Prepping for next winter.

Next winter it seems like one of my longer lived wishes will be granted: I`ll have a lovely woodstove (and a house around it to heat, but lets leave that for now). To properly use a woodstove we`ll be needing a load of firewood, so I`ve been working on splitting and stacking this weekend. The tire-contraption works excellently, and I was beginning to wonder how I`d store and dry the wood. That is when all of a sudden my better halfs father came with a very early birthday present to help me on the way here. The green thing in the picture to have firewood bags in to aid stacking, along with 50 80L bags.

Bagging station.

 I have now nearly 20 bags stored in a drafty and dry old stable where it`ll have a few good months to dry out. I know that it is best to dry wood for at least two years before burning it, but unfortunately I do not happen to have two years right now...

Half the production

The Norway life.

After a month in Norway I have to admit that I do not get around to carving as much as I would have liked. During the week I live in a student house where carving is just not an option, and in the weekends we are often busy with many different things. I haven`t been great at scheduling time to carve. We have been busy doing other things though. During the week we like to take walks in Bergen to get out of the noisy student house, and out of the city air. (Surprisingly, Bergen is one of the worst cities in Europe when it comes to air quality!) There is a mountain just outside Bergen called Fløyen that we like to hike up to in the evenings. The view over the city is just amazing. 

The weekends we like to spend on the countryside of Bømlo, where it is beautiful to walk or go fishing just from the house. 

Today, I spent time splitting wood. We have just made an improved chopping block with a car tire that lies on a slot on top. This prevents the wood from falling over and speeds the splitting up massively. For anyone who has not tried this, I do recommend it. A lot. I noticed that more than half of the time I was not splitting wood, but bending down collecting pieces or rebalancing rounds on the block. The tire-method improves efficiency, by keeping the rounds upright. You don`t have to get down to the ground after every swing anymore.  

First we measured out how high the block should be. The wood we`re splitting is on average 25 cm long, and for me to hit it square the upper face needs to be at ca 80 cm high. This means the block will have to be 55 cm high. After we cut a wide enough section of tree at 55 cm, we cut a circle away around the edge so the tire has a place to lie without shifting much. 

                                      

 The idea then it to stuff the tire full of wood, and split away! I like to walk around the block while splitting, so that I can always hit the rounds close to the tire. This prevents me from hitting the axe handle on wood between me and the round I am splitting.

Very satisfying work. splitting wood. Fresh air, excercise, and immediate visible results. I think I`ll have to fasten the tire to the block with some pins to keep it from shifting completely. I`ll have to be able to lift it off easily though, so that I can get all the bark and dirt that builds up inside away every now and then.

The Travelling Gnomes.

In the beginning of January  I carved a few stick-gnomes, just to play with my new knife a bit. It started with four, but soon I had ten, then twenty. Then my sister joined in and we made a small army of gnomes. I am not entirely sure how it happened, but all of a sudden we had this idea to send the gnomes around the world, hitchhiking with kind strangers who`d find them and take them along. The Travelling Gnomes-initiative was born. We played around a bit with different methods of wrapping the gnomes up, numbered them for identification, and made explanatory notes to go with the gnomes. The idea is that someone who finds a gnome reports this at our dedicated facebookpage: www.facebook.com/gnomerace, and then takes it along for a while and leave it somewhere else again. Within a weak one gnome had made it to Madrid, and another one to Switzerland! Various other ones have been found and taken along in the Netherlands, where they begin, as well. We hope that the Travelling Gnomes will indeed travel the world and visit many cool places. It is fun to see this idea developing with all these great people that find gnomes, and help them travel. To see where people have found gnomes and where they have left them again you can visit the Travelling Gnomes facebook page.  

The first four gnomes that were carved.

