Shavehorses - A troop or a stable?

Some final photos from the chair making sessions at Derrick's workshop. a couple of weeks ago Shave horses are close to Sean Hellman's heart, you can find some of his lovely work and his horses here on his blog. So I thought I'd write about the sheer number of horses I noticed during the week and something about this photo makes me want to cry Yeehah, closely followed by Rawhide! I guess it's just me.....and the blues brothers. But what is the collective noun for a group of shave horses? The obvious ones are herd, team, troop and perhaps stable, but maybe there are some out there that are more appropriate for shave horses? Can we agree a term?


In the workshop a shower of rain brought all the horses inside and I suddenly realised just how many there were. I make it 7 1/2, the 1/2 being not completed yet. A couple are hard to see buried under other parts of chairs.




Quite a few of them seemed to be genetically related, of similar length and with four legs which made sense when Veronica told me they had run a session on making shave horses some time ago. As usual some stood out. This one belongs to Rosie and is noteable for the flower painted flowers decorating it.


A lone dumb head horse stood out amongst the others, at least it did once I had unearthed it. A dumb head horse is one where a single central lever is used with a block on top to clamp the workpiece more popular on the continent than the British Isles. It also has a very odd arrangement at the bottom of the lever with a single footrest. Derrick told me that a friend of his acquired it at an auction. It has a face painted on the block of the head and a date (1931) carved into the upright supporting the steeply slanted worksurface (see previous post for photo of this) . One thought is that it might have been made by an apprentice, hence the carving of the date. If so it was unlikely to have been intended for shaving billets - but what? Maybe a broom makers horse? Or for shaving lathes? Any other ideas?


Last but certainly not least, the rolls-royce of shave horses complete with upholstery and backrest, befitting a windsor chairmaker, is Veronica's horse!

Fernhurst Furnace Open - Next Weekend

Next Weekend - 12th and 13th of September - is the Fernhurst Furnace Open Weekend - details here. Just outside Fernhurst (but in Lynchmere parish) the remains of the 17th Century furnace with its cannon casting pit and its pond are possibly the most intact remnant of the Wealden Iron Industry, a distributed network of foundries and forges which prior to the industrial revolution was the heart of iron making in England. I wrote about last years open weekend here - it was my second post.



The aim of the weekend is to raise awareness of the furnace, its place in Wealden Iron Industry and its impact upon the environment and landscape whiched helped shape much of which we see and enjoy today. The remaining structures desparately need proper conservation and ideally facilities for education and interpretation, Admission is free and there are plenty of related demonstrations to see including the sealed knot and their cannon.


The blacksmiths will be there going hammers and tongs, as will the charcoal burner and many other rural crafts that would have supported the furnace in operation. For examlpe, it would have required around 2500 acres of coppice to provide enough charcoal to keep the furnace in operation.

Click on the flyer to enlarge or to download a jpg copy

A couple of weeks ago we spent some time with Volunteers from the South Downs board, the Lynchmere Society and the Fernhurst Furnace Preservation Society to remove some of the undergrowth from the site and prepare access to the areas surrounding the furnace for the open weekend .


You can still see the original watercourse which led from the wheel-pit (this furnace actually had two wheel pits) around the cannon casting pit. You can just see the circular remains of the cannon casting put below the watercourse.



It's great to be able to experience the furnace during the peace and quiet of late summer as we work to conserve it and also during the noise and hubbub of the weekend when it comes alive giving us just a glimpse of how it would have been during it's century and a half of operation.

Five tops, wooden face & the next bodgers ball

I am just about to glue up the post and rung stool frame I made last week and it seems such a long time ago already. On the way home last Friday as I wormed my way around the back roads the sunset was amazing and I had to stop to take some photos.


Spinning top frenzy developed during the chairmaking and by the end of the week there were five wooden spinning tops fighting it out on a giant chessboard as a battleground.


I learn't a lot about steam bending wood. The first thing was where I went wrong with my own first attempt at a steam box, so I can fix that now. I also helped to bend some of the pieces which was great experience. Here a curved yew stretcher for a windsor chair has just been placed onto the former and clamped up.

and here a pair of back legs for a post and rung chair are clamped up.

The fantastic workshop of our host Derrick reflected the organised mayhem taking place during the week as we all worked on projects at different stages of development, surrounded by the rich detritus left by decades of chairmaking.


Amongst the tools, equipment and benches I noticed a wooden face. It's on an old dumb head shaving horse. There were so many horses in the shed that I'll leave the details for a separate post.



Derrick's workshop is at Stratfield Saye, just down the road from the field where we will be holding the next bodgers ball in May 2010 and another aim of the week was to start the planning. The location is a quiet village set in very beautiful farming countryside just north of Hook and south of the Wellington country park. Sounds a lot better than between Reading and Basingstoke? Somehow I seem to have been talked into to making my first chair over the winter and entering it into the competition at the event, so no pressure there then. I can also see that there might be a few spinning tops as well as chairs there.

