quality goes a long way

I have no doubt dear blog readers that you have a good appreciation of quality, probably far more so that the average person in the street for whom quantity seems more important. Does quality have to cost though? Are we just the fortunate few to enjoy quality? A few weeks ago I had to say goodbye to this pair of shoes. 

They were made for me about ten years ago by Jeremy Atkinson  and as you can see they have had a hard life but served me well. Normally bespoke footwear is very expensive. Even a pair of off the shelf Church's cost £300-£400. A pair of proper bespoke shoes by John Lobb will set you back £3000.  If you can find a good shoemaker with low overheads and buy direct however you can get quality bespoke shoes that cost less per year than cheap Chinese shoes. When I helped judge the Balvenie masters of craft awards last year Ruth Emily Davy a young shoemaker in Wales was one of our winners, her shoes are around £300, now if you get 10 years out of them that is better than £30 a year on cheap shoes going into landfill.

My shoes from Jeremy were less than half that price yet the quality is superb. The leather is thick and supple like the best saddle leather, it comes from Clayton's tannery at Chesterfield. They fit, like a glove? er well like a shoe? or well like a shoe should do if it's been made exactly to fit your foot. There is no doubt over the ten years my previous pair lasted, and I am very very hard on my footwear, that these were far better value than buying a new pair of cheap shoes each year.

These two pairs are the only shoes just like this Jeremy has ever made, they are basically a clog upper on a shoe sole. I love my welsh slipper clogs and particularly this clever little clasp which allows you to slip the shoes on and walk away or clip them up tight with a flick of the finger. He does more normal shoes with lace ups as well and wonderful clogsl Now just before you click off to check his website be warned it can take a while to buy from him, you need to be persistent.

Now I have been blogging for a couple of years and really value the support and feedback I get in comments posted, people mentioning they read when we meet and nice emails. If you were here I would offer you a drink. To continue the theme of quality going a long way it would probably be a drop of Balvenie. I won this bottle of Balvenie 30 year old 2 years ago when I was Balvenie's "Artisan of the Year". It's not quite finished yet, I have made it last. It only comes out on special occasions and generally as part of a Balvenie tasting where we start with the £25 12yr old doublewood then have my favourite the 15yr old £40 single barrel and only then a little taste of the £300 30yr old. It may be extravagant but with whisky like this you only need a small amount to enjoy the flavours so there are maybe 70 good tasters in a bottle. Compared to a bottle of wine from which you get 4 glasses my £300 bottle equates to £4 a taste or a £16 bottle of wine which probably is no where near as special. Now what you are asking is that strange small sample beside the 30yr old?

let me pop the lid and let you sniff....pretty special yes? Careful don't spill it...

Well this one is pure indulgence of the John Lobb level, no way I can even try to justify this as being quality but really better value than cheap wine or shoes. No this is extravagant. Two weeks ago I had an invite to the launch of the Balvenie 40yr old at the V&A. It fell in the middle of a bowl carving course and I couldn't let my students down so I was gutted to have to decline. Thankfully those lovely folk at the Balvenie sent me this 10ml taster in the post. How special? Well there are only 150 bottles available worldwide with only 18 allocated to the UK 2 of which they drank at that launch at the V&A. At £2500 a bottle my tiny 10ml bottle works out about £35. I'm saving this one and just sniffing it occasionally at the moment. I'll probably share a tiny taste with my dad over Christmas.

big old Japanese saw

Yesterday the postman brought an unexpected gift from Japan, a big old Japanese saw.

It is wonderful condition and sharpened ready to use. This was sent to me by my friend Tomio.
When I spent time working with traditional Japanese carpenters last year this was the particular saw that I most coveted. More details and pictures of the saws in Japan on this post from last year. This particular type is apparently called  "Madonoko" or "window saw" the windows being the deep gullets to carry away sawdust during rapid cross cutting.

