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Latest Bushcraft... |
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I have woven these two mats, one from Rushes and the other
from Cattail reeds. Although they are small they are useful
for keeping things off the damp ground when sitting next to
the fire, its also a useful place to lay out small parts and
items you don't want to loose. |
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I have used a simple 'over 2 under 2' twill weave pattern.
I tried to be careful to get the pattern correct buy you can
probably spot a couple of errors if you look hard enough.
Keeping something like this indoors tends to make them go
brittle too. |
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This is a Leister spear that I have made. This type of
spear, is designed to hold the fish on the end once it has
been stabbed so that there is less chance of the fish getting
away. The shaft is Hazel wood, the central spike is Ash and
the barbs are Yew wood. The parts are lashed together with a
spruce resin mixture, Birch tar and Lime bark fibres. |
| Some useful links about spear fishing:
link1
link2 |
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I have made crossbows in the past, but now that I know
more about bow making and my wood craft skills are better, I
wanted to make another but with a lot more power. This
crossbow is the result of about 3 days of work. The main
'stock' is Beech wood and the bow is made from Yew wood. |
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I found an excellent tutorial showing how to bind the bow
to the handle
here It is extremely important that the bow is
lashed to the handle in a solid way which allows no movement.
The stirrup on the end of the crossbow is used when
re-loading, you place your foot in the stirrup and pull the
string up with both hands. I made it from a cheap coping saw
from Wilko's
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To load the crossbow you simply pull back the string into
the notch area. When you squeeze the trigger up it pushes up a
dowel underneath the string which in-turn pushes the sting up
and out of the notch to where the arrow is sitting. Its very
simple... (string not loaded in the photo) |
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As you can see, I've been busy wood carving again.
This 'Wood Spirit' on the right took me about 4 and a half hours to carve. If
you are just getting into wood carving there is some great little
project tutorials that you could try out at
http://www.carvingpatterns.com/ If you go right down the page you
will see tutorials about starting your first wood carving, etc..
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This one took me many hours to complete. Its based on the
kind of decoration you might find in churches. If you have any
questions about tools etc, just send me an email. |
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I have woven these two bags from 100% Sedge leaves. I saw similar bags
on the first episode of 'Ray Mears Wild Food', they were being
used by the Aboriginals to leech toxins from Yams in a river. I wanted
to try and replicate one of these bags but using materials available
in England, I found that dried Sedge leaves are perfect because they
are strong enough and flexible.
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| The bags are quite simple to
make, its just a continuous 'twining' weave all the way round
the the basket. To make the basket wide to start I kept on
adding new uprights. |
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