Jarrod StoneDahl

Riven Wood, Spoons, and Hand Tools

2012-03-05T12:52:00.000-06:00

Wow! February just flew by. I cant believe that it's March already, with only one Blog entry for Feb. I've been meaning to for some time, things just kept me from writing. So to make up for it this entry will be a snap shot into my month. Last month was a whirl wind of activity, Starting off with the last post and toboggan building class, every weekend I found myself teaching at varies places. I spent two different weekends the local liberal arts college teaching snowshoe weaving and toboggan building. Then headed up to North House to teach a class on making a crooked knife. I ended up being snowed in for an extra night so spent the time carving a few spoons and spreaders, as well as trying out my newest tool, as Gransfors Bruks carving adze. I had a chance to carve with and visit with a friend, fellow instructor and green woodworker Fred Livesay one evening. Fred has been teaching at north house since it's inception. He also invited me to sit in and share on a knife sloyd tutorial for the new interns at the school. That was good as it's always fun to learn and to listen to others describe their techniques for some of the same knife grips we all use. I learned a new knife stroke too. We split a piece Box Elder left behind from a turning class earlier in the month for some butter spreaders. It was beautiful wood, with large streaks of pink and some figure as well. Butter spreaders are a great project for beginner carvers. I don't carve spreaders to much as I feel that the designs I come up with just don't work as well as the simple metal butter knife. I did find a new design that I like that evening and will be exploring more spreader design this week.

This brings me to my newest thoughts as a woodworker. Over the month of instruction I spent a lot of time milling wood for snowshoes and toboggans, so I'm flat out sick of power tools. I even fantasized about getting rid of all of them. I won't.... but the thought sure sounds inviting after all the dust I inhaled while prepping for those classes. When I began woodworking, I started as a laborer on carpentry jobs. One job and one carpenter changed my whole world many years ago. At the time I was living in a canvas tee pee (I lived in it for 3 years) and the axe was part of my life back then as I lived by a fire. Well, on this particular job the carpenter John Ruff was up framing a hip roof. One of the rafter ends needed trimming, so instead of climbing all the way down to use the power saw, he pulls out a hatchet and proceeds to trim the compound miter cut on the rafter with great accuracy.......my jaw just about hit the ground. "you can use an axe to carve?" I thought. This blew me away, never had I thought you could use the axe for such things. I thought it was for splitting wood and cutting trees down. Later that year he thought I'd be interested in house sitting while he and his family went for a trip. He built his house with hand hewn cedar logs. The scribed dovetailed type. All with an axe and chainsaw. I sat in the house looking up at the hewn surfaces of wood everywhere, I was hooked. I began to gather all information on using hand tools and one thing led to another. Today, I find myself after nearly 20 years of woodworking, finding refreshment and renewal in the thought of riven wood and hand tools. The surface of wood shines cut with razor sharp hand tools.........


toboggan class at Northland College

hand filling is a very important skill


trimming the handle to fit hand

taking the time to fit the blade nice and snug

wrapping the handle

some knives and unshaped blades

the kids helping with splitting spruce

simple tools to get the job done

loaded up and heading home

spruce hand split boards draw knifed and drying

spoons from crooked wood

another perspective

spreader, new shapes

crooked yellow birch harvested yesterday, spoon wood

A Cree Shovel and SomeToboggans

2012-02-08T11:01:00.001-06:00

This past week was a flurry of activity around the shop. I had a few fellows come up to make toboggans. This class is always the first weekend of February. Bill came early and made a Cree Hunter's shovel before the Toboggan class over the weekend. Please look at the past post on the shovel, and if you have time watch the movie linked, The Cree Hunter's of Misstassini, it is a great movie. The Toboggan class was great fun as well. We bent local white ash that I milled into boards from a friends wind falls and later re-sawed into thin staves/planks for the toboggans. We used copper rivets and clench nails to fasten the cross bars to the staves/planks. I don't have a lot of time to write, as today I'm going to attempt to bend up 8-10 pair of snowshoes for a class this weekend, more on that later. Enjoy the photos.

Using wedges to split out the shovel blank


splitting nice

hewing down to size


more hewing


after layout,splitting some of the extra wood off

using an elbow adze to hollow the shovel

fine tuning with carving gouge

proud maker of a shovel

bent up and ready to assemble

view of jig

staves in steam box


Bob using a plane to taper the end

Hide(he-day) setting up to assemble

working hard

Hide using his crooked knife to trim

Bill's long toboggan

nice toboggan's fellas, great work!

The Internet, Crooked Knives and a Giant Beaver.

2012-01-27T00:28:00.000-06:00

      As the title says "life in the north woods" this blog is more than woodworking, although that's my main passion I also spend a great deal of time trying to live a "close to the land" lifestyle. This includes getting food from it....directly. This means killing. So if you are an anti-hunter/anti trapper go no further.

