And Froe to business.

Following on from the drawknife, the next decent bit of kit has to be the froe. This consists of a large steel blade with a handle (or haft), usually made of  Ash. The froe is used for cleaving wood by splitting it along the grain. By hammering one edge of its blade into the end of a piece of wood in the direction of the grain and then twisting the blade in the wood, by rotating the handle, the wood can be split in a controlled way with the minimum of effort.The use of the haft as a lever multiplies the force upon the blade, allowing wood to be torn apart with remarkable ease and hardly any strain to the haft itself. Movement of the haft forwards, or back, controls the direction of the split. The froe, in conjunction with a maul (a wooden mallet), can be used to make planks and wooden shingles, amongst other things. I was fortunate enough to get mine from eBay at a good price and have already used it to split some Oak ready for shingling.

A Drawknife restoration.

Back in 2011 I managed to get an Acorn handled drawknife from eBay for an absolute bargain of £11. One of the handles was cracked beyond repair, so I decided to use one half as the outline for a template to then turn two new ones using my Kity lathe. You may notice that I have made the handles a little rounder than the originals but this was to make for a more comfortable grip for myself. Before fitting the new handles I cleaned up the blade, removing a couple of nicks on its edge and honed it to a razor sharpness. As I needed to burr over the ends of each handles shaft, I made the new handles about an 1/8th of an inch shorter to allow for the fitting of a washer. I found it sufficient to hold the blade in an engineers vice, using some offcut wood packing, before hammering the ends of the shafts to secure the handles in place. It is important to make sure this is well done as the force of pulling the blade towards you puts a lot of strain at this point and you don't want a handle coming off mid-stroke. All in all I am happy with the restoration and look forward to trying it out when I make some Oak shingles in the Spring.



The finished drawknife



Champion the Lumber Horse or How to build a Shave Horse with a bit of help from Mike Abbott.

Starting out on this journey I soon realised that there are a few essential bits of kit that I must get together. As well as a good selection of handtools, which I will go into in another post, there are items such as a Pole Lathe, Froe Cleaving Brake and a Shave Horse to consider.

The first item I decided to tackle was the Shave Horse. After great searching through endless pages on the internet and loads of reading, in publications like Living Woods and Permaculture Magazine, I came across a design by Mike Abbott using recycled wood, which fit the bill perfectly.

As I cannot get readily available access to woodland, this design is an excellent alternative and gave me the opportunity to use up oddments, recycled timber and wood sourced from eco-friendly suppliers, such as the Worcester Resource Exchange. As Mike says, "I had always based my shaving horses on a 4ft length of log, but I was aware that this is not the sort of thing that most people have lying around in the workshop". The build is very easy and well thought out. The only adaptations that I made were to brace the legs with an additional bar at the rear to give a little extra support (If you intend to dismantle the horse to transport it then I recommend you stick to the original design) and I added a block in the middle of the platform to give a larger bed to hold work under the top bar of the clamp. I also turned the clamp pin out of recycled Oak, using my Kity lathe, with a larger head to help it stay in place and not travel through the clamp. I have posted a link to the design in the links column on the right.

A good, or should that be wood, start.

 Since 2001 I have been making Mirrors, Wands, Staves and Furniture from wood that is sourced from eco-sound environments, such as arboreta and coppiced woodland, or from timber that is 100% recycled. This has all been under the name of  WYRDEWOOD.  I now feel it is the right time to develop the skills I have learnt so far and discover new ones. So this is a record of my earnest attempt to get in touch with the woodsman that lurks somewhere deep within me. For a long time it has been smothered by too much time watching television, surfing the net, gaming, working for the man and finding any excuse to do something else instead. I'm sure I will make lots of mistakes but that will all be part of the journey.