sometimes have a flat grind.

Hone using a small circular action. Do the most difficult side first. This is so that when you start to get tired/bored you will be working on the most comfortable side, and therefore the honing is more likely to be even.

Single-ground tools (those with a bevel on only one side) should be equally sharpened on both sides to avoid a burr developing.

For loppers and secateurs, they should be dismantled and then sharpened as a single-bevelled tool as appropriate.

There is no need to worry about 'wire edges' on tools such as axes and Billhooks, but carpentry tools should be stropped before use..

Avoid really cheap bowsaws, as they tend to have poor blades. Its more cost effective to invest in something like a Sandvik. Should tools get wet, then they should be treated by using a toothbrush to work oil into the blade. Any oil such as 3-in-1, chainsaw, or clean engine oil will do.

When purchasing new tools, remove all varnish from the handles and treat with Linseed Oil.

Protect all edges during storage with guards or rags.

A carving axe has no discernible shoulder between the side and the honing angle, but has a gentle transition between the two.

To get a convex grind, gently rock the edge on the grind wheel.

Use a fine-grade stone. Start with quite a lot of pressure, then reduce until just the weight of the tool is being used. Use a slip-stone to clean buff off of the inside of a spoon-knife.


Bowl Blowing - Hannah

Halve a log and clean up the face, removing all pith wood. Rough up the centre area so that the coals are easier to keep in place.

Apply a pile of charcoal coals, and blow gently or fan to burn out the bowl. Occasionally scrape out the bowl to check on the depth. Make sure it is cleaned properly before attempting to restart.

Round off the edges and corners as required/desired. Sand, and treat with a vegetable oil.


Whistles - Dave

Use an Elder twig about 1/2 inch diameter, or larger. Compress the pith by at least 2 inches, but leave a plug at the far end. Make sure the hole is properly cleared of the pith.

Remove a wedge, making sure it intersects with the pith hole.

Find a stick which is a tight fit in the pith hole. Flatten one side. Insert with flat lining up with the hole, but only as far as the wedge hole. Test by blowing through into the slot. Once it is working, mark the plug, remove, trim, and reinsert.


Walking Stick

Use a metal tube with boiling water in the bottom to steam a Hazel rod. Once supple enough, bend around a pulley-like former, using a peg as a stop. Bend round to just more than the required angle. Tie securely and release from the jig.

Leave for at least 30-40 minutes to cool. Then loosen the binding enough to release the pulley wheel, and re-tie the end back in its original position.

Leave for 4-6 months to fully season. Release from binding, and tidy up as required.

6th September 2007

Today we are making Hazel hurdles. Once the rods have been cut from the coppice stools they need trimming to length with a Billhook and the splitting.

To safely trim with a Billhook hold the rod in your left hand and rest against your left thigh with the cutting location behind your leg. Then sweep down, through the rod and behind you. Practice is needed to find the right stance so that the rod is far enough away from your leg to be safe, but close enough to prevent the rod bouncing.

To split a rod, start by creating a chisel end so that you can clearly see the pith. Then place the bill of the Billhook onto the end of the rod lining it up with the pith. This is easiest if you stand astride the rod and use your legs as a clamp. Using your free hand tap the end of the Billhook to get the split started. The use a twisting action to open up the split. To correct the direction of the split, increase the bend in the larger side at the point where the split ends, and then open out the split. Making small steps is more accurate than going for a few long splits. When working through a knot start biasing the split very early and remember that the wood will want to veer away from the knot. If you encounter a knot face-on, then you may need to use a club to force the Billhook through the knot.

Having split your rods, select 9 pieces for the sails (uprights). Place them into the Mould Block and check for alignment in all planes. Some swapping may be required to achieve this. Start with 3 round poles and form the starting sequence. The build up the height using split poles, largest at the base. Two types of twist are used depending upon whether the sap or heartwood is against the sail. For heartwood, twist back and forth until the fibres separate, then twist round and upwards. For sapwood imagine you are riding a motorbike with you arms until fibres ease, then lift and twist. For round poles, circle the end to stretch the outer fibres, then twist and turn, continuing to twist as the pole is taken around. We then did some Sussex Style weaving which uses shorter lengths from the middle to the end.

Finally we did the finishing sequence, which is a complicated sequence that ensures that the top of the hurdle is locked in place. The first pole goes in vertically between the end and second sail, then up to the top and in front of the end sail, so it lies in front of both. Then a double twist and weave to other end, single twist and lock. Second and third poles go in under the top and top two wattles respectively. Weave to end end and twist to lock. Fourth goes in tip first and just runs to the end, but with plenty to spare. Last goes in under top two, weaves to the end, double twist and insert under itself against the 3rd sail from the end. Finally lift the end of the fourth over the top of the last, locking against the end sail. Then trim all the ends neatly.



A hard days work, particularly on the hands and arms.

After a short rest, Simon Tooomer, the Curator of Westonbirt Arboretum took us on a guided walk of the ornamental part of the Arboretum. Afterwards there was a barbeque and beer, and we all sat around the fire chatting until well into the night.

5th September 2007

Had kippers for breakfast this morning. Arrived on site just as the gate was opening at 9. Today I'm doing spoon carving with Dave.

We started off the day trying to identify a selection of logs. Silver Birch was the only one I recognised. The others were Hazel, Cherry, Field Maple, Pear, Alder, and Sycamore. As I have a lot of Sycamore available I decided to work with that one.

We started by cutting a billet to the exact length required, and then split it in half. We then marked up and removed both the pith and sapwood, leaving a small plank. This is because these are the most unstable parts of the wood. Next we drew a plan view of the spoon onto the wide face. Using a hatchet we then removed most of the waste wood, always working downhill. To make accurate cuts knock both the billet and the axe together against the chopping block. Next we drew out the profile onto the newly created side face, and again removed most of the wood with the hatchet, working the back first, leaving the bowl face for now.

