We've been members of the Sussex and Surrey Coppice Group for a while, but today was the first time we made it to one of their meetings.
There's two specific posts I've written already on tool repair and a mobile sawmill, the rest of the event follow below.
The event was held in a woodland about an hour from us, and many members were demonstrating their crafts.
More follows in the rest of the post, including a charcoal kiln and horse team...
The various demonstrations going on included making a mini coracle:
Charcoal burning (I found out quite a lot about this from several people there, as it's something I'd like to try):
and a horse team, moving logs for the mobile sawmill to process. The horses were very well trained, walking backwards, forwards and stopping on verbal commands.
There were numerous other things going on, such as basket weaving (with Alan Sage), chair making and more. One of the events was an auction of tools and various bits of woodland equipment:
I was pleased to come away with two billhooks, one of them an Elwell. Plenty of spare now for when visitors are in the wood!
Mike
Saturday, 31 May 2008
Sussex and Surrey Coppice Group
Mobile sawmill in action
At the recent meeting of the Sussex and Surrey Coppice Group, we saw a demonstration of a mobile sawmill by William Wallace. You can read more about his business at wills-mill.co.uk
He uses a Wood-Mizer sawmill, towed by his Land Rover. The mill can lift logs up, move them around on the mill bed, and handle diameters up to 3 feet. Anyway, enough of the typing, the rest is pictures:
More pictures follow in the rest of the post...
Mike
Tool repair with a portable forge
At the recent meeting of the Sussex and Surrey Coppice Group, we saw a demonstration of tool repair by Ian Swain. You can visit his website at www.theluddite.com
The really neat thing was that he used a portable forge to heat the tang of the billhook blade until it was red hot, allowing it to burn a shape for itself in the new handle.
Here's the portable forge. The lid is only shut in transit - the blower on the top can be packed inside it. The protrusion at the back of the firebox is where the jet of air comes in from the blower.
Lighting the forge was simple - paper and wood to start:
then crank the handle to get some air into the fire:
the next step was to load it up with charcoal and keep cranking:
Only 5 minutes from lighting it was hot enough to put the billhook in:
Ian took care not to let the main blade get too hot, as that would affect the properties of the steel.
While the tang of the blade was heating up, Ian got the handle ready, fitting a metal collar onto it:
Once the tang was glowing red (hard to see in daylight), it was hammered straight:
then inserted into the handle:
this needed hammering on, and you can see the smoke from the hot metal burning into the wood:
sometimes the metal has to be reheated and put in again to burn a large enough hole to reach through the other end of the handle. Once it was through, a washer was slipped over it and Ian used a hollow centre punch to bang it down firmly:
At the request of one of the people watching, Ian finished this one off by hammering the end of the tang over while it was still hot:
although what he normally does is saw it off and then hammer it so that it "mushrooms" and grips the washer firmly:
A while later the charcoal was still hot enough to get another one in there:
Mike