Bowl Blanks - with a Lancelot

Making a bowl blank (the roughly bowl shaped billet of wood) ready for turning on a lathe is not as simple as it is for spindles like chair legs. A lot of wood needs to be removed across the grain and it can't be split or shaved. It's certainly possible to use an axe, though the shape of the blank makes it more difficult, but it quickly improves your axework and appreciation of a sharp axe. Do remember to count your fingers when you finish!



Unless you are a purist, or particularly fond of axe work then using a power tool to prepare the blank will appeal. I'm not a purist, I just happen to like using a foot powered lathe for turning.

But which power tool to use? There is such a selection of boy's toys to choose from. The two most widely used are probably the bandsaw and the chainsaw. If you have a good quality bandsaw then it's got to be sensible to use it. I don't have one so an excuse to buy one seems a perfect opportunity to gain another toy. But, and it's a big one, I don't have space in the shed for a big bandsaw of the size and power I'd need for a range of jobs including big bowl blanks. I do have a cupboard full of chainsaws, and a good understanding of how to use them safely, as I teach chainsaw courses on occasion and do rudimentary carving with them, which is more than I do for bandsaws.



Since the chainsaw is inevitably used to fell and cross cut the logs in the first place, extending it's use to shaping the blank doesn't seem too much of an unnecessary use of power tools. The two saws I have most suited to this are the Stihl 240 and a McCullough 335. The Stihl is a professional saw that I use very heavily for a wide range of tasks whereas the McCullough is more of an amateur saw, but with it's small Oregan bar (I fitted this) and narrow 91vg picco chain it's actually a very good carving saw for the price if a little plastic.

Here's how I use the chainsaw to fashion a bowl blank (not that I'm an expert). I start by using a froe to cleeve the log in half (you could use the chainsaw for this as well). Then the first cut is down the cleft surface to flatten it and to remove the pith of the log. The second cut is to flatten the base and needs to be parallel to the first cut, I do this by eye but you do need some experience of chain saw use to be able to cut accurately. I use a clamp on a stable workbench for these cuts. It helps ensure accuracy as well as making the job quicker and safer. The need to make accurate felling cuts for felling trees will teach you this so I can't recommend taking NPTC chainsaw qualifications highly enough if you plan to be a safe and effective chainsaw user.



To finish the first stage of the bowl blank I knock the corners off the blank with the saw. More care is needed at this stage since it's very tempting to use the tip of the bar to make the cut's. I do this but you need a good understanding of how kick -back occurs in chain saws.

I'm tempted to cover this here but at the risk of boring you to tears let's just say that it's the combination of Newton's third law - every action has an equal and opposite reaction - with the effects of levers.

So if the chain driven at full power by the motor is suddenly stalled by the wood something has to move, if it isn't the chain then it's either the wood or the saw or a combination of both creating a dangerous situation. The length of the bar is a lever which further increases the force of the kick-back. So for this purpose I use a small, low power, light weight saw with a short bar and plenty of anti-kick back features to help prevent the chain from jamming in the kerf.



Once the corners are knocked off it's possible to continue using the saw as a carving tool to complete the blank. I have done this, but recently I've switched to another tool with similar characteristics but a lot of advantages over the petrol chainsaw. It's an angle grinder attachment called a Lancelot. A small chainsaw chain is fitted in a circle around a pair of aluminium discs and then fastened as standard to the angle grinder. It takes a bit of getting used to but once you do it's very quick and easy to finish the bowl blank using the Lancelot. It's much lighter than the chainsaw and the lack of a long bar reduces the leverage effect of kick-back. The grinder safety guard is still used and this helps to prevent placing the chain in positions where it might jam in the wood. If it does jam then the chain tends to slip between the discs like a simple slip clutch which removes any kickback.



It only takes a couple of minutes to complete the bowl blank to the level needed to put on the lathe. It's quite possible to use the tool to make the bowl. I made a couple while getting used to the tool, though it's nowhere near as enjoyable as using the lathe due to the excessive noise, dust and vibration so I don't recommend it. A low power, low noise grinder or a cordless grinder might make it more socially acceptable but none of these tools are going to be subtle.




Unfortunately for the moment I seem to have talked myself out of an expensive bandsaw. but in consolation I've gained another chainsaw related toy. There is quite a good write up of the King Arthur's tool range of chain attachments for angle grinders on the classic hand tools website, though I think I bought mine from a national network of stores like machine mart. I imagine that the performance is very similar to the arbortech which is a form of circular saw as an angle grinder attachment. I have one of these now and plan to compare them before too long, but if you are familiar with chain saws and chains then the Lancelot seems a very good choice to me.