The Third International Secret Spoonswap

The third international secret spoonswap is happening right now on the Spoon carving, Greenwood working and Sloyd group on facebook. Just like the two previous times spooncarvers from all over the world send a spoon they made to a randomly selected other participant. I participated in the second swap, and now again in the third. It is great fun. I sent a spoon off the a fellow countryman this time, and received not one, but two spoons from carver Paul Lawrence in England!

Here are the spoons I received. A small deep scoop from olive wood, and a larger spoon in birch. 

And here is the spoon I sent out. There is already a picture of it in my previous post. I am happy it was received well already, even though this time it didn`t have to cross the atlantic.

I enjoyed the event again, and hope there`ll be another swap next year. 

Resolutions!

Since my hobby-related activities have diminished in the past half year, my blog has grown quiet as well. I have been very busy with a research project and thesis in the last months, but that is a lousy excuse to not make time for the things I like to do in my spare time. And therefore I have a resolution this year: I need to make time for hobbies, and document the things I enjoy here. That may be carving, or fixing up old tools, or a walk in a beautiful area, or anything else that I enjoy. In the coming half year my life will change a lot. I am starting my final research project for my MSc. degree in molecular biology, and for this I will move to Bergen, Norway. Then, when that is finished and I have finally finished this degree I will move to Norway more permanently. I suppose that with moving and another research project I will have plenty of things on my mind, but I should be able to carve the occasional spoon, I hope. 

Of course I haven`t been completely idle with doing fun things. In december I have participated with the "Crafty Secret Santa" on BushcraftUK.com. In this fantastic event organized by one of the members people from all over the world send a homemade gift to another participant. This way everyone will get something fun. I received the hand forged bottle opener shown above. I have enjoyed the event, although this far the gift I sent out (a birch kuksa) hasn`t been received yet. I really hope it does. 

 In December my sister and me always get together to produce a large load of gingerbread, and build a gingerbread house. This year we built a church, with windows made of coloured sugar, and lights inside. It is part of the christmas baking and preparation that we both enjoy a lot.

I will end this post with some pictures of spoons I carved this month. All are from cherry wood that I collected before summer break, so it is rather tough by now. It has beautiful colouring though, and it takes a lovely shiny finish. It also takes the edge of your tools rather quickly. There are two eaters in the first picture, and three cooking spoons in the following pictures. The spoon lying on top in the middle picture I have given to my sister in law, who had requested a new stirring spoon. I had given her a spoon about a year ago, and she says it is the one she reaches for most. I enjoy knowing that people use my work. It is the best compliment.

For the coming weeks I have quite a few things I want to write about. The third international secret spoon swap is going on at the moment, so that is exciting! I will soon post out my spoon, and am very curious to see what I will be sent this time. I also want to discuss a new knife I have received as a christmas present that I am very enthousiastic about. All this means that at least for the weeks to come I can stick to my resolution: More hobby. More blogposts. 

The Wood-turning Cruise

A few days ago, I came home from what has likely been the most exciting bit of my holiday this year. My wonderful girlfriend Maren usually works on a ship in the summers, and that ship would be hosting the so-called "wood-turning cruise". On this cruise, that is organized by a norwegian tool company to promote and sell their wares along the norwegian coast, some of the worlds top wood turners are gathered on the ship to do demonstrations and instructions for the passengers and the visitors in all the ports that the ship docks at along the way from Stavanger to Cape North and back. Maren got me a "volunteer"-job on this cruise, so that in exchange for a few hours of work each day I could come along on board and see Norway and all the woodworking. Now we are back from these great 14 days and it has been really good.

 The ship, ms Gann, is a schoolship where during the year students live who are in training to become sailors. During the summer the ship organizes and hosts different cruises and events, among which this turning cruise to cape north, that feels like it was cut out for me specifically. When I was not at work in the kiosk at the panorama-bar of the ship (Awesome view. Best. Office. Ever.), I was down in the workshop looking at demonstrations and talking to people. I admired the work of Richard Raffan, who makes lovely bowls and absolutely stunning lidded boxes.

