Apple Wood

Driving through Exmoor, we were scanning the landscape for the characteristic crooked and spindly branches of apple-trees. Somerset is an area known for its cider and apple-orchards so we came prepared with a foldable saw in the hope of picking up some apple-wood for the BTWC. Next to the ruins of an ancient abbey there was a little lonely apple-tree that caught our attention. It had not grown enough fibrous mass to be of any interest to us so we decided to look for some wood in the forest up the hill.

There was plenty of muddy, bug-covered wood lying around on the ground near a creek and we sawed off some pieces just for fun before proceeding into the thick foliage of the ivy covered forest, still with apple in mind. The type of wood that we had encountered just outside was growing here in abundance. It was a weird kind of parasitic tree that grew along the trunks of other trees or anything else that it could hold of, sometimes just stretching out its arms into thin air in the hope of getting hold of a new victim. The strangling attitude of the ivy and this tree gave us a very bad vibes so we backed out of the forest and went back to the car to try out the pieces we had with a knife. The wood turned out to be really crap and it seemed evil through and through. It was left in a muddy puddle as we made off with haste.

We stopped at an orchard, looked at a giant hog, had some eggs and asked for advice on finding apple-wood without any informative reply. After driving around without coming across any suitable trees, we gave up and followed a sign to a local attraction; the Bakelite Museum in Williton. The museum which is run by Patrick Cook in an old watermill, contains hundreds maybe thousands bakelite objects. Bakelite is the first successful synthetic plastic to be produced on a large scale and the collection reflects the multiple uses of this now obsolete material (there was even an old Mora Knife with a nice bakelite sheath on display).




On leaving the museum, with the West Country light failing, we saw a felled apple branch in a sheep field. Ample in girth and respectable in length, there was surely 25 kilos of good core wood to be had. Through careful negotiations with knowledgeable locals, we learnt that the owner of the field was also the proprietor of the Bakelite Museum. Having gained his permission, we scaled the fence and began to saw the mass into manageable chunks, while friendly sheep watched on with a peaceful demeanor not familiar from previous experience of the nervous herd animals.


The largest log is over two feet in length and half a foot in diameter at its smallest. Others are more manageable. The pieces are currently resting, seasoning in the cool hall outside the BTWC premises, their exposed ends sealed up with emulsion paint to prevent the cracking associated with too rapid drying.

Cut of the week

The cut came in on a parallel angle to the finger so it is not deep but the area affected is quite big.

Inuit

The Inuit people are known for their simple small carving made out of ivory or stone. Sometimes these small figurines were worn as amulets for good luck when hunting or used in shamanic rituals. The polar-bear is a particularly popular motif and there is a whole strain of carvings referred to as 'dancing bears' where the animal is depicted in an animated or playful state.

Cut of the week

Just a small red drop

Burning

This monkey was whittled out of lime tree. I later burned it over a flame to give it a black, velvety surface. I´v had a hard time to decide weather to paint or not to paint my whittlings so this seemed like a good compromise. It was inspired by a part from Gustave Flaubert's 'Salammbo' where some drunken soldiers put trees on fire and try to cut off the trunks of elephants and eat their ivory:

"The trees behind them were still smoking; from their blackened branches the half-burned corpses of monkeys fell from time to time into the middle of the dishes. The drunken soldiers snored open-mouthed beside the dead bodies; and those who were not asleep hung their heads, dazzled by the light. The trampled earth was covered with pools of red. The elephants swung their bleeding trunks between the stakes of their pens."

Somewhere...

...out there...he is whittling away...

A letter to BTWC...

Hi,

Thought I'd send you a photo of a whittling knife which is now in my possession - As you can see it has been well used and I suspect that it is at least 30-40 years old - Its a "Laguiole" - top of the range for whittling - they are still made by hand in the factory in Lozere, France.

The knife was owned by Jacky, the father of a friend in the South of France - Jacky was "very French".... When I knew him, he had retired and spent every day in a local bar drinking pastis, holding forth on any pretty much any topic and smoking many, many cigarettes. Jacky has an interesting if slightly macabre history - He married young, worked as a mason and was a talented footballer - In his 19th summer, he was offered a position to play for the Marseille football team - starting at the beginning of the coming season - during that summer whilst on the job, fell from some scaffolding and broke both of his legs - Having destroyed his impending football career - Jacky took a shotgun, put it to his stomach and pulled the trigger on both barrels....... He lived, wasn't seriously disabled by the shotgun blasts and I therefore had the pleasure of meeting the quick tempered and forthright Jacky many times - I had a penchant for wearing heavy boots at the time - he used to call them my "pantoufles"

His son gave me the knife when Jacky died.....These days I whittle cheese with his knife and open the occasional letter......

Tony

Chalk

Recently some members of the whittling-club went on a road-trip to the mysterious shell-grotto in Margate. A detour on the way home led the company into a cleft between white chalk-cliffs just as twilight was setting in. The water had cut a grotto into the white cliff and it was filled with carved scribbles; a remainder of the soft constitution of chalk. There was plenty of round chalk pebbles of various sizes to be collected for a test-go with the knife.

The conclusion is that chalk is really easy to cut but it gives you uncomfortably dry hands and is rather brittle. Instantly gratifying, but transient.

The feet of the man broke off so he got a pair of clay-boots

Cut of the week

Maeve had the cut of the week as she tried to whittle Cheburashka (pictured above).

At first, the second meeting of the BTWC seemed to get by without any incidents, but towards the end the cuts became frequent with some people cutting themselves in the exactly same spot twice. Tiredness combined with a slight frustration over the slow progress of whittling, can tempt one too use force on the blade in an incorrect way. The action steps might then proceed something like this:

bad grip

grain split

knife slip

skin rip

blood drip

Beside Maeve´s, most of the cuts were not very deep and a clean cut with a sharp knife heals fast. Luckily BTWC always keeps its knifes sharp.

Work in Progress

Some finished & unfinished work by the honorable members of the BTWC....

Bird with feathers by Amy

Skull, Bart & psychedelic-Bart by Jack

Sharpened sticks with decorative bark by various members.

Beetroot stained seal by Ben T.

Unfinished figures by Gwennan, Jacob and Amy.

Spoons by Hugh & Mark.

Unfinished Cheburachka by Maeve and Paloma by Ben T.

Little man and big man by Jack.

A medieval monster by Gery.

Owl-man by Jana.

Naked woman legs with stockings by Ben B.

Butter-knife by Ksenia.