     Today I spent the day making a few crooked knives. I recently offered them for sale on my website. I got two orders a day apart. This is exciting for me to see happen. I spent a lot of time over the past months working on my website, getting photos up and pay pal buttons attached. It's all in hopes that it can supplement my "career" as a self employed artisan. I have bowls and spoons and a little of everything I do up there for the world to see and for sale. It was a real struggle for me to approach the technology of computers and the Internet. Let alone learn to use it as a form of "advertising" or some benefit to me when at one point I thought that it (computer and that technology) was the reason folks are moving away from a direct participation in the natural world. Not that I'm all about making money, but paying the bills is a good thing. If I can use it to help my family, my work, and folks around the world learn about and appreciate hand made goods we are all the better. You can get to it here. Like you folks reading this blog, hopefully you are getting information that you can use or are entertained at the least. After a few years of learning about this tool (Internet) I now spend a fair amount of time reading information from all over the world and learning things about anything that I care to ask about. This is really the great thing about this technology. So here I am...learning to type faster with every entry, not having to backspace my misspelling away with every other word. So now on to the info....
     Crooked knifes are a really under appreciated tool. They are even obscure among woodworkers. There are many versions of this tool from all over the globe. Although they are sometimes quite different many times just subtly. The crooked knife I am referring to is the tool that is known around the Great Lakes region and to the eastern seaboard, north in to Canada. The Mocotaugan, and there are other names from other tribal languages as well, but mocotaugan is sort of the common native based name. It is a one handed draw knife and mostly used as such. Commonly used for snowshoes parts and birch bark canoe parts, but not limited to those. The tool with it's crooked handle (that's where it gets it's name) works best in a drawing motion, toward oneself. Long even pulls.....like a draw knife. But it needs no clamping device to hold the wood being worked, like a draw knife. With the crooked knife your other hand is the vise. It's a nomads tool, evolved from a certain lifestyle. One of the reasons I think it is not widely used is that they were historically designed by the user for the user. This would also mean designed for the way the user liked the tool to work, and the users hand shape and size. I believe you cannot make a one size fit's all crooked knife, what works for me may not work for you. So a mass produced knife may not work for everyone and can cause great pain in the wrist, that's where most folks give up and put the tool down. In the past, during the fur trade these tools were a trade items, and mass produced but were commonly modified to fit the user. We do not have the continuum of knowledge passed on to us as to how these tools worked in turn not knowing how to modify them to fit our hand. Many folks, myself included see a picture of one and proceed to make one with a random wildly crooked handle...try it out...."ouch! this sucks". This is what I did anyway. I know in the past folks spent days working wood with these tools, and overall a lifetime, they did not use these tools if they hurt. So I proceeded to make another knife and another...learned blacksmithing/tool making techniques along the way. Over the years I've made at least 50 knifes and used them all, leading to what I view as the rules of their design.
The knife should not cause physical pain and the thumb rest needs to be in the right spot. Everything else is really subtle stuff. I know what I what my knives to do and so I have three knives all a little different. They all do the cutting a little different...you may need more than one.


Progression of some of the knives I kept around for reference	.

Triangular shaped handle fits closed hand

Curved blade and a slightly kinked handle works really well

Two knives that work well

Should fit in hand comfortably with thumb sitting on rest

Here are some blades

Rough template-I adjust thumb rest for the user's hand

Shaping the handle with a rasp, I finish them with a knife

Mortise for blade, this gets a fitted wooden piece on top of the blade

Plugs fitted and then all is glued up and clamped

finished knives-in the past they where just wrapped to secure the blades

As for the Beaver part of this blog. Many of you know that I spend a lot of time in the winter months hunting, fishing and trapping. We try to live as close to the land as possible and that means getting as much of our food from it as well. The beaver have been active down by a near by river. They have been cutting lots of Ash trees....I mean lots...tree so large that they will just lay and rot. I'll be going for some of those trees later this month, for chair parts. anyway. I decided to trap a few of them to slow them down a bit. They are very hard workers and are one of the only animals besides humans that will change the landscape for their own use. I respect them a lot. They have dammed up the entire river with "sticks and mud". I bet most of us would have a hard time doing that. So, a few weeks ago I made some "sets" which means I set some traps. I check the traps about every 4 days or so. Sometimes one of my kids come along to help. It usually depends on how far I'm walking that day or how cold it is. Monday I went out and set up on a another lodge 1 1/2 miles away, through the woods. It a nice walk now that I've done it a bit and packed a good "float" or trail. I usually only trap beaver through the ice. I tan the hides and make hats and fur trimmings for custom made outdoor clothes. Hopefully, I 'll touch on that sometime. We eat the beaver meat, and the birds get to pick the rest. Below are a few photos from different days out on the "line" or just as I'm getting home. I have to add that I use what is called a coniber trap. These kill instantly. A good trapper tries to make a set that will minimize suffering. I'm also not the kind of guy who is a trophy hunter or like to show off. I'm just sharing my life's activities here in Northern Wisconsin. Where you can still get much of your food from the wild, some of you might be interested in this. The beaver in the photo was 52 lbs. This is a very large beaver....they don't get much bigger than this. In the past pre-fur trade it is rumored that snowshoes where woven with beaver rawhide. It was said that this was the best. The skin is thin and very strong, and water resistant due to all the oils in the hide. Once the fur trade started the skins were too valuable to cut up for snowshoes. So the use probably ended about 400 years ago. I might just try it this year.

Here is a set along the bank, the beaver's live near by.

Wide snowshoes, tight weave...packing the float.

