great old african mask carving film

Vintage David Attenborough showing how the Dogon people in Mali approach wood carving from part one the seven-part series "The Tribal Eye". (1975)
The felling of the limb is impressive as is the finish straight from the elbow adzes and the strong bold design. Stick with it to 8 1/2 minutes in and Attenborough's comments on art object vs living object are interesting.

Speaking at craft debate at the V&A

 In a couple of weeks I shall be speaking at the V&A on the subject of the place of traditional craft skills in the 21st century. It's part of a panel discussion with eminent speakers from the world of Art and Design, Sir Nicholas Goodison Tanya Harrod, Sir Christopher Frayling amongst others. I will be rather in awe but hope to do my bit.

For anyone who fancies coming along tickets are free and the event is in the Hochauser auditorium at the V&A 10.30-12.00 21st September.

Art, Craft & Design - cross-overs and boundaries in the 21st Century

• What:
  Free talks & tours
• When:
  Fri 21 September 2012 10:30
• Where:
  Hochhauser Auditorium, Sackler Centre

FREE TALK: Join six eminent speakers from the three sectors of art, craft, and design as they discuss the evolving nature of craft and how shifting allegiances and cross-overs have lead it to defy categorisation.
The debate will be in two sessions chaired by Glenn Adamson: Robin Wood will make a plea for the preservation of traditional skills, with responses from Sir Nicholas Goodison and Tanya Harrod. After the Q&A, Tracey Rowledge will talk about the reinvention of traditional skills in the 21st century with responses from Sir Christopher Frayling and Mel Howse.
Organised by the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust (QEST) which makes awards to craftspeople who reflect the excellence of British craftsmanship, such as scholar and saddle maker Mia Sabel, who was employed by Mark Taylor to work on his design for a briefcase and used her skills to help develop the manufacture of the leatherwork for this highly original product (see image).
Part of London Design Festival 2012.
10.30-12.30

Link to V&A  here 

wheelright tyring a wheel

Last weekend I watched Phill Gregson tyring a wheel at the National Forest woodfair. This is the culmination of one of the most iconic traditional woodworking crafts. Wheelwrighting has everything, understanding of the raw material, oak for the spokes, elm for the hub or nave, ash for the rim or fellows (pronounced fellies). The wheel is dished rather than flat so like an umbrella it is held under tension by the iron rim or tyre which literally ties it together. This is the stand with two wheels all made up and ready for tyring.

 The finished wheel is measured and the tyre made up slightly smaller than the wheel circumference. How much smaller is down to the experience of the wheelwright, on these wheels Phill made them 1" smaller. If some of the joints had more slack to take up or on an old nave with splits to close up he may give a little more compression by making the tyre smaller. The tyre is then heated in a bonfire to make it expand enough to fit over the wheel.

 The hot rim is lifted out the fire and now everything has to happen in seconds.

 Phill and his apprentice pick the tyre up with tongs

 drop it over the wheel

 and start hammering it down
, see the smoke as the rim immediately starts charring.

 they spin round and round hammering down to get it secured evenly in place.

 Then comes the water to start cooling the rim.

 The water stops the rim charring the wood too much and cools the rim so it shrinks into place compressing the wheel by just the right amount.

 they carry on hammering as it cools to make sure it is sitting down correctly.

 nearly there

 and the finished wheel is popped off the tyring platform and taken for a dip in a trough to finish the cooling.

 There is no time to loose as the other rim is still in the fire, the apprentice sets the second wheel up ready.

out comes the tyre and another 2 minutes frantic activity commences.

 It's a bit like steam bending large timbers in that several days work culminate in a few minutes critical activity where everyone has to be prepared and know what they are doing, if it goes wrong the weeks work is wasted.

and here is the finished wheel cooling off in the trough

 Some may think Phill looks young for a wheelwright, at a recent dinner at the worshipful company of wheelwrights it was asked how many of them would be working in 20 years, on reflection they decided there were only a couple that would be working in 10 years. Despite being only 29 Phill has more accumulated craft knowledge than most craftspeople twice his age. He is the fourth generation wheelwright in his family and was apprenticed to his grandfather. He has already tyred thousands of wheels no two the same, each one a learning experience.

 This is his website and this was the first time I saw him tyre a wheel under the watchful eye of his grandad in 2004, I guess that would have made him 21

crooked knife making with Jarrod Stone Dahl

 I fell in love with the crooked knife 20 years ago when I watched Cesar's bark canoe the most incredible wood craft film showing César Newashish, a 67-year-old Attikamek building a canoe with three tools, a cheap axe, a pen knife and a crooked knife. Apparently simple tools like these can often be surprisingly complex to get working properly with slight differences giving a knife that works like a dream or one which is a near miss. A few years ago I started following the work of Jarrod Stone Dahl, an incredibly talented woodworker in Northern Minnesota, Jarrod makes birch bark canoes and snowshoes and has spent long hours refining and understanding the crooked knife. I had always wanted to learn to make and use one of these knives well and Jarrod also wanted to come to SPOONFEST so we arranged for him to stay on and run a three day course, it was fantastic. These are some of the crooked knives that Jarrod brought for us to try and to learn from.

