The End of a Journey

Well, back to the real world in a few days. Both good and bad. Good that I get paid again. Bad that I'll have less time to nurture my new skills. Good that I'll, once again, have a short term purpose. Bad (and good) that I have identified an alternative purpose that is hard to penetrate. Whatever. We all have to pay our mortgages, that much is inevitable. We just have to enjoy ourselves as much as possible while doing it. And hopefully be able to plan for the future too. The best thing is that I have not one single regret. My brief time away from work has enabled me to learn skills that, had I been working full time, would have taken me two years of weekly evening classes to gather. Much more than that though. I got to:
- spend quality time with the important people in my life (Mo, Si, Tom, Mr & Mrs P senior, Stew and most of all Mrs P).
- develop all sort of recipes, most notably my hand made bread recipe. Best organic ingredients sourced from France and UK.
- make great new friends, mentors and future colleagues
- perform some vital renovations to my flat
- learn a s##t load about me

Some pics:

Some of my tools

Wood pieces (some unfinished!)

My bread

This is, however, just the beginning!

A new beginning...

Shaving Horse

So I picked up some logs from my tree surgeon's yard last week. I already had all the tools to get from whole logs to pieces of log (i.e. a log splitter, a sledge hammer and an axe) but getting from rough log sections to workable pieces requires a shaving horse. A shaving horse is simply a bench on which you sit and a cramp to hold wood still while you shape it with a drawknife and spokeshave. There are several websites giving plans and directions such as http://www.greenwoodworking.com/shorse.htm However, in Living Woods Magazine (http://britishwoodworking.com/Living%20Woods.html), Nick Gibbs published instructions to build Mike Abbott's new style horse. To keep costs down, the brief I had set myself was to use up as much of the old wood I had lying around rather than buying in a load of 4x2 as in the magazine. Using a combination of old fence posts from my veranda and random pieces of hard and softwood I threw together my horse in a few hours.
He is a little rickety so I have started refering to him as my shaving donkey, he doesn't have a name yet.

So what advice would I give to people who want to make their own shaving horse? Firstly, there is no substitute for thick wood. You simply can't get the strength when using thinner pieces. Secondly, don't under estimate the strength of your legs. I used a piece of 14mm dowel as my pivot and it snapped immediately. I'm currently using an old piece of copper pipe until I can come up with an alternative. Finally, don't expect it to be perfect first time. My top board, or head, is a little too high. My seat is 50cm from the ground - a comfortable sitting height - and my top board is a further 45 cm from the seat. This creates a slightly unnatural movement and should probably have been nearer 30 cm from the seat as one's arms are stronger nearer your waist than up by your shoulders.

Now to get working on some logs...

My first few pieces

Twice in one night, my you are lucky readers!

As my regular reader (thanks dear) will know, I've been doing rather a lot of woodworking recently. My two training courses, documented earlier on this blog, were very different and both taught me useful skills. I've invested in a couple of tools but not yet got around to building a shave horse or pole lathe. Shave horse first I think! I took an inventory of my shed earlier and I reckon I have enough spare wood to bolt together a crude horse. As long as it serves a purpose, doesn't matter how it looks IMHO.

But, the lack of horse hasn't stopped me from carving a few pieces. Robin (see Woodwork chapter one) was kind enough to give me a couple of pieces of cherry to play with which I subsequently did. I also picked up a couple of freshly felled logs from my tree surgeon's yard (cheers James). Alas, I am still not very good at distinguishing the different woods from their bark so am not certain of some of the wood I'm using. Learning though! If anyone can recommend a good book that will help me identify trees by their bark I'd be very grateful! Here are some of my first pieces from left to right - baby spoon (cherry), lettuce knife (cherry), measuring scoop with deliberately odd handle (unidentified wood), tasting spoon (poplar):

Different woods work very differently. Poplar, being a very fast growing tree is very light. It isn't the finest wood but has its benefits. Cherry is great to work and looks lovely when finished. I also tried messing about with an old, dry piece of London plane. Such hard wood it is almost impossible to carve. Got a great idea of what I want to do with it though. Watch this space...

Plutus has been away

Hello! No, I've not been lazy, I've been on holiday. Mrs P and I were in the south of France for a short while. Wonderful time had by all, well both! We got the Eurostar to Avignon, picked up a car, drove to St. Laurent du Verdon, drove round the Gorges du Verdon, drove up Mont Ventoux, drove to Orange, drove through Chateauneuf-du-Pape, drove back to Avignon, dumped the car and chilled a little after driving a little over 1000km in our surprisingly capable diesel Fiat in four days. Then got very stressed by the prospect of not being able to return home due to the fire in the tunnel. I shall not post my opinions of Eurostar/Eurotunnel nor any details of my personal experience until I am satisfied with the compensation I receive! Instead, here's a couple o' pics:

Atop Mt. Ventoux viewing our journey back down

Gorges de l'ardeche

Mrs P looking out of the Chateau in Chateauneuf

Of the four places we stayed I adored Le Moulin du Chateau in St. Laurent du Verdon and loved La Banasterie (and their dog) in Avignon. Le Moulin is run by a wonderful Swiss couple called Edith and Nicolas who operate a relaxed, beautifully decorated B&B that forces you to relax, eat well and enjoy yourself no matter how much you resist. La Banasterie is a slightly more busy place due to its location in an Avignon back street but is similarly tranquil. Typical provencal colour schemes and decor really make this place a wonderful find and Mouchi (sp?) the Shih-Tzu is an amazingly friendly little chap! If you are planning a holiday to Provence and fancy staying somewhere more elegant, charming and personal than a hotel check out:
http://www.moulin-du-chateau.com/
http://www.labanasterie.com/

Since I've been back, I've been baking bread with my newly acquired French ingredients, making lovely chicken stock from our roast chicken remains, perfecting some of my woodwork pieces as well as starting a couple of new ones, enjoying sleeping in my own bed and embarking upon some futher horticultural training at the Chelsea Physic Garden.

