Starting Small (finished Firewood pictures)

[bjrogg]

I’m going to start a thread here to show how we can learn so much from a piece of basically scrap wood.

Something you aren’t going to feel so bad about if it doesn’t work out.

I’m going to start out with this pretty knarly piece of Osage.

It’s short, crooked and has a limb coming out of it.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

I cut off the end to see where my back is going to be

[bjrogg]

Remember this isn’t about showing exactly how to do everything.

It’s just getting someone who’s a little nervous about trying something on their expensive stave they’ve never done before. To give them a chance to try it on something less valuable.

I’ll explain some of the how but mostly I hope to get some to see what they can learn from scraps.

The first thing we can learn is how to chase a ring.

Bjrogg

[Selfbowman]

Watching

[bjrogg]

I like good dry Osage for chasing rings. It’s harder wood but I can really hear and feel the early wood just above my ring.

I leave a little early wood with my draw knife and then come back and clean it up with my scraper.

I find in my shop. I can see the rings better with the light source above and behind me.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

Glad to entertain you Arvin. Maybe we can learn something together. If anyone wants to contribute helpful tips feel free to do so. I like learning stuff to.

Sometimes it helps to mark the edge of ring with pencil.

Here I went around the knot with draw knife leaving a little bit on opposite side.

Then I cleaned it up with scraper so I could clearly see where I was.

Then I removed the rest of the ring from opposite direction.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

Start from the side you think has the lowest ring. Start on that ring and don’t get lost. Keep cleaning it up with scraper only going a few inches at a time with draw knife in between.

DONT SKIP AROUND. You have to follow the same ring.

It should look like this when you’re done

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

Seal the back right away to prevent it from checking.

[bjrogg]

When it drys we can try another technique.

This skill you never completely master. It can sometimes go very badly.

Most of the time it works well for me.

I use mostly hand tools. Not because I want to be more primitive but because I feel they work so well for the job.

For removing large amounts of wood from the stave I often use belly splits.

They make tools for this but I don’t have one yet. Working on that.

I wouldn’t suggest using your favorite draw knife for this but this one was beat on long before I got my hands on it. I’m going to basically use it like a froe.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

I help guide the split with my screwdriver trying to keep it in the same ring as we go.

[bjrogg]

That went pretty good.

Now we have another ring we can chase.

[bjrogg]

Belly split along side main

[bjrogg]

After I chase a ring I remove another belly split. I chase a ring on it. And then take one last belly split.

That piece of scrap allowed us to

Chase four rings. They don’t take as long on these little staves either but still good practice

Make three belly splits.

It gave us a inventory of

Either four really short stave to play with

Or four really small billets to play with.

Either way there’s more to learn.

I wasn’t originally thinking it but maybe a handle splice.

Bjrogg

[superdav95]

Lookin good Bj!   I’m watching this too

[bjrogg]

Thanks Dave I’ve been working on this on the leatherwall site. I think even some of the veterans might enjoy this.

I have to sort out my pictures

Doing everything on my phone and some photos are reduced and some aren’t.
Probably going to stop here for a bit.

Bjrogg