Also in the parcel was a book showing archaeological woodware with much turned work from Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Archaeology. This again was very exciting for me, I have seen a few pictures of old turned Japanese woodware before particularly laquerware and there is such a strong tradition of laquered woodware surviving today I knew there must be a long history. I hope to post some pictures when I have talked more with Tomio about the individual pieces and know more about where and when they are from. See one of Tomio's gorgeos turned laquered bowls here.

how to warm a craftsman's heart....wedding quaich

As craftspeople we put our heart and soul into our work. Most of us make work that only a minority of folk truly understand and appreciate. The most heartwarming thing of all is when we see people enjoying using what we have made in their daily lives, sitting on a chair, drinking from a favourite mug, wearing a scarf we knitted or whatever.

Mostly my work fits into fairly humble normal daily lives and I like that, when someone meets me and tells me they have eaten their breakfast from one of my bowls for 10 years and that they get pleasure from it every day it inspires me to carry on with my work. This is a favourite photo sent to me a while a go of one of my porringers in use.

Today I was sent these photos which made me deeply happy at an even more meaningful level.  They are from the wedding in Scotland of Bryan & Fiona Campbell who chose to use one of my quaichs to toast their marriage.

 

Bryan said "It was such a lovely part of our wedding ceremony, and we can't thank you enough for creating such a beautiful, meaningful object."

And I can't thank Bryan and Fiona enough for giving me the chance to live by making these things and to share the joy of seeing them being used.

London town

Last week I spent 3 days in London for meetings.

That's a London plane leaf by the way, London is full of truly astonishing trees that few folk ever notice. And from an old London landmark to a new one, this is the shard, the first very tall modern building on the South bank, it is going to be pretty impressive when finished. I love the south bank, lots of cultural stuff there from the Globe Theatre to Tate Modern, the Golden Hinde to Southwark Cathedral. On my way to a meeting I came across this lovely sculpture. At a glance it looks like just one more chainsaw sculpture (I am not a fan) but on closer inspection it was clearly hewn with axe and adze.

It's the work of Stephan Balkenhol I liked it a lot.

Anyway our meeting was at the old leather market, now home of Creative and Cultural Skills. It was the inception meeting for a £90,000 research project to assess the current state of traditional crafts in England.

We have lots of anecdotal evidence about issues in the sector, particularly difficulties of passing skills from one generation to the next. This research will find out the extent of the problem as well as assessing the commercial value of the sector and the opportunities for growth. This is exactly what we need in order to convince folk that they should be investing in the traditional crafts and ensuring skills are passed on. The meeting went well and probably in January there will be opportunity for individual craftspeople to input into the research project. The day after we had our first meeting of the Heritage Crafts Association skills working group. These are a team of folk from across a broad spectrum of the crafts and including folk familiar with the educational system. The object is to take forward the recommendations of the 110 delegates at the skills forum
It may sound a bit dull but we are all committed to our crafts, to seeing craft back in education, decent apprenticeships in craft and adequate support for mastercraftspeople whilst they take time away from making in order to pass their skills on. I am determined that when we look back in 10 years time that we will have made a difference.

entertaining orange

Today's blog is simply a very entertaining image that I found on the internet, I just love it and hope you enjoy it too.

building the world's most iconic viking ship, part 7

One last post on my time with the replica Oseberg ship. I always like to have an overview of this sort of project and share what I have learnt. Often the interest is the detail but the most important things are the big picture about how the worksite works and the project is organised. This is clearly a multimillion pound/dollar project and most big projects that work are driven by one passionate individual. This project is the brainchild of Geir Rørvik. Geir runs a boatyard outside Tonsberg and his passion is for traditional boats. Since the Oseberg boat, the most iconic Viking ship of all, was found here it seems an obvious thing to have some recognition in the town. The original ship is in the museum in Oslo so a replica that could serve as an icon for the town would be a wonderful project. The New Oseberg Ship Foundation  was set up and now they have a great team headed by chairman Einar Erlingsen. As well as succeding in attracting considerable funding for the project they have done really well at getting sponsorship in kind. The worksite is right in the centre of town on the tourist trail along the waterfront. This land is owned by the Quality Hotel (green clad building in the background) and as well as giving the land they feed the whole worksite crew lunch for free every day.