So much to post about, so little time...

More Wood Stuff

"What did you learn this week Plutus?" I hear you ask. Well, aside from the fact that it is possible for an entire British summer to pass with only one solitary nice day, I learnt a bit more about wood. Last week was manual turning, this week I harnessed the almighty power of electricity to make my life easier. And easier it was! I turned a chunk of laburnum into a corkscrew handle, a piece of yew into a bottle stop and a piece of mahogany into a bowl. These are all a much more refined finish that my green wood pieces. Last week, after the final pass with a skew chisel, the only finish needed was a burnish with a handful of wood shavings. This week's pieces were sanded with four grades of sand paper, buffed with webrax and finally polished with wax or oil. Much finer finish that makes even my non-symmetrical corkscrew handle look good! I gained experience with several new tools that suit electric lathe work. I had great fun, the only down side is that I am impatient and it can be slightly frustrating when starting out with a new technique and a new tool.

As is becoming customary, here's a pic (albeit quite a bad quality and poorly composed one):


Now for a little rest and some wine...

Woodwork chapter one

My education continues. I went up to Essex recently to learn the basics of green woodworking and wood carving. My teacher was a great guy called Robin. He's been working with wood for quite a while in a variety of capacities and there is nothing better than learning from someone who is genuinely experienced! I spent two days with him in his wonderful workshop and learnt a hell of a lot. I started off learning how to split logs with a froe, chop them into a rough cylinder with an axe (a lovely Gransfors of which I am quite envious), shave them into a cleaner cylinder on a horse with a draw knife and spokeshave then turn them on a pole lathe. Man, I have to build one of those. A beautifully traditional method of turning wood - driven by a treadle connected to a pole (or bungee or anything else flexible) with a connecting line that is wrapped around the item to be turned. Here's me making my first turned item, a dibber, on the lathe:

Robin offered just the right balance of leaving me to make mistakes, from which I learnt a bucket load, correcting me and offering to put the finishing touches to my pieces in order to take them from just OK to perfect. I've done a lot of teaching/training in my days and recognise when I come across someone who genuinely enjoys imparting knowledge upon people. And he and Vanessa provide exactly my sort of lunch! If you are interested in learning how to use a pole lathe, how to work green wood, how to carve, how to sharpen tools or any other wood related skills, I'd highly recommend looking up Robin at www.treewright.co.uk

My pot scraper, rounders bat, dibber and spatula:


I've since started my own tool collection. Thus far I have inherited a couple of gouges and a skew chisel from my dad, picked up a cheap spokeshave and bought a couple of new carving knives from an excellent shop on Southampton Row in London called Buck and Ryan. They have a small concession in Selfridges but the main store is really where you want to go!

Next step is to build a shave horse and a pole lathe...

My Introduction

1st August 2008 was a big day in my life. I left my job of eight years, albeit only temporarily, to embark upon a three month journey of discovery...

From the ages of twenty one to thirty I have been working in the semiconductor electronics industry and while it can be a fascinating place at times, I need a change! Generally speaking, silicon valley companies treat their employees well. Not many employers allow their employees to take periods of unpaid leave for personal development purposes so I consider myself lucky to be able to take time away from my job to hurl myself into everything I find fun, interesting and enjoyable.

A little about me... I am an engineer by education and trade. I believe it to be a deficiency of the English schooling system that I had to decide upon my vocational career path at the age of fifteen. I studied Maths, Physics and Electronics A-Levels and then went on to study Electrical and Electronic Engineering at university. Not wanting to waste my education I chose to follow a career in the electronics industry. To this day I've had no regrets – my work has allowed me to travel the globe and taught me many extremely valuable skills. I've even been passionate about it at times. Recently, however, I have become tired of the politics, exhausted by poor management and disillusioned about following a career just for the sake of it. I'm embarking upon a journey of discovery, finding out what is out there, trying to understand what I want to do “when I grow up”.

I'm going to be taking a variety of training courses over the coming months – horticulture, garden design, woodworking, wood sculpture, wood turning and a bunch more. I'll be spending much belated time with my good friends and family as well as finding some time to make profitable renovations to my flat. I spend so much of my time cooking and, without wishing to sound too arrogant, most of the end products are way better than your average restaurant food. Hence I shall also be commencing the scripting of my recipe book. Haven't decided upon a theme yet, that'll probably come with time although working with whatever Kingston-upon-Thames market can supply me at a reasonable price may well dictate some of the contents.

Hopefully you want to stay with me during my journey. I intend to post at every available opportunity although several of my training courses mean I have to stay away so I can't make any guarantees.