Using the carving knife we cleaned up the back face using a variety of cutting techniques. Then we marked the transition from bowl to handle by making a stop-cut. The top face of the handle was then carved. We created the rake on the spoon by using the axe to remove wood in a line from the tip of the bowl, down to the bottom of the stop-cut.

The next phase is to mark and hollow out the bowl, leaving about 2mm around the lip. The final carving step was to tidy everything up with the carving knife.

The final wood-removal phase is to sand everything down starting with 120 grit to remove all imperfections, and then working down to about a 400 grit. We used wet & dry paper. To finish it off it can be treated with any vegetable oil applied with a rag. In the end I used Walnut oil on mine.



Finished just before 5pm. Afterwards I went into Tetbury to fill up the car and get some baked potatoes for this evening's meal. Spuds were cooked in the fire. Left the site about 9pm.

4th September 2007

After another hearty breakfast I headed back to the site, and back to the workshop. Today I'm turning my hand to the pole lathe.

Starting with a 1/4 or 1/8th log which has been cleeved, remove the heartwood using a side axe. The heartwood is not stable enough for turning. The axe was also used to round off all the corners, leaving me with something like an octagonal log. The draw knife was then used to round this off even further, getting to something approximating a cylinder. This rounding off can be done on the lathe, but its harder work and can quickly blunt the tools. The centre of each end was then centrepunched, and a drop of oil added for lubrication. The piece is then mounted in the lathe. The correct way to do this is to hold it in your right hand, pass it behind the cord, and then use your left hand to wrap the cord around a couple of times. This can be reversed if you are left-handed. The cord should leave the piece from the front.

The shape was roughed out using a gouge. Ride the back of the gouge on the piece, and then gradually lift the handle to engage the edge. Always run from uphill downwards as this will stop the grain splitting out. Once the basic shape has been produced, it can be smoothed off using a flat chisel, with the bevel face down. The flat chisel is used much like the blade of a plane to shave the surface. The final tool we used was a skew chisel. Start with the toe down, held on a slight angle to make a cut to the required depth. Repeat from the other side of the cut. Then open out the cut and round off the edges by turning the chisel toe up and using the heel of the chisel to round over the corner. If you need to go deeper, you cn use the very tip of the toe to shave a slice off of each face, allowing the chisel to go in further.



Decorative burns can be added by holding a dry, thin, offcut into the cut and treddling vigourously, although I never quite got the hang of this.

Lunch today was refried beans served with chappatti, and salad.

I made a rounders bat, a handle for my Froe blade, and a practice piece. The Froe handle will need to season for several months before being whittled to a final fit.



I finished about 5 and returned to the campsite. We had dinner of Dahl and chips which Hazel had prepared. We all sat round the fire chatting. The sky was really clear and we had a good view of the Milky Way, Ursa Major, Cassiopeia, and Dolphinus. I left just after 10 to head back to my B&B.

3rd September 2007

Week in the Woods, Westonbirt Arboretum.

I am on a 5-day woodland crafts course, organized jointly by the
Green Wood Centre, the Small Woods Association, and the Bill Hogarth Memorial Apprentice Trust. The course is to promote the use of traditional woodland crafts through demonstration and practical experience. It can also be used to obtain an OCN certificate, and is a pre-qualifier for applying for a 3-year apprenticeship in coppicing and associated crafts. The location of the course is at the wonderful and inspirational Westonbirt Arboretum.


We met at the Mess Tent for a cup of tea and to receive our name badges and OCN packs. Once everyone had arrived we walked round to the Green Wood Workshop situated in the woods behind the Plant Centre. I'm in the red group, and today we are going to make a cleft gate hurdle.

Cut 2 pieces from Ash poles. The first was cleft in two for the heads (uprights). The other was quartered for the rails. Cleeving is done using a Froe and a Cleeving Brake. We trimmed the top and bottom of the heads, the bottom to act as a point for inserting into the ground, and the top edges were shamfered to avoid splitting when hit as they are being inserted into the ground. The rails were shaped using a side axe and a draw knife on a shave horse. The ends of each rail were roughly shaped to produce an oval tenon.

The smallest tenon was then used to determine the size that the mortices in the heads will be. A template was made from an offcut containing both an oval and a round mortice. The oval mortice was formed by drilling 2 holes with a brace and bit, and then joining them using a specialist tool called a Twybil (pron. Twie-bill). The tenons were then trimmed to the exact size required using the draw knife and shave horse. The top and bottom rails had oval tenons, whilst the middle two rails had round tenons. The tenons were cut such that they were a tight fit in the template, and extended for about an inch bigger than the width of the heads.



Laid out the heads and rails on the ground and marked the top of each mortice on the inside face of the rails. The template was then used to mark the outline of the mortice. Again the mortices were cut using the brace & bit, and the Twybil. Three brace struts were then added. This is traditional, although the design is entirely down to the whim of the maker.



Satisfied with our day's work we headed back to the campsite and the Mess Tent. Most people were making their own dinner, but a few of us heated up some of the Dahl leftover from lunch and had that sat round the fire. Went back to me B&B about 9 o'clock.

15th August 2007

I've booked to go on a 5-day Coppicing and Green Woodworking course at Westonbirt Arboretum.
The course runs from 3rd to 6th of September. It is organised by the Small Woods Association, The Green Wood Centre, and the Bill Hogarth MBE Memorial Apprenticeship Trust.

Each of the first 4 days concentrates on a particular craft, such as; cleft gates, hurdles, turning, spoon making. The last day is less structured, so you can revisit something from earlier in the week, or try something new. There will also be a charcoal burn.


More details once I've been...