Anniversary Post

It's a year since my first post. With such a diverse range of woody, slightly woody and not-very- woody-at-all activities it can be hard to keep track of progress. At times it can seem that I'm going backwards but writing the posts has helped me to focus more on what I am achieving, and if it helps inform, educate or even entertain as well then I am delighted. By the way, spot the deliberate mistake in the photo?



I spent the bank holiday weekend working, demonstrating on my pitch at the Weald & Downland Museum. With no special events on the museum was calm and it gave me the opportunity to talk to many visitors. It was a little odd to be the star turn, as aside from myself, only the miller in the watermill and the turdor kitchens were demonstrating over the weekend. Even the forge was silent.



The green man always reminds me that the seasons move on and though the weather ended warm and sunny on Monday Autumn was in the air.



OK so I took the first photo on a timer. I dashed to the lathe only to discover I'd forgotten to wind the cord around the workpiece. This one is a little bit better, shame about the berk on the lathe. Several people wanted to buy the display tables so I'm going to have to fix the legs properly, the shavings have started to sell well (I expect the firelighting ones to sell well from now on) and somebody even talked me into selling my demo spinning top - so I have plenty of work to do this week.

Landrover - I can't bear the Suspens(ion)

The MOT test looms. Georgina, my short wheel base (swb) 1965 landrover with the canvas tilt (rag) top has developed a saggy bottom over the last couple of years. It's only 9 years since I last changed the springs but I think some rather large loads of logs have done for them. One of the culprits is revealed. Removing the spring bolts is often a real nightmare and can involve lots of hammering, sawing and burning to extract them. This one came out too easily with half the bush still on it. The bolt and hanger will find a new life as part of a pole lathe, whilst the old springs are delivered to friendly blacksmiths for conversion to useful green woodworking tools. For her 44th birthday I've decicded to uprate her suspension. I'm fitting parabolic shaped springs rather than the original elliptical which should give better suspension. I'm also fitting gas shock absorbers to cope with the uprated suspension. Fitting the new bushes is a bit of a struggle. I use a spanner and a G-clamp to apply pressure to the bushes until I can fit the split pin. Saggy bottom removed (and then a bit) and a good wash and brush up (and anti-rust and paint) at the same time. No other nasties found at the rear but the front will likely proove a more complicated story.

Birch Perch

Finding time to start making furniture, even simple pieces, has eluded me. So despite the list of urgent jobs I put things aside last week to work on my first stool. I thought I'd pick something simple enough to be able to assemble in a few days though I modified the basic post and rung recipe enough to cause me some problems. The first problem being my decision to use birch rather than ash. The wood for the legs is spalted (the first signs of decay in the wood introduces colour along the grain) and it makes the wood softer in places.


I also had not thought through the need to have dry rungs to slot into the slightly green posts(legs) otherwise the joints will slacken as the wood contracts. Normally this entails a gap of several days between making the rungs and being able to turn down the tenons for assembly. Luckily a previous false start left me with enough dry roughed out blanks to make the stool, though harder work to finish off the dried wood. Rather than borrow a drill bit I tried to resurrent one of my many augur bits for a brace. In hindsight a mistake since the bit is still a little damaged and tends to tear on the softwood. I made a lot of test joints like the one here to practice, as I only had four spalted legs so no mistakes allowed on the real ones.


The rungs around the top or seat of the stool need to be shaved to shape as the seat material is woven around them. They are normally oval to help retain strength laterally. The birch was quite knotty and with twisty grain so no matter how much I sharpened the drawknife I still could not finish the wood neatly. So I had my first, and much needed. lesson in cabinet scraping, Many thanks to David and Derrick for patiently instructing me in the arcane art of sharpening and using my scraper.


Only a couple of minutes with the scraper resurrected the surface of this rung from being nasty to a finish thats quite acceptable.


The first pair of posts and rungs assembled. It's taller than a foot stool, I've made it coffee table height, with the aim of using it as a stool for playing my guitar. No disasters so far. Only another 8 perfect holes to drill with a manky bit and soft spalted wood. Asking for it really!


The stool went together quite well. It's assembled but not yet glued. The last two legs split out slightly at the top rungs while being drilled, mainly due to the soft wood, but the spalting looks good and it's square. I don't have enough wood to make another two legs, which might do the same again so I'll have to glue it up later this week with the splits. I've learn't a massive amount (about how not to do it as well as how to do it) in just a few days, many thanks to David, Derrick & Veronica and the others for their endless encouragement.

Battling Tops

I've dropped in this week on a 'Bodgery' on the Hampshire/Berkshire borders working on furniture projects (but more of that later).



The current issue of the Bodgers Gazette (as featured on Have I Got News For You) has an excellent article by Robin Fawcett ( aka Treewright ) on how to make Spinning Tops. Chair (& stool ) making activities were diverted for a while to discover whether Robin's instructions are foolproof.


