In part 1 we covered a little of the history of the Oseberg ship and the project to make a reconstruction and then cleft a large oak into 16 thin pie shaped wedges to make boards. The next stage is to hew these boards down from the pie shape into an even 1″ thickness. There are various ways of holding…
In 1903 a Norwegian farmer dug into a mound in one of his fields and made a discovery which archaeologists rate as comparable in importance to the grave of Tutankhamun. The Oseberg farm is 60 miles south of Oslo outside the town of Tonsberg and for years Oscar Rom had wondered what lay under the mound in his field, people…
first a nice new one about rakemakers the Rudd family in Cumbria. [vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/4231211 w=400&h=225]16 TEETH – Cumbria’s last traditional rakemakers from Rii Schroer on Vimeo. and some old ones about sussex trug making, first in colour from 1963 TRUGS and then back to 1929 BASKET MEN OF SUSSEX and finally Irish coracle making, nice shots at the end of…
I have just booked plane tickets to Oslo to help build a Viking longboat. Not just any longboat mind you this is a full size replica of the Oseberg boat, the most iconic surviving Viking ship. The original is in the gorgeous Viking boat museum at Oslo and I visited in 2004. The boat, the artefacts and the museum building…
A simple blog post to share pictures of Barbara Hepworth’s sculpture, some were taken at the major centenary exhibition at Yorkshire Sculpture park in 2003, others were taken last week at the new Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield. My favourite of all is “pelagos” This is the all new Hepworth Gallery on the banks of the Calder river in Wakefield. Inside…
A major new research project promisses to shed light on the UK traditional craft sector for the first time. When we started the Heritage Crafts Association 2 1/2 years ago one of our first objectives was to properly map the sector, to find out which crafts were endangered, which were doing well and which offered potential for growth. In fact…
Today I have been making quaichs, the traditional vessel for drinking whisky. I have often wondered how many cuts on the lathe it takes to turn a bowl, today I know, 696 cuts on the lathe. Each depression of the treadle spins the quaich 3 revolutions and I make a spiral cut with the tool. Then the quaich spins back.…
This is Yvonne with a cherry kuksa she carved on my “fun carving course” last week. Close up of the kuksa, these are based on traditional Sami drinking cups. Yvonne is a beekeeper who’s business is selling the alternative products of the hive. I am a fan of a drop of propolis (bee glue) on a cut to speed healing,…
I love Welsh spoons, whilst the tradition of spooncarving died out in England it continued to be strong in Wales with many folk still alive that ate all the time with wooden bowls and spoons in their youth. This was particularly the case for the Welsh national dish a traditional broth called cawl (recipe below). Then there is the strong…
Just finished an enjoyable 1 day knife and axe sharpening course. Sharp tools are essential for any woodworker and one of the things where we maybe don’t always put in the time we should. Well today we put the time in. We started by looking at the sharpening systems everyone was currently using mostly a combination of diamonds, wet and…