About to make the baited set with a piece of aspen

It's snowy and 10 degree f ,my favorite time to be out side

52 lb beaver...It's a bit to hold up for the camera

Ice Fishing and Black Ash Baskets

2012-01-21T12:27:00.001-06:00

One of my favorite things to do during the long winters here in northern Wisconsin is fishing on ice. This winter started pretty mild, with temps in the 30-40 f / 0-5c and with very little snow. This past week has brought us -10-20f / -20-30c....this is skin freezing cold! and ice making cold. Lake Superior is one of the largest fresh water lakes in the world and in normal winters it does freeze partially or sometimes totally. I live near Chequamegon bay. If you look at this photo of Lake Superior and scroll down to the big lake and look along the lower coast. There is a small pennisula with a bunch of islands off of it, this is the Bayfield penninsula and the Apostle islands and inside it is Chequamegon Bay. This is the place I fish...in bay and the islands...I like to try to follow the fresh ice. You can see in the photo were the ice is, this photo is from over a week ago. Here is the photo from yesterday Of coarse the ice has to be thick enough to travel. I won't drive my snow machine on anything under 5" but prefer more like 6-8" of clear "black ice" this type of ice is very strong compared to the white creamy ice. There is a bit to traveling out on the ice...you have to pay attention and not travel too fast. Until you know how thick it is. You need to see the thickness as you go, and also get off and check the thickness by chopping a small hole to see just how thick it is. A lot can be known just by having experience and knowing what good ice looks like but it's also very important to talk to folks at the landing where everyone is loading up to go out. Asking "how's the ice where you were?" Many of you have not traveled on ice so this all might be strange, but if you use caution it's pretty safe. In my mind there are a few different types of folks out there...the really cautious folks and they fish where they know is safe, folks like me who travel cautiously but do venture out farther, and then there are the guys who drag boats along with them...never pass those guys out on the ice...they are REALLY on the EDGE and there is a reason they have boats along with them! Every year folks from out of town come up to fish and they show up at the landing unload and go....they don't talk to anyone just head out at break neck speed flying past the guys with the boats and........they break through the ice. They usually loose everything but themselves and have to walk back to shore.... people have perished. That's no lie. But mostly it's due to inexperience or the like. If you refer to the map again on good winters we will travel out to some of the farthest islands...some 20-25 miles out. The water can get very deep.... over 300'. Yesterday we left my home town of Ashland and traveled out about 3-4 miles within the bay. Most of the bay was open water last week so we proceeded with caution. Remember we had 3-4 nights of very cold weather. I had talked to some folks who had been out this far and got reports of good ice, so we were not to concerned, but still traveled with caution. We stopped at a very active pressure ridge. This is where the ice has cracked and is expanding and contracting with the freeze thaw cycles. By the end of the season there will be a almost mountain like ridge pushed up sometimes over 5' tall. Yesterday pressure ridge was growing as the ice was and was sounding constantly, cracking and crunching, it let loose once and shook free so hard it moved the ice we were on over at least 6", this happens with a very loud CRACK. Exciting. I caught a small Brown trout but overall it was a very slow day. I'll be going out farther next time. Give the cold time to make thicker ice. I'll be traveling out to the tip of long island which is the long thin island coming off the mainland in a northwest direction. Out there it's possible to catch Lake Trout, Brown Trout, Salmaon, Whitefish, and Lake Herring.....Last year almost every trip out I brought home 3-5 ,2-5# fish.
As close to an arctic adventure I'll every get.

my snow machine with custom rack for ice travel

My good friend and fishing partner Joe


Beautiful sunrise out on the ice, those are clouds above a dark treeline on long island over 10 miles away.

small pressure crack....caution

pressure crack had about 1 foot wide crack covered over by thin ice

Me looking out over the ice

My shelter for keeping warm

looking down the hole

inside my tent with heater going -20f with wind chill ouside

April has been weaving a few baskets. these are made form hand pounded Black Ash splints. I'll write more on that process some other time...I spent all my typing patience on the ice fishing writing. These are really nice baskets. Although April is very humble about her work, she weaves some of the finest baskets around.

Wood and Skin-More Snowshoes

2012-01-06T12:05:00.000-06:00

As winter sets in, I'm finding myself working on more and more winter related projects. I just finished up a toboggan for someone. The last few posts have touched on snowshoes. As I finish up a pair of custom made shoes, with rawhide (skin) I find myself thinking a lot about the world of snowshoes. This will be one of my first rants for the blog on the modern world of snowshoes and the effects of a loss of use (lifestyle) and modern marketing.

