BBC Mastercrafts series with Monty Don - Green Wood Craft

Monty Don, a huge fan of traditional crafts, presents a series which celebrates six of the craft skills that built Britain and its heritage, ranging from thatching to stonemasonry.
3 willing apprentices work with green wood for 6 weeks, learning how to cleave raw material, to turn billets on the pole lathe, and to manipulate the components fresh out of the steam bender. Then comes the final test - designing a chair and making it with no assistance. Can they pull it off and impress the judge Mike Abbott?


Click here to see BBC Mastercrafts - greenwood episode

Broadcast on:
BBC Two, 9:30pm Friday 12th February 2010
Duration: 60 minutes
Available until: 9:59pm Friday 26th March 2010

Sculpture - Childer Coppice I

This is a small sculpture from a piece of coppiced hazel I picked up whilst doing some coppice work  for Doug Joiner at Childer Wood, Herefordshire. Childer Wood is the base for Doug's Heavy Horse Logging business.
http://www.heavyhorses.net/Pages/horselogging.htm

The sculpture is about the size of a cantaloup melon. I loved the natural shape of the hazel and so wrapped and tacked the small hazel block with layers of naturally dyed handmade felt I'd designed to accentuate the swirls of the wood.

Urban Kluth teaches long lost methods of ancient tree care.

Urban Kluth specializes in the care of ancient trees, especially fruit trees. He practices and teaches very old and now largely lost methods of tree care. These methods were widely practiced throughout Europe at one time.

The practices concentrate on establishing a very specific planting hole to create a micro climate for the tree to grow (originally done several years before a significant tree was planted). The care of the root system and the bark also ensures healthy growth and eventually longevity and sustained yield of fruit. Village communities often had one of these significant and valuable pear or apple trees, often planted in a symbiotic relationship with a grain such as wheat or rye.


With this method villages did not go hungry, the village as a community cared for its food resources and everybody was involved, as these methods are very labour intensive. A now esoteric but highly relevant 'transition' model? Fruit trees have been found to have thrived in Eastern Europe for 300 + years, in Sweden up to 600 years, and villages in Siberia have been self sufficient employing these methods.

Urban came over in February 2010 from Germany to induct a few people into these methods in Gudrun's old orchard. Many of her old fruit trees had collapsed and Urban was interested in preserving the healthier ones first. Urban will be coming over from Germany again in July 2010 for a week if anyone is interested in learning about these methods and gaining some hands on experience. Matt Hatter, Keane, myself with Urban's guidance have prepared some example trees for teaching later in the year.

Pic 1 shows preparation of the surface  for the care of an old or damaged tree. Taking the any growing matter away from the base of the tree, cleaning the trunk area especially, adding sand to aid the drying out of the bottom of the trunk. Further work will be carried out later in the year.

Pic 2 and 3 show the digging of a new 2m x 2m x 2m planting hole. Once dug, this hole will be filled with large boulder stones at the bottom, graduating up to small stones at the top mixed with a lightened mixture of sand and clay. I suggested the use of a JCB for this job, but Urban explained that compacting the soil around the planting hole with heavy machinery was also detrimental. Most of the methods used so far have been extremely labour intensive for only a few people. I could understand why a whole community would need to be involved to look after such trees. More methods such as bark cleaning and pruning will be explored in July 2010.

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

From Chapter 2.
'I went to the woods, because I wished to live deliberately. To front only the essential facts of life and see if I could not learn what it had to teach and not when I came to die discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life. Living is so dear, nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary.

I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life. To live so sturdily and sparten-like as to put to route all that was not life. To cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner and reduce it to its lowest terms and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meaness of it, and publish it's meaness to the world. Or, if it were sublime to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men it appears to me are in a strange uncertainty about it.'

Listen to this free Librivox audio book chapter 2, part 2 here (12MB Download)

Workshop antics

Thanks to Martin for these early morning workshop photos (aka my night in shining amour for saving us from numerous pubs and helping me make my chair when it all got too much for me)

Mama Mia! Linda in her PJs, mamalade for breakfast...




Coronet Cuties!

Something in the woods - Aug 2009

Ro on her new shave horse "Radish".

Steve with his new Shave Horse, Go Papa!



Max with his ash ladder back for his God son Alex.


Martin with his turned ash ladder back.


Jo with her Elm table.

Matt with his John Brown inspired welsh stick chair design in elm and ash.



Linda, oiling her Welsh Stick chair.

Liz with the completed bench for the Fisheye Web Design company.


Some of the group with their creations... more pictures to follow soon

Sketches at Clissett Wood workshop

Clissett Wood Chair Making Course 9-15July

Another good week of chair makers, two return students making more ambitious projects - one being a giant bar stool. A lovely group of blokes camped in the evenings despite the rain needing barbecues and beer. My Fisheye bench lined up with the bones for the fish spine to go across the back of the bench. I also made a small cherry ladder back with wych -elm bark seat, mostly built at home, but you can see me on the far right of the photo lineup.

8th July - Greenwood Weekend Intro

Weekend intro to Greenwood working. Heather made the top of her bench from oak. Most other course members made a stool, either with turned legs on the pole lathe or freeform shaped legs. Matt, our new volunteer cook makes a third attempt at a stool after 2 mis-haps drilling the acute angles for his freeform stool. Whilst Rachel weaves wych-elm bark seat to her stool tutored by Paul Morton who supplies Wych Elm Bark for seating.

Sculptural Seating Course 23 - 28th June 09

Lovely Linda with her garden seat, Mark with his 5 seater family bench, Hazel with her childs chair, and Pauline with her ash seat.

Handmade knife from John

On Sunday, John gave me a knife he'd made for me overnight. My first knife, so this is pretty special. It has a 2.5" blade, a handstitced moulded leather sheath with drainage hole at the bottom and holly handle. It's not stainless steel so I've got to look after it he said. Thankyou John. In return I'm designing his leatherwork and metal stamps including an ash leaf and J, so watch this space.

The Fisheye Bench...seat in progress

Finishing the oak seat for the Fisheye bench (Fisheye design company I do a lot of work with badly need a bench to sit on)...maybe this summer they'll finally get one.

View from Clissett Wood - June 26th 2009

Garden & workshop in summer - late June 2009

New handmade knife from John

Sunday, John gave me a knife he made for me overnight, and it's my first knife, so that's pretty special. It's a holly handle, with moulded leather sheath, it's not stainless steel so I've got to look after it he said.