Another key feature of the project is that it is happening in full view of the public. Not only is there this busy cycle/footpath around the outside of the site there is a path right through the centre of the site too. The whole town are involved with the project and are watching it gradually grow. Many of them come along and help out as volunteers, young and old alike.

Tuesday evenings and Saturdays are volunteer days, it's important to co ordinate volunteer work, you need to have less precious tools available (these are Hultafors axes, still good but £50 each rather than £350) And having a reasonable number of regular volunteers who have a reasonable skill level saves the shipwrights time in training and supervision. Having lots of untrained folk visiting for a few days would actually slow things down rather than help. Here is a young blacksmith using the on site forge on a volunteer day.

 And the textile group have 40 volunteers, they made the woolen sail and the costumes for the worksite. Here they are working on natural dying.

Public events keep locals and press up to date with progress, this is a Viking market day and the opening of the new shop.

 The worksite felt a happy and relaxed place which is important each morning the shipwrights met and Thomas would ask if everyone knew what they were going to do today, if they didn't he would allocate work. Geir is in the red to the left. One thing I did miss compared to the Japanese work site last year was we used to do warm up exercises and stretches each morning which reduced the risk of injury when doing heavy work, it was good for creating a feeling of togetherness in the team too.

Another keen supporter of the project has been Tonsberg youth hostel voted recently as "the friendliest youth hostel in the world" and I can understand why. They have been able to support the project by occasionally offering free accommodation to visiting workers when they are out of season (in season they are booked full months in advance) This was a huge help to me as the cost of living in Norway is very expensive. This was breakfast.

And to show the cost of living this is £16 worth of groceries from the supermarket I was very grateful for my free breakfast and lunch. I resisted the temptation to join friends for a beer at £7 a pint.

Tonsberg is close to Oslo Torp airport and flights from the UK very reasonable. I would highly recommend a visit, feel free to email me for contact details if you are planning to go. They aim to complete the build by next May and I hope to go back in the spring to see the project develop. In the meantime you can keep in touch with progress via the official website here and facebook page

As for me my next big project in the spring is helping build a replica of the Bronze age Dover boat. Even bigger timbers on that one and bronze tools to work with, it will be more of a mix of technologies though with some power tools used to meet the budgets.

building the world's most iconic viking ship, part 6

 Well I think it is time for some tool pictures. The tools made for the building of the new Oseberg ship form the largest collection of replica Viking woodworking tools in the world. This is the main tool room. It's easy to see at a glance whether a tool is missing at the end of the day, this helps when you are tired and it's dark.

Those who have followed my blog for a while will know I have a bit of a thing for axes, these are long bladed hewing axes for finishing the surface I got on really well with the top one, the other worked OK but was just not as sweet for me.

Lots more pics of axes now, Thomas Finderup could tell you everything about each axe, the location and date of the original find, which smith made the replica etc. Unfortunately I didn't have time to ask about each axe and record it but I do know Thomas spent some time recently working with the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo on a book on Viking woodworking tools so I look forward to that being published.

 This is the one I fell in love with, totally sublime to use, a snip at £350, one day maybe

I love this tool, so simple yet so very very effective. It works like a scratchstock and puts two decorative grooves and even distance in along the edge of the planks.