A few months ago I gave a talk at a winter camping symposium titled " Using Traditional Gear in the Modern World" I began with a description of the things I had brought for visual display, wooden toboggan, wooden snowshoes, wooden skis and pole, and a wooden bowl and spoon. As I went on, I touched on the point that in not long ago, less than 100 years, folks needed these items for day to day use. They needed them to "survive", or "live" as I see it. Most folks knew how to make the items or they know who did and knew what quality was. They had to. Sometimes their very lives depended on the items holding up to hard use, in remote areas and in extreme weather. I then asked someone in the audience to come up and as I put my snowshoe across an open span of a step and the floor, asked them to try to break the snowshoe. Well, things got interesting. My would be helper would not try to break my snowshoe. So I got up and tried....putting great force upon the shoe as it spanned the step with only it's tail and tip supported. It just bent.....didn't break. Because I make snowshoes I am also finding their limits....if they break I'll just make another pair. This is the trial and error the brought the snowshoe to it's state of refinement in the last century. I am reminded of a time when I helped a friend make a pair of snowshoes. He was from Califormia and a woodworker. He had never worked with White Ash. We milled up a few pieces of 3/4" square stock and were getting ready to steam. I got the idea to show him just how flexible ash is.....I proceeded to bend the 8' piece to an almost complete circle before it broke....and this was dry wood. His eyes bulged out of his head. He now knew why ash was used for snowshoes. Ok, there is a point to all this. If you know the materials you know what makes quality items that will last. Folks in the past knew good materials, because they had too. Today we use these snowshoes for recreation and that's fine and all, but we don't depend on them as our ancestors did. We have forgotten what makes a good pair of snowshoes, let alone why we need a pair of well made shoes. I have not even got into the weave of the shoe yet.....Now, present day...it's hard to find a wooden framed shoe. A few weeks ago I went down to the new local outdoor gear store. I asked if they would be interested in selling or displaying a pair or two of locally made snowshoes.....they would get back to me.....last week I was walking by and low and behold I spy a pair of "snowshoes" these are the aluminum framed plastic sheet filled riveted together shoes. Made 100% of industrial technology...metal....plastic. The market of snowshoes has come to this. I have to add that these shoes do serve a purpose. They were developed for mountaineering, climbing on pack. These types of shoes will not "float" you over the deep snows of winter. The traditional manufactured wooden shoes will to some degree, and the traditional native designed shoes will in most conditions. So today folks think that wooden shoes have no place, because nobody uses them?....its hard to find them for sale in shops, you have to go online for them. Most folks just don't care enough to find wooden shoes online do this....why? That's a whole other topic. One another point folks have come to think that the wooden shoes will break, they are not as good. Well I proved that wrong, good selection of wood makes strong and flexible snowshoes. Even in the manufactured wooden shoes today the wood selection is not that great. I can understand why. But, folks buy a wooden pair without knowing what good grain is and break there shoes. They then come to conclude that wooden shoes will break....no, bad wooden shoes will break....good ones will bend. Of coarse their are limits. I don't know if this all makes sense, this is the first try at trying to get to some of the things I think about while working on traditional snowshoes with nobody around to buy them.........or even use them. Let's learn what quality is again. Let's not let the marketing and manufacture process dictate to us what quality is. I'm tired of writing. But this was good practice...I'll do it again sometime.
Learn something old.

bending the snow shoe!

newest pair


learning to weave patterns in

Wooden Spoons and Snowshoes

2011-12-30T21:05:00.000-06:00

Here's the same spoons painted up a bit. I'm trying hard to get good pictures. I think these are better but still need work. The plan is to have my stuff for sale on my website and trying to get good photos and a system in place to take good photos whenever I have new stuff to put up on my site. Getting the website up and running to potentially make some income is and has been a long and tiring process, for a woodworker. But I'm almost there. A few more days and I'll have that part of my site up and running, then we'll see.

Here's some of the same spoons from the last post, which photo do you like?

I've also been working on some snowshoes, some new ones that need to be woven up and a few repair jobs that I've been putting off. The other day I got some help from my youngest daughter Rena.

It's never a dull moment around here....always lot's to explore, create, do. I just roll my eye's when my teenager says she's bored........

new camera and wooden spoons

2011-12-28T00:24:00.001-06:00

Some photos with my new camera......it works good. Well, looking at the dates on the photos I guess it's not that new. Time sure flies when you're brain's on wood.

Pole Lathe Bowl Turning

2011-12-16T23:27:00.002-06:00

Not much time to write these days with Christmas coming and a few order to take care of. One of which is a set of 4 bowls. I spend 2 days on the lathe turning 13 bowls. 3 sets of 4 for my customer to choose from and a nesting set. I use a foot powered lathe called a "spring pole" lathe. If you are unfamiliar, you can see one in use here with robin wood using a pole lathe. Robin is a full time pole lathe bowl turner and lives in England. When I first started turning bowls I watched this video about 100 times trying to get any little details from the video. Robin is a pretty big inspiration to me partly because he makes a living using old technology. I believe that old technique are still viable to some degree. Especially these days when we get to choose from cheap mass produced items. I am trying to promote that idea here in my community. Spending money locally is good thing. Mostly this concept is promoted with food. I say it should go into all kinds of things like wooden bowls, clothes, shoes, iron/metal work, basketry, etc. Why not?

One of the bowls I turned will be a nesting set of 2. The technique saves material and time. Instead of turning 1 bowl out of large wood and actually turning all the wood from the interior of the bowl into shavings I'll get 2 bowls. I use specially shaped tools which I forge myself to cut the groove in between the 2 bowls and break off the outer bowl. I then mount the inner bowl and turn that.
This technique especially on a pole lathe is rare and takes some practice. When I'm turning I can't see or fit my fingers into the slot so turning is by feel alone. This set is by far my best yet. I'm still learning, sometimes I cut through the outer bowl. The outer bowl pictured is about 8" diameter. I'm proud of being able to do this. I'll turn the inner bowl tomorrow.

Early Winter Projects

2011-12-09T10:43:00.000-06:00

This time of year is a scramble, trying to to get everything done before the many months of snow. snow that covers everything until the spring thaw. Last year I lost a nice bow saw to the snow. I spent all winter wondering where I had put it. Then came spring and "hey! there it is" Lat week we had a thaw that melted the 8 inches of snow we had. It was great time to do one last look around for those items that might get burried. I also got a good pile of wood up for my shop, which is a first. I usually go out through the winter and gather it as I need. So I feel really set up this year, at least for the first months.

Remember the Shovel Class from last Blog? The class went well. I had one student, and he did a great job. Hopefully this class will be attended by more folks next year. As we carved away on our shovels, we had many visitors to watch and ask questions. Here's a few photos....

After the class I spent some time gathering lot's of birch crooks, and bowl turning wood. All this will be made into bowls, spoons, and a variety of wooden things.

working in the evenings for our big Christmas Show.

