more bronze age woodworking

Following my last post where I was getting ready for an exciting bronze age woodworking project I have now been working for a couple of weeks with the bronze tools and am hugely surprised and impressed. First a couple of pics I missed last time showing how I lash the bronze head to the haft with rawhide. The rawhide is incredibly strong and shrinks as it dries to make an even tighter binding.

 

for added security I include a clove hitch into the binding, this would hold even is the hide frays and breaks rather than the whole thing unwinding.

 The tools cut remarkably well, lighter faster cuts than with a large steel axe but fast acurate work is certainly possible.

and nice surface textures come naturally off the tool.

 Here is Trevor notching and chopping a large timber to reduce it to the required profile.

 All finished toolmarks are bronze but during roughing out we are using some steel tools, This is a gransfors forest axe in use knocking the blocks off after notching.

 and I do the same job Japanese style with my Japanese carpenters axe.

 after rough shaping timbers are dressed down to the final profile and surface with the bronze tools.

There is something very pleasing about when you get the first proper carpet of shavings on the floor and can walk about without mud or grit underfoot and tools stay sharp without touching soil or grit. Looks good and feels good underfoot too.

 

Mostly I have been working green oak but the bronze tools work well on ash too. This paddle was carved in about an hour from a cleft board no slower than working with steel tools.

 

fine finishing work

and the finished paddle. Lots more to come on this project but can't go into more detail until after the press day on 6th March.

 I have learned a lot already about the tools and still feel they are improving, I am very happy with how I have the edges set up now. Despite the metal being quite soft (by steel standards) it is possible to create and edge that is sharp enough to shave with and holds an edge for at least a full days woodworking. There is more to learn about how to use them well, and the best angles of handles to haft them with but so far I am very very pleasantly surprised.

Bronze Age woodworking, adzes and axes

I am currently involved with a very exciting woodworking project which I will post lots about in due course but there is a press embargo until March the 6th. For now I can tell you that I have been having fun experimenting with bronze tools.

I have used bronze tools a little in the past but only felled an odd tree which doesn't give you much idea of how well they work. The folk who used these tools no doubt used them for many thousands of hours and really knew how to get the best out of them. It's not possible to form much of a judgment as to how well they work without at least putting in a few hundred hours.

There are lots of potential variables to play with from edge angles and sharpening profiles to hafting techniques and angles and finally variables in the way they are used. I started out with some bronze pallstaves straight from the foundry, they come looking like this. Pallstaves can be mounted as adzes or axes and are the standard form through most of the second millennium BC before socketed axes came in. This was cast from an original and as you can see it is pretty blunt.

Here are some original pallstaves in a museum to show the variation.

The first stage in preparation of the blade is peening or hammering it out toward an edge, I didn't photograph this stage but I did it with a small steel hammer, presumably in the bronze age it would have been done with nice smooth rounded river boulders. I was surprised how soft the bronze felt compared even to hot steel and did not think it boded well for a working tool. The bronze apparently work hardens a little with hammering but my rockwell files suggested it was still below 40 r which is incredibly soft for an edge tool. Anyway after peening I ground and polished the edge, now they would shave arm hair or slice paper easily.

Next I set about hafting them, First I researched on the web to find images of as many early axes as I could, I knew Oetzi's axe well but found just a few more. Here they are

I choose to haft mine with rawhide, I bought a dog chew, soaked it in hot water until it unraveled, cut it into a continuous strip and used it to do a nice neat lashing. And here they are two adzes and two axes all ready to go. I think they are rather beautiful.

Here is an index for all blog posts on the Dover boat project

bronze-age-woodworking-adzes-and-axes
more-bronze-age-woodworking
bronze-age-boat-building-pictures
bronze-age-boatbuilding-part-2
bronze-age-boatbuilding-part-3
bronze-age-boatbuilding-part-4
bronze-age-boatbuilding-part-5
bronze-age-woodworking-tools-early thoughts
building-bronze-age-dover-boat-part-6
building-bronze-age-dover-boat-part-7
boat-building-steaming-timbers
filming-with-time-team
more-bronze-age-boatbuilding.
casting-bronze-axes-and-adzes
more-bronze-age-boatbuilding.
20-hour-woodworking-marathon
woodworking-marathon-continued-just 18 hours to go.
dover-boat-launch-day-end-of-3-months work.
the boat-that-didnt-float.

Heritage Heroes BBC TV

Last October I spent a lot of time advising the team for a new BBC program on potential craftspeople they could visit as part of a series at that time billed as "Heritage at Risk". The program is now airing fronted by John Craven as "Heritage Heroes". They tour the country looking at buildings and traditions at risk and the people keeping those traditions alive. Last week was the Penines, next the border country along the Welsh Marches down to Bristol I think and then the final week will be along the south coast.

Anyway last Thursday was the episode on the Peak district and they visited me and my friends at Portland Works in Sheffield. Here are a couple of screenshots, first of me waxing lyrical about an old bowl made by George Lailey about 70 years ago.

 and here is my mate Stuart Mitchell showing John Craven his knives.

The episode is up on iplayer for a while, probably not available outside the UK I am afraid, this is the link and I am on around 21 mins in.

Both Stuart and I will be speaking about our work as part of the V&A craft conference on 24th March have you booked your tickets yet? early bird discount is still available here 

TV is a funny thing, whilst 3 minutes of TV costs a huge amount to produce they very rarely pay the folk they film expecting you to give your time for the fame and glory. Another popular misconception is that a few minutes on TV bring fame and fortune, in reality the normal effect is a bunch of your mates phone and text saying they saw you on the telly but it rarely transfers into orders or increased business. In Fact a good friend Hector Cole who does blacksmithing and used to do a lot of work for Time Team reckoned that it was actually bad for business as most of his customers assumed he would be too busy to want to sell them a few arrowheads. This series does seem to have been better than most with 4 or 5 bowl orders this week mentioning the program and it's always nice when you parents see you on the telly and think you have done good.