Richard Raffan at work.

A gentleman who made this trip really special is Terry Martin, who saw me lingering around his lathe, studying how he turned his bowls, and then asked me if I`d like a go. He taught me the beginnings of how to hold a turning gouge, and let me work on the bowl that he was doing. He is a very passionate teacher who has done some great work searching for and preserving the craft of woodturning in China.

Terry Martin working on a bowl.

 After he finished the bowl that we had worked on, he kindly gave it to me. I was chuffed with it, of course, and wanted to return the gesture, so I awkwardly gave him the eating spoon from my previous blogpost it return. Hardly a match for a bowl from a master, but I wanted to give something I made in return.

The bowl from Terry.

At some point during the end of the trip, when most of the paying passengers had had their turns, and I found some hours that were convenient workwise, I managed to sign up for a timeslot at the lathes myself. There were these hours you could sign up for, and if you brought wood then tuition and use of tools and lathes was free. Here, with what I learned from terry, and some really good instructions and help from the instructors there I finally did what was on my to-do-list for a long time. Turn a bowl. In fact, I turned two!

Here I (in blue) receive instructions from instuctor Colwin (in red)

Here are the bowls I turned, and Terry`s bowl on the right. The small bowl on the left is intended to be an ale-bowl. It is made out of cherry wood, and the design is a bit inspired by work of Julian Heath, and Jarrod Stonedahl. The one in the middle is in fact my first bowl, and it turned out ok considering that a lot of "redesigning" had to be done after I sent it flying off the lathe and through the room with an idiotic cut. It gave me a right fright, that! Despite this I really enjoyed turning wood, and am very excited to see what I can do with greenwood in the future, when I acquire a lathe (notice the use of when, not if!).

All of this, combined with sailing past the most beautiful views one can dream of and visiting all these lovely towns along the norwegian coast was pretty exciting for me. Yet, they aren`t the most exciting thing that has happened on this trip. The most exciting thing happened on Cape North, where, being the northernmost people on mainland europe at that time, Maren and me got engaged. We have been together for four and a half year, and she has been absolutely wonderful. Getting engaged to her on cape north was something that I had been thinking about, and although I messed it all up a bit and things didn`t go according to how I should have planned them, she said yes. Even though I always have woodchips on my socks, or can be forgetful about what is in the oven when I am reading blogs. She is truly fantastic and I am a very lucky that she thinks I am too.

  

Maren and me being the northernmost people on Mainland Europe.

 

Learning from mistakes, and how I do not do it.

With Maren being gone to work, I find myself with ample time to carve here. And I have been taking and enjoying that time. Having finished the cup from my last blogpost, I figured I`d make a spoon to go with it. So far so good. 

The process of these went quite smoothly, and I was feeling good about it, so the next day I made a small cup and a teaspoon to add to what I began to call "the royal family", due to the crownlike decoration I carved on the handles.

But my production-run of royal family-members seems to have stopped there. The axe giveth, and the axe taketh away. Since then I have broken all the things I attempted with poor axework. This cup here was the first thing to go. Just before I was to start smoothing it out and putting the final bevels on the rim and edges, I noticed the pressure crack in the wall. This crack must have formed way earlier on in the process, when I was carving out the handle. For that purpost I had to chop in the direction of the bowl, but in doing so I started a crack that is now unstoppable, except maybe with glue.

Not too bad, these things happen, and at the very least it would teach me a lesson of care with the axe, right? Well, apparently my learning curve is not so steep... I chopped two spoons in half today that I was carving because the chance of them succeeding would be way larger than for yet another cup. I have learned my lesson now though, I hope. Tomorrow another day, with more wood to turn into kindling! Things to watch out for? 1. Carve the delicate neck on a spoon with a knife, not with a sharp 1 Kg lump of steel on a stick. 2. Kuksa-handles may require stop-cuts. 3. Learn from the mistakes, then the time is not (entirely) wasted.