Morning Sun shining on some of the things we had sitting on the table.

Cree Hunter's Snow Shovel

2011-11-10T14:02:00.000-06:00

This is intended to hopefully spark some interest in an up and coming class that I'm teaching at North House Folk School. The class is Making the Cree Hunter's shovel. This wonderful tool can be seen in use on the classic movie "The Cree Hunters of Mistassini" for free here. In this class we will focus on 2 of the most traditional bushcraft woodworking tools of the "iron age" here in North America, the Axe and the Crooked Knife. With these two tools one can make just about anything for use in the "bush". That's what I really love about them, they are simple and very effective. They are used to create such things as Canoe Paddles to Snowshoes, Wooden Spoons and Bowls and of coarse these are the primary tools used in the construction of the Birch Bark Canoe. We will be starting with birch logs and splitting them down with wooden wedges, then using axe to refine the shape and finally the crooked knife to finish the shovel. The class really is about learning to use these tools and get some instruction and practice with proper axemanship, as well as the proper design and use of the crooked knife. I also like to promote certain concepts that you don't find in mainstream woodworking today such as the use of the raw materials i.e. starting with the trees and the forest. Fun stuff, well at least I think so. The class will also be held during the winterer's gathering with the weekend full of speakers and arctic films. Check it out here. There's still room in the class, come on up.

Ash Logs and Crooked Knives

2011-10-31T20:44:00.000-05:00

Fall seems to be in full swing, and I've been up to lots of things the past few weeks. Sometimes at this time of year with all that is going on in preparing for our long winter, it's hard to focus on just one thing or a group of things. In my work, this time of year I'm making snowshoes, and toboggans, pounding ash logs for my wife April's basketry supply for the winter, among getting ready for a few Christmas shows, to sell our wares in, and preping and teaching classes into the winter.
I recently rebuildt my snow shoe jig and toboggan jig last week and bent a few snowshoe up, as well as a toboggan. I find it hard to always keep the blog in mind, but I promise to try harder and snowshoes and toboggans will be another post hopefully soon.
Last week I forged 9 crooked knife blades for a class I taught this past weekend at the winter camping symposium. We had a good time making the knives and in my opinion 8 more properly designed crooked knives in the world is a good thing. I've been studying, making and using these tools for over 15 years and have very specific design guidelines. One of which is that if the knife hurts you as you use it, it's not designed right. Historically all crooked knives were custom made, for the users own hand, body type, and woodworking style and intended use. There are many examples of native woodworkers making 30-50 pair of snowshoes a winter in the 1930-50's, all with an axe and crooked knife. These fellas had tools that felt good to use. Check out this link mocotaugan the book, most of the knives you see are similar but different in relation to the thumb rest.....this is one of the keys to a good crooked knife a properly place thumb rest. In the class I taught we made custom fit handles for everyone.

Hide(he-day) was visiting from Japan, here he is fitting his blade to the handle

A Knife glued up and drying

Donnie's knife turned out great

As for the Ash log part of this entry.....I've heard if a different technique that was used to pound ash splints for basketry. This techniques was used in the east, primarily by the MicMac. I was first turned on to this by a woodworker acquaintance from England Sean Hellman, he found this video somehow and posted it on a the bodgers ask and answer forum. I then found more info here. The technique is to take the log and split in into smaller pieces, then take to shaving horse and shave into smaller square or rectangular stock and then pound the billet over a anvil. It works but it's a lot of work to get the material to the pounding stage. The other method is to just peel the log and pound away....no prep and I think less wasteful. There's more info on the pounding process here at our website. I had to try the technique, but I'd rather just get right to the pounding and not have to split it all down. So now that I know I'll be sticking to the whole log method, this Ash log will be made into chairs. (another blog post)

Ash tree

first wedge

Ash split so well

using a froe to "waste off a bit"

using a draw knife to shave down the stave or billet

pounding over a chunk of railroad track

it works...rings delaminating

black ash "splint"

shrink boxes

2011-10-13T10:02:00.000-05:00

Fall time finds me doing all sorts of things. We've been putting up apples and tomatoes, hunting and putting up waterfowl, processing our wild rice harvest and general getting ready for the long winters here in northern Wisconsin. I've been generally inspired and excited about the up and coming months....Things to create new things to try. I'm always looking for new and exciting ways of working with wood, and if you've seen my wife
April and my website Woodspirit you will notice I have a fair amount of woodworking diversity. In the up and coming months I will be making some chairs out of riven Ash logs and also splitting and drying staves for a few wooden buckets. The buckets are mostly just something that I'm curious about, but the chairs I believe have a real place in the local market. In the past few weeks my mind has been focused on the local economic market/scene. I'm really trying to promote the idea that we have plenty to offer each other in terms of local goods and food. That it is important to spend a little more (not much) for a local hand made basket for farmer's market, or a pair of snowshoes for your winter travels, or buy a box of locally grown winter squash for your food, or even have your local blacksmith make you a hoe for you garden. I could go even further...locally sewn clothing, hand made boots. the list goes on. We must create a demand for these locally produced items again....and it's really down the the folks who are buying the "stuff" If we wait for the giant corporate retail stores to offer these things well.....good luck with that.
Enough of that.

These boxes are a old and fairly obscure thing....they most likely predate the coopered wooden bucket or barrel. I have not found much history on these items. But I do know that they made some rather large ones out of very large diameter trees. They could be made water tight and I've heard they were used to brew beer or store grain in in remote north eastern countries in more recent times.