As well as good tools Jarrod also brought tools which didn't quite work properly so we could understand and feel what made the difference.

 So to work, we started with roughly shaped blanks of O1 tool steel, we clamped them in vices and filed the profile and bevels with coarse files.

Then it was up to the forge to bend the profile in the blades. Jarrod was a great teacher and very good at demystifying bladesmithing. It wasn't hard, it is very simple technology and so long as you don't read too much of the techy stuff on the internet and baffle yourself then anyone can do it. You don't need a forge, a simple blow torch will do or even an open fire.

 Jarrod gave a quick demonstration of how to put the required bend in.

Then each of us in turn had a go with Jarrod pointing out where to aim the hammer blow. This is Richard Law, some may know his flying shavings blog.

 next up Barn the spoon

The curve you are after is almost but not quite straight then a gradually tightening curve at the end. It is easy to make it too bent.

 This is Adam Hawker one of the tutors for Guy Mallinson's courses.

Here are our blades alongside a good finished knife.

 Next comes hardening, basically get it hot (dull orange heat or if you have a magnet handy the point at which it looses magnetism) and quench in oil. This makes it hard but brittle.

 Now test with a file, it should skip off if the hardening has worked rather than biting deep as it does on soft steel.

 After hardening comes tempering this is involves heating it in an electric oven to about 230 degrees C. This softens and toughens the steel so it won't break in use.

Now we just had to make the handles.

Getting the handles just right for your hand and particularly the thumb rest in exactly the right position saves enormously on the amount of strain on your wrist when using the tool.

 After carving the handle we drilled then to take the tang of the blade.

 Some of us glued the handles in and others fitted them by binding them in place with a wooden wedge to hold them, then it was time to sharpen them up.

  And then we got to use them. They basically do any job you can do with a draw knife but without the hassle of carting round a shaving horse to hold the work.

I think we were all impressed at how well the tools worked and for those that had done no toolmaking before it is a real empowering experience to take a piece of steel and turn it into a razor sharp cutting tool that really worked well.

 Here's Adam making shavings.

  and here are our finished knives

Jarrod is a truly great craftsman and wonderful teacher, it's unlikely that UK readers will get the chance to learn from him in the near future but for US readers he teaches a wide range of traditional skills courses from toolmaking and snowshoe making to birch bark work and spooncarving, I would highly recommend looking him up. To see more of his work check out his blog here . or his website here

It has been a real privilege to work with Jarrod and fun too.

spooncarving with Jögge Sundqvist

I have met and spent time with Wille Sundqvist several times and been inspired by his book Swedish Carving Technique, both the technical advice and the life philosophy, I had not met his son Jögge until this last week when he came to SPOONFEST taught 2 short classes in knife carving grasps for us and gave an inspirational lecture.  His teaching style is great fun but also highly effective, he really understands the various knife grips and has good ways of helping people to use them effectively. I have been teaching knife grips for several years yet I still managed to learn some new ones.
Jögge started by cleaving up some billets of birch and telling us how the old foresters and folk in the mountains when sitting around the campfire would practice their knife skills by making a "nothing to do stick"

 We then set to using a variety of grips to make nothing to do sticks.

 this grip has lots of names, such as a chest lever grip or chicken wings grip but now it's also called the "taste the woodchip" grip.

 He's a funny guy

 using the shoulders and the big back muscles to generate the power

 each grip was introduced with a demo

 then he would come round and help us individually.

 This was a grip I have seen but never really used, the cross thumbs grip.

 The knife slides forwards and the elbow rocks round, see how the wrist has changed position.

 now quick as a flash the knife pops over the other side and starts to draw backwards from hilt to tip

the end of the cut. These two cuts are repeated back and forth very quickly to create a smooth hollow.

 Jögge has the most beautiful knives

 Most use the frosts 106 blade set into carved handles and sheaths. When the blade is ground away he taps it out and puts a new one in.

 He is very hands on and this is how he teaches the "can opener" grip making sure you feel the strength of your thumb closing the grip before putting a knife in your hand.

 and now the can opener grip at work.

 Jögge's talk was wonderful I was frustratingly busy sorting logistical stuff and missed it but Alex Nicholson recorded it for his wife Vicky and has kindly uploaded it here
I know Sean Hellman filmed the talk too so hopefully that will appear online in due course.
So it's been quite a while before I got to meet  Jögge, he had a lot to live up to but exceeded all our expectations, what a lovely guy, he liked my turning too and took a set of plates home. I have no doubt we will be meeting up again.