This post will mostly be pictures, some of the replica, some of the original Oseberg ship. The last post left a board steamed, bent fitted and riveted or klinked on to the hull. As the hull takes shape each point is measured and set to ±5mm. It can be adjusted slightly by pressing up from underneath with props or by…
Ships built with overlapping planks like Viking ships are called “lapstrake” in the USA, in the UK we call them “clinker built”. I had never known why until I hammered home one of the rivets that is the key to this construction and asked what it’s name was in Norwegian, it’s called a klink and the verb klinking fits perfectly…
So in our next installment in Viking boatbuilding we take the planks that were previously cleft, rough hewn and planed and trial fit them to the boat. Each and every board is different and is an exact replica of a particular board on the original ship. This is the office with the masterplan and to the left you can see…
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.…