Take a green/freash log or limb and bore a hole in it....carve it to a even thickness, carve a groove (rabbit) in the base, fit a dry piece of wood for the bottom, this is the cool part, let it dry. They green fresh wood shrinks on the dry base.....you have a container with a bottom that cannot come out and could be water tight.....


green log shaped a bit with the axe

smooth outside with drawknife or knife

bore a hole through

chisel out most of the wood

carve the inside to uniform thickness

final thickness

ready for rabbit and base

using a marking gauge to set up the rabbit

tracing the shape on the base stock

the rabbit is a v-notch so bottom shaped to fit

base inserted

boxes drying

finished boxes painted and carved with fitted lids

finished boxes

Ian's Birch Bark Canoe

2011-09-19T19:56:00.000-05:00

This past weekend I went up to NorthHouse Folk School in Grand Marias, Minnesota. They were having their Unplugged concert event and asked instructors to demonstrate. So that's what I did, I turned bowls on my Spring pole lathe on Saturday. Lot's of folks had never seen one in use, or were unfamiliar to the history of turning bowls. Part part of my passion is turning folks on to older ways of doing things, ways that still have merit in today's fast paced, Industrial-techno-profit driven world. Ways that give meaning to the items we use, a story, a connection to people and place. So it was a fun day and I turned a few bowls too.

Remember Ian? my friend and helper from on the birch bark canoe finished this past summer? Well he lives up the road from the school and he just finished his first full size canoe. He did a great job. Ian lives with his girlfriend Rachel in a 16ft Yurt he build himself. Pretty cool. I wish I was thinking, I would have taking photos of his yurt too. Here's a few photo's of his canoe.

The Umiak

2011-09-14T20:58:00.000-05:00

It's been awhile since I've posted anything. Fall time is such a busy time of the year for my family and I. In late August we went to a week long skills gathering that we help organize. www.traditionalways.org It was a great year, with over 200 hundred folks from all walks of life learning/sharing traditional skills. Shortly after that began the wild rice season here in Wisconsin. Every year folks go out on lakes and rivers to gather the wild growing grain. It's a lot of fun and a bit of work too. I intend do a posting on that when i get the pictures we took while ricing from my friend. More on that later.

Over the years I've worked on a few wooden boats, and built bark canoes and one skin boat. In my research I've always found the Umiak a interesting boat which was originally built with found drift wood, lashed together with rawhide and then covered with split walrus hide and then coated with fat by northern natives in North America and Siberia. Nowadays folks all over are making these boats with nylon lashing and a nylon skin coated with some synthetic goo. Due to the range of the original boats, the cold climate they were developed in the skin covering worked. The covering lasted about 2 years and needed to be replaced. Today these boats are made in all climates and we don't have walrus. In addition the skin covering would most likely become water logged rot quickly. Another skin boat of interest is a Irish boat called a currach which used tarred skin and a similar frame work. I'm sure there are or have been more around the world.

I decided on a 20 foot boat with steam bent Ash frames or ribs. I used lumber store wood for the rest. This is a down and dirty work boat, with a minimal amount of work, just were it was needed. We wanted something that we could use under oar, sail or a small outboard motor and be big enough for all of us and our gear. When done it will weight in at about 200 lbs so we will be able to pull it up on the beach or shore. I'll be ordering the nylon for the skin within the month and most likely get it in the water the spring. I still have a bit more work to do such as putting in the seats floor boards and mast step before I can skin it.
Here's a link for more photos of some Umiaks being built Skin Boat School

Birch Bark Canoe Building Cont.

2011-08-10T23:48:00.000-05:00

Almost done, I wish I did a better job at posting stuff, but it's hard to find the time for all of it. Here's the last stages of construction. put sheathing in and ribs back in, hammered ribs in to final position and attached gunwale cap. finished up some lashings...looks real nice...can't wait to pitch it and get it in the water. I'm always stunned by the brilliant methods of how the birch bark canoe goes together.Another birch bark canoe is born.....

ribs laid out and waiting for sheathing to go in

hammering in ribs a bit- sheathing in place

After boiling water is poured onto hull ribs are hammered in a bit more

ready for pitch

Me with my helper

Birch Bark Canoe Building Cont.

2011-08-07T23:40:00.000-05:00

After another week of work, not all spent on the canoe, we got much work done. Set gunwales to the height I wanted, and lashed them in place with the split root. Decided on the Bow profile I liked and made the stems and lashed in place. My window for building is closing fast so went down to the Local cedar mill and bought some very nice straight grain clear cedar and milled into ribs, then steam bent and put in place. The ribs will sit for a few days and as we make the sheathing out of split cedar. then it all will come together maybe Wednesday.

lashing complete and working on stems

bow profile

ribs bent into place and drying

more to come later this week...