Speaking for myself, bodgers aren't too good at following instructions. I don't think I'm atypical though. Despite initial misgivings in the design the top worked and before long it was battling tops on the kitchen floor.

Could this be the new Wii? Comes with real wood? Thanks to Treewright for stimulating this entertaining diversion and I'm sure it won't end here!

Lynchmere - Working chestnut coppice

South of Haslemere the Sweet Chestnut coppice is still being worked in rotations of upto 20 years providing material for traditional fencing, particularly the chestnut palings and post and rail fences which are a feature locally. It's a case of use it or lose.

I live only a few hundred yards from the edge of chestnut coppice worked by a friend of mine, Colin Hampton, so I might be a little biased on this subject. But knowing the local woodsmen well allows me to appreciate the advantages of using this local and sustainable form of fencing.




When I went to collect some more fence posts, struts and strainers Colin was peeling and pointing palings and posts, whilst Wayne was splitting them out at a break inside their tin roofed coppice workshop. The completed pales are laid in the iron grip allowing them to be tightly bundled.



I took this photo earlier in the year when Colin was working up a big order for palings. The neat stacks speak for themselves. It's not just the end product but every step of the process, the felling, the working up and the selection of material that needs to be right to end up with a job well done.



The peeler is powered from a stationary engine and blows the peelings straight out onto the heap. It's a lot quicker than the drawknife and axe that I use for peeling and pointing, but I don't have thousands of palings and posts to produce.




These finished posts were waiting for me to collect and by next week will be part of a field fence less than a mile away. Being peeled sweet chestnut the natural tanins will make these posts last, possibly for decades. There is every chance that they will outlast their softwood cousin's without the planting, harvesting, transport, extensive processing and worst of all kiln drying and pressure treating with toxic chemicals and...they're cheaper! What more could you want ? Unfortunately Colin doesn't do computers so I can't link to his web-site, but if you are llocal and want some chestnut fencing, paling or lathes let me know and I can put you in touch with him.

Drawknives - which way up ?

The drawknife is one of my favourite tools. It might even be my favourite tool but that's a hard choice to make.

Recent discussions with visitors at shows and on the bodgers forum made me realise that the drawknife and its usage tends to get overlooked. A great shame as it's a very versatile and capable tool which can do much more than just prepare blanks for the polelathe.

I often get asked three questions at shows. Is that a spokeshave? Isn't it dangerous using it towards yourself? and which way up should you use it?


When I first joined the APT I was given well intentioned advice that I was using the knife the wrong way around and that I should use it with the bevel downwards (as in the first photo). It seems that most people within the APT use the knife bevel downards.

So I duly learnt to use it bevel downwards, but have found recently that I've tended back towards using it bevel edge upwards with the flat back of the blade against the wood.

With the bevel downwards it's easy to shift quite large shavings. With the bevel edge upwards the back of the knife tends to lie flat on the wood allowing more delicate shaving. When using it this way, like a mortice chisel, its important that the back of the blade is flat with no bevel (small pitting within the flat surface won't affect it in use).


When I discussed this recently with Anthony Cooper, a broom maker and green woodworker in Plaistow for many decandes, I found that he invariably used the knife bevel upwards. It seems that in this part of Sussex, at least, the drawknife was traditionally used bevel upwards.

The handles on my knife are slightly angled so that it is comfortable with the bevel up or downwards. Some drawknives are designed to be used one way in which case the handles maybe set intentionally at an angle to the blade to reflect this. The large knife in the photo has a different set to the handles and is only comfortable using bevel upwards.

Drawknives come in all shapes and sizes, from tiny to giant, curved and straight, reflecting their intended usage and also the method of manufacture.

The two knives here are curved in both directions. The upper knife is a heavy duty blacksmith made knife and designed for shaving the bark from large coppice poles on a break. We used it recently on the fence line strainers.

The smaller knife is a Marples knife where the carbon steel blade is welded to the back of the knife. These knives are of mass produced but of good quality. It's not clear why the knife is slightly curved in shape. Does anyone know?

When choosing a second hand drawknife you are looking for one that's not been mistreated or led too hard a life. There is no a lot of meat left on the blade of this knife. If the carbon steel was welded onto the back of the blade then it may have been used up already, or if the blade has been ground badly it may have lost its temper. But somebody used it like this so there is a chance it may still be useful. I don't know yet, it's in the queue.







When looking for a good drawknife I was lucky enough to find my Gilpin at a car boot sale on a general tool stand. I got it for a bargain (£10) considering that it had the original boxwood handles, the bevel was in good condition and showed little signs of wear, more a treasured tool than a knackered one.

The odd chip on the edge of the bevel is not a problem in usage as there is 10 inches of blade and rarely more than 2 inches gets used, so it's quite easy to use a different section of the blade to achieve a better finish.


There is a lot more to say about drawknives and their uses, but I will leave that for another day.