These two tools fascinated me, they look remarkably similar to North West Coast carvers crook knives and when I look at NWC art and Viking carving I can see similarities in form. Often the tools you use tend to create certain forms. Again I am afraid I don't know where the original was from but it will be 9th C

People sometimes ask me about the quality of tools in earlier periods or even, "what did they do before they had steel?" There is a common misconception that steel was invented in the industrial revolution, actually it was only the mass production of cheap homogeneous steel which was created by Huntsman's crucible process, just down the road form me in Sheffield. In Viking times they had excelent steel and knew how to use it, much as Japanese sword and tool makers work from detailed knowledge of materials with very simple technology so the Viking smiths created excellent tools and weapons with high carbon steel edges.

In 1998 I visited the archaeological site of Novgorod in Russia. I was mainly there to see medieval bowls but there is much interesting information on tools too. This image shows the gradual change in composition of knives over a 500 year period with the black being high carbon steel and the white area being softer, tougher iron.

At a glance it looks as if knives are getting progressively better until you know that level 5 is about 1425 level 28 is 960AD, in fact the early knives are the best ones.

And finally this one is for Kari an archaeological drawing showing one of the small bladed planes, most of the ones we used had slightly broader blades but the same principle. It seams to be drawn with the blade over the pin but it clearly goes underneath.

building the world's most iconic viking ship, part 5

This post will mostly be pictures, some of the replica, some of the original Oseberg ship. The last post left a board steamed, bent fitted and riveted or klinked on to the hull. As the hull takes shape each point is measured and set to ±5mm. It can be adjusted slightly by pressing up from underneath with props or by adding heavy rocks inside. These rocks look randomly scattered but they are very precisely placed to get exactly the right shape into the hull. Once it is dried and the ribs fitted the shape will be set.

And what a shape it is too, such sweet lines.

One of the iconic features fo the Oseberg ship are the carvings. These are some close ups of the original taken in the Viking ship museum in Oslo in 2004.

and some images showing the replica

building the world's most iconic viking ship, part 4

Ships built with overlapping planks like Viking ships are called "lapstrake" in the USA, in the UK we call them "clinker built". I had never known why until I hammered home one of the rivets that is the key to this construction and asked what it's name was in Norwegian, it's called a klink and the verb klinking fits perfectly as you'll see from the video at the end of this post.

These are the tools for the job, a fairly small cross pein hammer, a copy of a 9th century one of course, a rose head boat nail  and a rove, that's the square washer which fits tightly over the nail head and when driven down on to it grips hard.

So now the finished dressed board is clamped in place for the final time and holes drilled through the 1" overlap  with the board below. The nail is driven up through the hole and the rove driven down on top using the hammer with the hole in it to push the rove down tight. It's a noisy job if you are doing it all day so here Jan is wearing a mix of Viking clothing and ear defenders. You can also see in this picture the scarf joint where two planks join end to end. This is a simple chamfer, the joint is sealed with woolen cloth and pine tar and two klinks will go through the scarf to hold it tight.

Now the end of the klink needs to be cut off this is a 2 person job with sharp cold chisels.

and finally we get to the klinking first a photo, this is where the end of the klink is hammered in such a way as to spread it out into a sort of dome that holds the rove very tightly in place. First you tap with the cross pein to spread the klink and then flip the hammer over and go round and round the outside to dome it nicely.

 When it's done it looks like this. This is one of mine and goes through a scarf joint.

That's my klink, it really is a great feeling to be a small part of this project and to know there is some of my work in the final ship. As the timber in the ship dries it will shrink slightly and all these klinks will need hammering again to tighten them up, I don't know just how many there are but it must run into several thousand and no one is looking forward to that job.

and now a little video clip of klinking


In the UK with our often acidic soil conditions when we do find old clinker built ships the klinks are often the only thing to survive when all the wood has been dissolved away. That was the case at our most famous ship burial Sutton Hoo  this image shows the klinks or rivets in place and the outline of the boat in the sand but all the wood was gone.

The same is true for the ship found recently in Scotland, the only Viking age ship burial so far found on the UK mainland. It will be interesting to learn more of that find as it is excavated.

Just a couple more posts to come now showing all the replica Viking tools, and some more shots of the boat and it's fantastic carvings.