Home Made Adz - Carving a Bowl

[Paleoaleo]

Hello folks, some friends told me about this great website and I came over for a look-see. Man, this is great! It's fantastic to find other folks who are interested in the same kind of things.

Thought I'd post some photos of an adz I made out of an old truck leaf-spring, and show you a bowl I made using the adz, and some other tools:

Here's a photo of a split sycamore log, my adz, and two small axes (one a Gransfor and the other fashioned out of a rail road spike) I'm about to use to make a bowl. The wood is "green."

Here I've used my axe to flatten the bottom of the bowl, and to begin to shape the handles:

Now I'm using a drawknife to clean up the handle areas, and the outside of the bowl:

Here's a shot of the rough outside shape:

Using my home made adz to begin to hollow out the bowl. Note that the blade is easily removed from the handle. This is a style of adz common to the North/west Pacific Coast of North America.:

The adz makes short work of the hollowing process:

Next, I switch to a bent, spoon gouge to work some more on the bowl:

I also use another Pacific North/West Coast Indian style carving tool - a crooked knife to help hollow the bowl:

Here's a pic of some new crooked knife blades that I recently forged out of a couple of old "*******" files:

Crooked knives are excellent for carving spoons and bowls and such!

Anyway...here's the almost finished green wood bowl:

I'll let it dry for a while (inside a paper sack so it dries slowly and avoids cracking), and then finish it up.

I know it's nothing fancy! I'm not very good at carving, but do enjoy trying. I especially enjoy making things using tools that I made from scratch!

Tom Mills
California, USA

 

[Paganwolf]

A man after my own heart Tom, thats a great tutorial matey, nice to see you making your own tools :biggthump , let us know how it dries out, are you going to sand it to a finish or are you going to leave it rustic looking? And welcome to BCUK buddy great to have you here

 

[zen]

Looks great to me Paleoaleo :You_Rock_

Who needs 'fancy' when you have function in hand worked beautiful wood?

Keep up the good work :biggthump

 

[bambodoggy]

Nice one Mate....that looks cool....and has inspired me to grab a log off my woodpile this evening and have a go! Thanks ):

 

[jakunen]

Nice one mate. Looks like a nice peice of kit that would grace anyone's table. Keep up the good work. And welcome to the virtual camp.

 

[JakeR]

Looks great!!! Me thinks your modest.....

 

[TheViking]

Excellent tutorial. It's a really nice bowl! And welcome to bcuk. :biggthump

 

[Nightfall]

Hi welcome to bcUk. Nice bowl. Your knapping of glass is also very good.

 

[Hoodoo]

Tom, that is some excellent work all the way around. Great carving and great tool making! Very impressive! :You_Rock_

 

[Hoodoo]

Tom, that is some excellent work all the way around. Great carving and great tool making! Very impressive! :You_Rock_

 

[Gary]

BRILLIANT - this is what its all about!!

Tom what did you use for the Adze blade?

 

[Paganwolf]

Quote Tom * a leaf spring form an old truck....

 

[Gary]

ohh I missed that - too many pretty pictures!!

Thanks Paganwolf (you C**KY G**) :rolmao:

 

[Snufkin]

Nice bowl Tom :biggthump and I still haven't made an adze yet.

 

[tomtom]

Thats a great bowl! im going to try it when i got me knew hook knife! :biggthump

 

[Paganwolf]

ohh I missed that - too many pretty pictures!!

Thanks Paganwolf (you C**KY G**) :rolmao:

I was merely helping a senior site citizen out :?:

 

[Dave Bliss]

Absolutely splendid old chap ! how do you like my English accent ? that is a wonderful read you have just shown me,thanks a lot mate. Love the bit about the paper bag, it was one of the many things I didnt know that I now do . Many thanks and welcome aboard

 

[Paleoaleo]

Thank you for your kind words! My problem is that I get involved in too many things, and never spend enough time with any one to get very good at any of them! Jack of all trades, master of none! LOL....

I just started learning how to play with fire and steel and make my own wood working tools. There's something fantastic to me about taking a piece of scrap steel and turning it into a useful tool.

At the risk of seeming like a boor, I'll post some more photos of some tools I've made. As i've said to others before...aside from my internet friends, there aren't many people in my life who actually give a damn about this kind of stuff. My mates at work think I'm a bit nuts (daft, as you'd say), as does most of my family.

So here goes!

Here's a pic of the cutting edge of that adz above. I meant to include this pic earlier. I put the bevel on the outside of the blade:

These are my first attempts at making a bent spoon gouge. The straight chisel in the photo was made from al old file:

The gouge was a bit tricky to make, but I had fun and it came out pretty well! Here's another pic of some nicer handles that I turned for them:

Here's another gouge I made. This one is bent only slightly, and it has a much flatter cutting edge:

I seem to get a lot of use out of a skew chisel, so I thought I'd set about making myself a number of them in different sizes. Here's a medium to small sized one I made a few weeks ago:

Here's a pic of a little forge I made out of a fire brick. I carved a chamber out of the inside of the brick, and have a small hole in the left side. You can just make out the head of the propane torch sticking in the side of the brick:

Although I have a larger propane forge, I use this little one for heating small blades (like that skew chisel).

Here's a pic from the side, so you can see the set-up a little better:

I hope it's Ok to post so many photos.

Thanks again for your warm welcome and your kind words. It's nice to meet you folks!

Tom

 

[dtalbot]

Excellent addxe and bowl

 

[tomtom]

thats a good simple idea for a forge.. what sort of tourch do you use?