Birch Bark Canoe Building

2011-07-25T19:46:00.000-05:00

I spent some time last week resting and trying to stay cool. Including the heat index it was well over 100 f. That's pretty darn warm for working outside for me. Later in the week things started to cool off, so I started getting the building bed ready. On Thursday Ian came by for a few days to help, he's going to build his first full size canoe later this summer and wanted to help and learn some things. I could use the help so it worked out great. We rolled out the bark and staked it up. The bark was not wide enough for the full canoe, so we added panels to the sides and attached them with split root. We added the gunwales yesterday and got them all set to lash today. Things are moving right along. I'm helping a few folks this weekend to build bowl lathes and forge bowl turning hooks and do a little turning so the canoe will have to sit until next week. Will post more then.


birch bark canoe builders bible

stakes and ready...dry run

rolled out bark with form atop

staking out the bark

digging jack pine root

bundling root and ready to coil up

Ian with about a hours work

splitting root

we have three buckets of peeled and split root

Birch Bark Canoe Construction

2011-07-18T10:37:00.000-05:00

Today my wife April and I ventured out into the very hot and humid forests to gather canoe bark. It was very hot and sweaty but once the tree was scored, the trees just about peeled itself. This is what happens sometimes in the very hot weather. It makes getting bark fun but very hot work. We had found these trees while harvesting "winter bark" mentioned in an earlier post. These trees had some very nice bark, one was almost too thick, at almost a 1/4 inch, at least for my liking. We used a ladder to get as much of the bark as we could. When harvesting this much bark from a single tree we are killing them. But, as we looked around at the other birch in this area, many were already dead, and after that, the bark is pretty much useless for most things. I like the idea that we are getting the bark before the tree dies and turning it into a canoe that can last much longer than the life of any birch tree....rebirth.
Over the next few weeks I intend to update this every few days with pictures and a small amount of description while I build a birch bark canoe. I hope folks will check back during the process.

Heading into the forest


testing a small piece of bark


first tree peeled


nice piece of bark

Birch Bark Boxes

2011-07-06T10:02:00.000-05:00

This past weekend I treated myself to taking a class offered at North House Folk School and it was well worth it. I have been making boxes for a few years, but self taught from a few antiques and a rare out of print Norwegian book a friend had showed me once. In taking this class I was looking for a more direct link to my Swedish ancestry and the birch bark traditions there. The class was taught by Ramon Persson a folk art instructor and craftsman from Sweden. Ramon was is in Minnesota for a few weeks teaching classes in Grand Marias and Scandia. In this class we made Birch bark Boxes or Naverburkar. I learned a lot of great tricks from Ramon, something you get when learning from someone who has a lot of experience. The class was fairly laid back and we had time to make a couple boxes. The first box was practice then we moved on to a bigger box. We decorated these with stamped designs and paint. This is what I love the most with Ramon's approach. The paint is hand mixed from natural pigments and pure linseed oil and once on the bark, the grain and beauty really comes out. I had so much fun that I didn't take a single photo while in class, sorry. But here are some from the class and one I made yesterday. I will be making lot's more of these and I am very excited to have learned new techniques. I am inspired.

old truck

2011-06-30T22:54:00.000-05:00

Well after the past few weeks I'm rethinking my approach with this truck. Last week I headed up to North House Folk School http://www.northhouse.org/programs/events/woodenboatshow.htm to do some demos. On my way up, I burned out a front wheel bearing. I had to get the truck towed and fixed at a shop, not my usual approach , but I had to be at the School, not on the side of the road fixing a wheel bearing. All said and done $375....Today went to town and noticed gear oil leaking out of seal in rear transaxle....so...do I sell this truck or put $ into it? I remember when 1990's vehicles were fairly new for a used car, well time goes by and I think I just realized that the 1990's are 20+ years ago! Yikes.

This weekend I'm heading up to Grand Marias again to take a class with a Swedish Folk Art's instructor Ramon Persson. He's teaching a class on Naver or Birch Bark Boxes. I'm really excited and I'll post pictures and a little something about the class when I get back.

Second Growth Birch Bark

2011-06-08T10:15:00.000-05:00

Once in awhile I find trees that have been peeled years earlier that have grown new outer bark. Here are a few photos of one such tree, peeled about 4-7 years ago. Lot's of people think that peeling birch trees will kill them, here is proof that it is not always the case. There are a lot of factors in why a tree might die. I've peeled trees that were half dead, or with a heavy infestation of birch borer and after peeling them they might die, but were most likely going to die either way, why not use the bark. Then folks come along and see the dead peeled birch tree....and come to the conclusion that the person who peeled the tree killed the tree.....not always the case.

new bark is a dark color and very thin

I cut a small piece away....new healthy inner bark, with new thin outer bark

Spoon Gathering

2011-06-08T09:55:00.000-05:00

The past few years I've been going to the Spoon Gathering. It's hosted by a Folk School in Milan Mn. What a great event! Lot's of spoon carvers from all over the mid west show up to hang out and visit all while carving wooden spoons. There are a few demo's and lot's of spoons on display. Here are some of my favorites but would add that there were a lot more on display. All the spoons were very well done, but these carvers struck my fancy.

Tom Dengler

My spoons and bowls

Rod Termaat

Yuri Moldenhauer

Fred Livesay

Vance Weidle

Harley Refsal

Car Troubles

2011-06-08T09:22:00.000-05:00

Well, sometimes things don't go as expected. A few weeks ago my family and I were out collecting birch bark and happened upon a large fresh windfall birch tree. The wood was sound and would make a lot of bowls. The tree was too big for the minivan and I didn't have my chainsaw. So the next morning I woke up early and got in my truck, turned the key, turned over the motor...didn't fire. What the( insert your favorite profane word here)? Living where I do it has been a long learning curve to fix what I can on my vehicles. I have 2 other trucks, one runs, the other is for parts, all Ford diesels. I really like the idea of owning my trucks and I always buy used affairs, which I can afford. But the trouble is they need to be fixed from time to time. This is where the parts truck comes in. I love junk yards and the idea of them, but diesels are just too hard to find in the yards. So I have the parts truck... it takes up space in the yard, and looks kinda "dumpy" but the parts truck has saved me lot's of money. Why go and buy new parts? The part I needed to strip this time was the injection pump. This is one of the few main parts of the diesel engine. All said and done, it took me about 5 hours and was back on the road. I got the wood and even turned a bowl when I got home. It's a different pace with used old trucks and there are always surprises, but if your willing to learn and get your hands dirty, you save money. I saved about $800 this time. Slow down and take a trip to the junk yard.....

