Spoons
I’ve been trying to make a good spoon for quite a while now, and for whatever reason it finally started working. I’m not doing anything differently to what I’ve been doing all along. It’s weird.
One long handled cooking spoon and one soup soon!
Camp Knives
We needed some communal knives for the campsite and I’d been planning on making some from steel stock. However, while in Daiso, I noticed that they had some relatively OK knives for $2.80 each. With Rowany Festival fast approaching I decided to just mod a few of those rather than doing all of the hard work – I will end up making some before the next big event, but this has gotten me out of trouble and freed up a little bit of time to do other projects.
I sanded the branding off with a high grit sandpaper, removed the plastic handle and set the blade into a Tasmanian Oak handle.
Bow Drill
While taking my little dog Frankie for a walk, I noticed that the recent storms had ripped apart the willow trees. I grabbed a couple of small branches to make some stuff out of.
First thing is a willow bow for my bow drill. It works extremely well. I am getting some thicker hemp rope in soon and I think I’ll swap the string for a thicker one when that arrives. I’m just using a shell as a bowl – the shell sits in your palm, and then you sit the shell over the drill bit. This allows you to focus downwards pressure towards where you’re drilling while also allowing the bit to spin freely.
The major advantage to this build is that I can make custom drill bits depending on the job. This means I can slowly build a collection of bits with almost no initial investment. I’m also made a ring-and-dot bit which I’ve used to decorate some antler. It’s a pretty cool system.
Breast Auger
I made a breast auger as seen on the Bayeux Tapestry. The body is a noste pinne from my discard pile. The bit is 8mm. The primary function will be drilling holes for dowel.
Breast auger top right. There is some physical evidence from the Mastermyr chest but all that survived was the metal. I am excited to make a spoon auger bit after Festival.
You lean on the drill with the support on your chest, and the turn the rest of the drill. This allows you to focus the pressure of your body weight on the bit while allowing you to turn it with both hands.
A hardwood pin connects the support to the body, while allowing independent movement.
A Gaming Board
A future issue of Homestead Helper will be to make a gaming board using the tools that we’ve been making so far. I made this little 1/2 size test to get together a list of every tool required, to get together a plan for the next couple of months.
The inspiration for the board is below.
Material for Garb
My eventual hope is to replace every piece of fabric I own with something that I’ve woven myself, or have had woven for me. It’s the kind of thing that will take years and years to do, but small steps make up big journeys.
I wove out about 3m of this 2/1 twill, which is certainly a good start. It is very fine and even when it’s fulled it should be pretty light and pleasant to wear.
Several Saws
If you follow my blog you’ve probably seen me posting Homestead Helper guides to making saws, but what I don’t really post about is the amount of saws I make to experiment with. As an example, I’ve now made 4 of the larger style of saw – in different configurations and styles – to see what I feel works best. I’ve made push versions and pull versions, experimented with construction techniques and materials.
I’ve made more than a dozen of the smaller style of saw – making blades from hacksaws, jigsaws, handles from hardwood or softer woods like pine or willow.
It might make a good blog entry at some point – trial and error really is an important part of the process, but not really a part of the process that is easy to include in a guide format.
Pouch and Hardware
New pouch and hardware! To keep my medication and stuff in discretely at Festival.
I bought a belt at Spring War maybe 8 year ago and it came with a free pouch that was not great. It was nice thick leather though so instead of tossing it I put it in the cupboard.
I unpicked machine stitching for the whole pouch and trimmed/reshaped it a bit. I put like 10 coats of raw linseed oil on the leather over a few days, and then sewed it back together with some linen thread.
The hardware is based on a carving from 8th Century England. I cut it from some sheet copper alloy that I got for another project but was slightly too thin.
Not quite right for my period but I think it’s a pretty acceptable solution to keeping my mundane stuff out of sight.
Thanks to Dagny for making a toggle for me designed specifically for a left thumb that doesn’t work!
I ended up changing how the hardware was attached to make it look a little less clunky. I am pretty proud of it for my first time trying to make something like that.
Bjorn This Way 