Recent content by Dave Budd

Welcome! I too am an experimental archaeologist, well I did the experimental Masters at Exeter 20 odd years ago :lmao: If you've not already done so, I suggest talking to Prof Linda Hurcombe, aside from running the Msc at Exeter she has an interest in prehistoric fibres.

tengu, if you think that's probably-useful-clutter never look in my sheds! I've probably a small warehouse's worth of stuff in various sheds around my woods! :lmao:

i experimented with the auger tapping myself, since I have a lot of mature birch trees and 15-17 years ago had the time to to that sort of thing. I tried dry wood and fresh wood, wax, plastic, and rubber bungs. The best success for survival was amongst the trees that I just left the holes open...

I remember when they were just a decent hardware/tool shop in the town of Axminster (Devon) :) One of my first visits to the shop (when they only had the one!) involved me rummaging through their wood store and then wandering around the town trying to find my way back to the actual shop with...

you don't need a forge to anneal for drilling, just a plumbers blowtorch ;-) if you heat the area to be drilled to a very dull red then it will be soft enough to drill with standard HSS drill bits. Or buy carbide drills and don't bother, they will drill through hardened steel. Or even make a...

Nice looking knife :) Always lots of character in old files and rasps I've made lots of file knives and since I only use a couple of brands of file I took the time to try some heat treating recipes to make sure they worked. That then led to me just retempering the file instead of going...

haemerlin barrows all the way for me! They have the right sort of capacity, wide tops, relatively short legs (which means I don't have to lift the handles too high to get it above the lumps in the ground surface), solidly built and easy to handle. I always replace the wheels with solid PU ones...

All of the saddles that I know swear by Renapor and Sheritons leather balsom. They also swear about/against dubbin and neetsfoot oil. The oils make the leather flexible but weakens the fibres in the long run whereas the wax based balsoms nourish the leather, waterproofs and doesn't make it...

As just mentioned, any structure that is available to be slept in requires planning permission. Shepherds huts and caravans are movable so pass as seasonal abodes when working the woodland, but they should still be moved between seasons or they are thought of as permanent, I too have had the...

half a tonne would maybe build a kennel, not a 10x10 workshop! If it's stand alone cob without a timber frame I'm guessing something like 5 maybe 10 tonnes. Around my way the houses are built from cob and even a garage sized shed has walls of over two feet in thickness If it's a timber frame...

I live in Devon, where most structures over 80 years old are cob. I've also helped build iron age round houses as well as wattle and daub structures (I'm an experimental archaeologist by training), so yes, I'm aware of the need for clay :lmao::lmao:

I use steel ammo boxes to keep things out of rodent munching. My beds were foam army mattresses straight onto the floor but I would lean them up against the posts when not in use to keep things from chewing or nesting in them. The shelter in that woodlands UK link is basically a very...

What species of tree and what sort of sizes do you have there? I've made benders from all sorts of wood, so long as it's young and fresh it will normally bend enough to do this! Oak and many other trees will happily split (even if it's been down a few years), but it will split according to it's...

When I first took on my woods I did exactly as Toddy describes to give me some shelter to get out of the wind and rain whilst cutting. It also gave me a dry space to store tools overnight rather than carrying everything home. I did get a bit posh towards the end and bent several saplings in...

Like Stew says, the strength of the bender type structure is in the arch of the roof. If you build it out of straight poles you have several problems. Firstly is that they will not be as sturdy from side loads such as wind unless the uprights are pretty chunky and driven in deep. Secondly the...