birch bark spacers

[badgeringtim]

Fairly daft question i think.
But for birch bark spacers i salvaged a good foot of silver birch bark.
Its now dried out and curled up quite tight, can i soak it and encourage it to dry flatter. It also seems quite brittle, i think i have the outer good for fire bark and the underneath thicker more barky bark. Do i use them both for the spacers? Im sure i do but it dont quite look right, or maybe there are birch cultivars which dont do this as well?
Was from a (fresh) felled tree so no fear of damaging it.

Thanks!

 

[brancho]

Its only the outer bark that is used you can soak it in water to straighten it but its grown in the UK you will be lucky if its thick enough to be worth using.

Good stuff (outer bark only) is about 2 mm thick

 

[badgeringtim]

I kinda thought that was the case, the work i have seen in scandinavia is definately the outer bark.
But since i had some i thought it would be worth looking at.
Out of interest why couldnt the under bark be used as well, i mean for spacers. It does have a slightly corky maybe brittle consistancy.
Pondering...did i just answer my own question there....?

So birch back is thicker in colder places - or those with longer winters as there is less of a growing season or something like that. So where in say, Norway is it worth collecting.
I know of good few log piles in the Vestfold should it be up to par there i wonder...?

cheers

 

[wncranger]

You might try searching for "stabilizing wood". It might help or not. A lot of knife makers publish articles on the web about it.

 

[caliban]

I tried to make a "barkie" from local birch. It was thin, but stacked up nicely. I ran out of bark and interspersed bark and leather from an old belt, it doesn't look as good as the bark alone was looking.. The result was utilitarian, but certainly worked. If you have enough bark it'll mkae a great looking handle. Just use a thin smear of epoxy between each spacer and it wont split. Here's the "bodged" result. Not pretty like bark, but incorporating UK bark, so it shows it'd work. Give it a go mate!

Bad photo alert!

 

[brancho]

The outer bark contains oils and does not rot so is good to make things with. The inner bark rots readily and crumbles when dry so not so useful.
I collected some good thick bark in Germay near Berlin and yes it seems to grow thicker where the winters are colder.

Birch bark spacers do look nice though

heres a knife I made with about five 2 mm thick spacers aquired from teh goodstuffshop.de

I dont understand the stabilising reference

 

[mic201m]

... here is a picture of a knife I made using " thin "local bark ,

it came out ok.

I seem to remember ? I used about 90 bits plus leather and buffalo.

regards mic

 

[brancho]

Thats nice mic I need to make a stacked handle
Lauri 95?