the parts truck


fuel injection pump:the thing with the spidery lines

large birch windfall

lots of bowl wood

Birch Bark Baskets

2011-05-13T22:47:00.000-05:00

Been really busy as of late. It's hard to find the time to sit a a computer and write, but I really need to put something up on this blog. Here is something. Birch Bark baskets, these are a really fun project for me. Gathering the materials in the spring before the bugs come out is really nice compared to early summer when I'm usually collecting bark and root. This time of the year bark comes off the tree a little harder than normal but with patience it's really worth the effort. This bark is called winter bark. It has a thin layer of the inner bark attached, which turns dark. Then designs can be scraped onto the surface by either taking away everything but the design(my favorite) or just scraping the design into the bark. There are also some summer bark baskets in the photo, these are made from bark form last year. These baskets are of the folded design. The bark is laid flat and the pattern is cut out, then splash some hot water on and fold it up. After that sew it with split conifer roots. The rims are bend "green" meaning fresh cut birch wood shaped and bent over the knew. The rims are stiched on with black ash splint gathered from my wife April's pile of leftovers from her weaving. Fun stuff. Very ancient basket form.

Splitting Shingles

2011-04-09T22:22:00.000-05:00

Well, there is a lot to do around here now that the snow is just about melted away and we have pulled the taps on the Maple trees. Cleaning up the sugar bush and what was left on the ground for the snow to cover up. Slab wood from my fall board sawing/milling operation, that will get cut up and burned for heat. I found that hand saw I was looking for.....it's a little rusty but will still work just fine. I found those deer legs I was going to skin and put on the bottom of my Siberian skis I made this past winter. I might let those go to the critters and wait til next year. The list goes on.

Now that we have our evaporator we must build a "sugar shack" to house it in, along with the 150 and growing, buckets, taps and misc articles for tapping trees. I've drawn up a rough sketch and we will be building a 10x20 building. This will be timber framed and build with all local materials, with the exception of some tar paper and some iron nails and such. The building will be shingled with hand split Basswood shingles. I know what your thinking...."Basswood?" well, it's not known for it's rot resistance, but i don't have the money or the desire for cedar shingles, plus I really like the idea of using what we have around here. Cedar does grow around here, but with the high deer populations with in the last 10 years they have eaten all the young trees. There is pretty much no regeneration. So local Cedar is out of the question, for me. Besides, I've run an experiment. About 5 years ago I split out some planks from some Basswood and left them close to the ground. This past winter I cut them up and to my suprise, the wood is still good. I think that these shingles will last at least 20 years, and when they go I'll split some more. It's easy enough. Plus, not all the shingles will fail at the same time, so I can split and replace as the time goes on.

Basswood is a very straight grained wood and very easy to split, so it's a good material for shingles. We have a lot of Basswood, so cutting a few down and using the lower sections for shingles and the upper pieces for posts will work out good. We will be using most of the tree in this way.

So pictured below....the process....

Cut down a nice big Basswood, with straight, clear grain.

Tools of the trade....the froe, both of these I forged.

Using wooden wedges to help the froe along on the bigger pieces. Basswood is not as "snappy" as Cedar.

Using the froe to size up the blanks for Joe. These blanks are about two shingles thick.

Close up of the blank popping off

Joe splitting down the blank into two or three shingles. We made a "brake" out of the stump - you can put the shingle in the brake thick side toward you and control the split by putting pressure on the shingle while working the split with the froe. When control splitting, always pull on the thicker side if the split goes to one side or the other to force the split back into the center.

We got a good start-about a 100 square feet coverage in about seven to eight hours.

I'll be posting more as the project moves along.....

Sugar Bush

2011-04-04T15:22:00.000-05:00

Tapping Maple trees and making syrup is part of my families Spring activities. I would like to add that we share in this "operation" with some close friends Joe and Martine. We started out about 6 years ago with about 50 taps, now we are up to about 250, with about 150 on the trees as i write. When we began we used an old stainless steel flat pan set up on a few cinder blocks, with the fire underneath to boil the sap down to the sweet stuff. We have just set up our newest piece of equipment, a leader 2x6 drop flue evaporator. These things are one hell of a design. They burn a lot less wood and most of the heat from the burning wood goes into the boiling. After 5 years of burning the amount of about half the wood we need to heat our house to make syrup, this evaporator is a going to make life a lot easier. In turn we can increase the amount of taps we have and burn the same amount of wood that we have used in the past. This is really exciting for us. Our goal is to produce enough syrup and sugar to become completely independent of cane sugar and the like. Of coarse we still love and will use the local honey produced in the area by some of our friends.


Bucket ready and waiting for trees to flow

evaporator ready to go

My daughter Ayva keeping an eye on things

Ayva and Martine standing in steam

Joe and myself

My wife April and Ayva tending to the wood

My daughter Rena learning to split

Me collecting sap

It's a lot of work but worth the effort