John Fenna said:
Well a few more “field craft” and “how to” articles were requested, so I wandered up to the woods today. There were a couple of fallen birch trees (due to the rain and wind of late) and it seemed too good an opportunity to miss so I decided to do a quick birch bark dipper on the off chance it interested someone.
So before we start, we need a blunt “bark wedge” to pry the bark from the tree. This has the advantage of being thin enough to insert under the bark to pry the bark from the tree but also being blunt so as not to pierce the bark and spoil its water proofing properties.
A good opportunity to demonstrate one of my favourite grips – the chest lever.
I picked up a fallen branch and took out my trusty Mora. Note the “underhand” grip braced against the chest a good suck of air to swell the rib cage and a tense of the forearm and thick chips fairly fly
In four cuts we have a blunt wedge that won’t pierce the bark when peeling it from the tree
Next we I inspected the trunk to find a 12” section with no lumps, bumps, branches or burrs. This is the section I will peel the bark from. Its really important to do this on a dead tree – doing it to a living tree is called “ring barking” and will kill the tree.
Having selected my area, I cut through the outer bark all the way round the tree
I then did the same again 12” along the trunk to make two concentric circles right around the tree
After this I made one long cut to join up the two circles. Note the two handed cut to apply a lot of pressure to ensure the cut is right through the bark
In fact I made two of all of these cuts in a wedge shape to let me insert the wedge under the bark and peel it back without danger of splitting or tearing
Now this is the delicate bit – get your bark wedge under the bark and very gently start to lift the bark from the trunk
After a while you will be getting well under the bark and lifting it off
Go gentle and slow. If you get to a “sticky bit” ease the bark away from the trunk and use your knife to cut through the obstacle like this
After a bit of careful effort, you should end up with a neat rectangle of bark looking a little like this
Okay, now, once you have a good size piece of (waterproof) birch bark, there are a multiple possibilities – square bowls through scoring and folding, roof tiles for shelters, match cases, gathering baskets, all sorts.
This time though, we are going for a simple “dipper” cup. So a branch makes the handle and clip all in one. For this I need a thin branch with a side branch coming from it. I’ll use my pocket saw to gain this although a knife would do.
I sawed the branch about 2” from the side branch. Then I used my knife to split down to the side branch spur. The grain swirl stops the split running. I cut two parallel splits and removed a sliver of wood
Finally I cut a rough oval from my bark, folded a triangle of the oval inwards to form a cone and pushed the folded area into the wedge I cut in my “dipper” handle. We end up with a completely watertight cone and a neat handle to drink from. I could neaten it up, but this was designed to be fast and “functional”
Quick bark work is fun!
Red
