Blood and Sawdust

Normally I’d hang them up for a few weeks to dry so the binding don’t go slack, but since I have a deadline I’ll just cinch them up for a bit then bind them.

Two unfinished besom heads. On the right, made of American Beech, in the middle made of Mountain Laurel, and a bluestem broom on the left.

Working on some besom heads, Beech (r) and Laurel (m) with a bluestem broom on the left. Besoms are hard brooms for outdoor use (lawns, walks, etc.) but would sweep your dirt floor right out the door. The softer grass broom is better for floors and dusting without breaking the crockery.

A pack basket made from woven Autumn Olive stems. It has two shoulder straps made from braided hemp twine.

Things were so miserably hot & humid last year the straps on my pack basket rotted. New ones of braided jute. #basketmaking #woodworking

A 6-foot bundle of dried native grasses that have been cleaned and sorted. A black poodle stands nearby.

To make brooms, first you have to have broom makings. Here’s the first bundle of bluestem/Indian grass, cleaned and sorted. Standard Poodle for scale. #broommaking #woodworking

Title page: Woodworking in Estonia.

ALERT…ALERT…

New woodworking tome has arrived!

Insufferable geeking to follow.

Congratulations!

Thanks, I don’t expect broommaking to be a big draw, but there aren’t many folks doing pre-19th century (before broomcorn). Mostly folks doing artisanal brooms or for religious use. It’s not difficult, just need the right materials. I like the ephemeral stuff that rarely survived.

A hand sickle, a knife with a 3/4 circular blade edged on the inside.

An early modern woodcut of a worker returning from the vineyard with a basket of grapes and a sickle tucked in his belt.

Today’s implement of destruction is a sickle. An old agricultural tool and revolutionary’s ad hoc weapon. For beech I cheat and use pruners for cleaner cuts.

Two besoms on the left, made from American beech twigs and bound with hemp cord.

Besoms (the old general term for brooms) are most still, made from twigs or brush (I use American beech mostly). Think the traditional witch’s broom, or Harry Potter. Great for lawns, walkways, animal stalls, etc.

Medium/Hard brooms have stiffer bristles and more bite. I use Big Bluestem or a mix. For interior floors, hearths, &tc. (you don’t want too hard for dirt floors or you’ll sweep your floor out the door). For hearths, dip in water in case of hot coals (dry grass here, highly flammable).

Little bluestem in a meadow. It grows in dense clumps to 2-3 feet high.

A brush made from little bluestem.

I generally do three kinds of brooms/brushes. Soft are for cobwebs and dusting the crockery. I mostly use Little Bluestem for this, which has a softer stem. The drawback is a plethora of seed tufts, which makes cleaning necessary if you prefer a seed-free interior.

Morning sun shines across a meadow filled with native grasses (mostly little blue stem, big blue stem). The grass is dry and a tan/light brown color.

Jamestown Settlement MTA is in a few weeks, and I offered to make some brooms for the fort and do some demos. While not the ideal time for harvesting broom grass, last year’s meadow had a robust crop and even with our ugly winter weather, there’s still a good bit standing.

Time to feed the rabbits?

two south park characters reading a newspaper with the words dude i did n't know there was such a thing ALT: two south park characters reading a newspaper with the words dude i did n't know there was such a thing

That’s…a thing.

Over here, that’s “Bobby, International Dog of Mystery.”

Very nice!

If you’re in the Virginia Tidewater the weekend of March 21-22, drop by Jamestown Settlement Museum for their annual Military Through the Ages event.

From RuralHistoria: Jim Bicknell was one of the last traditional broom besom makers in the rural village of Hillgrove, near Lurgashall in West Sussex, England. By the late 1950s, crafts like his were rapidly disappearing due to industrialisation, yet Bicknell continued practicing methods that had remained largely unchanged for centuries. This 1958 photograph is significant because it captures this rural craft at the end of its era, a time when mechanised brush factories were replacing handmade besoms and traditional woodland trades were rapidly disappearing. As such, images of Bicknell at work serve as an important visual record of a nearly vanished skill.

Interesting that he appears to be using a belt to conch the broomhead.

Alt Text with description from RuralHistoria on FB.

Very cool. Thanks!

I did not. Where?

Pictures of two knife sheaths with knives. One is made of heavy leather, with stitching running up the sides. It has been molded to conform to the knife’s shape. The other is a wooden sheath that has been turned on a lathe. It has decorative rings and a braided string hanger.

I like the turned sheaths I made a few years back for my carving knives. However, I have to confess I’ve never found any pre-modern or early modern examples of such. Who cares? Not many, but it was an excuse to make a leather sheath closer to historical finds. #woodworking #leatherworking

Four knife sheathes. Three are wooden, one of which is carved in the shape of a fish. The fourth is leather. All have braided string hangers.

Why yes, I do have four sheathes for the same knife (guess which one I didn’t make). And it’s one I don’t use very often.

Sumpun’s wrong with that boy….

Woodworking is definitely a craft of risk.

A thermometer showing a temperature of 5 degrees Fahrenheit.

Meanwhile…on the other side of the Atlantic…

The bark of Flowering Dogwood, gray with rough scales in vaguely rectangular blocks. This tree was struck by a large deadfall oak and will likely not survive, so I plan to harvest the wood.

A section of Flowering Dogwood trunk.

Further inspection of our winter woods reveals more deadfalls, with some bad news and some good news. The bad: a fairly mature dogwood was caught under a large fallen oak. The good: I love working with dogwood but hate cutting them for my own use. #woodworking #woodcraft #bushcraft

A white poodle named Emerson stands in a thin cover of snow, backlit by morning sunshine.

We’re forecast to get as low as -18 C next week. Stay cool.

—Emerson

I think the aircraft is a Dornier Do-17.

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Oh great, I can totally see Magats shooting at each other to get the bullets to collide and turn them into gold.