Make a shed from wood in woodland or buy cheap wooden one?

[bushcraftlearner83729]

The thing about a bender is that it can be incredibly temporary.

At this time of year my willows are four metres tall, and I can just bend them down, tie a bit of string onto the tip and fasten that down with a big peg.
They arch beautifully, let me throw a chute over the top and give me shelter enough out of the wind and the smirr.

You don't need to kill trees to make a bender if you have willow and hazel is kind of what I'm getting at.
Especially when they are out of leaf.

Just uncover them and they'll grow again. Indeed, if you just leave them they'll happily spread their roots and come up with fresh shoots in the light beside the walls.

That is a question I had as I noticed the dome willow structures for sale are the living kind where all the leaves grow around the surface. I did wonder what would happen if that were covered over with a tarp or what not.

A great stealthy structure would be somehow having the skin inside and allowing the trees to still grow unfettered on the outside. Not sure how you would attach that though without loads of hole to keep the inner skin up unless you did a double dome and put the skin over the inner one.

 

[bushcraftlearner83729]

I have a friend who lives permanently in a bender; mind she is a specialist primitive shelter builder and builds them, and other primitive shelters, on commission

Stealthy plug? Website?

 

[bushcraftlearner83729]

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 together and made a kind of half cone with a tarp over it about 3x4m

I have a few longer willow cuttings from back in summer when trimming back the front edge by the drive which have been out in the garden. Maybe 20 or so about 2m in length. They should be old enough to not grow now right but from what is said above wouldn't matter if they do? Still bendy.

A person from one of the willow sites informed me willow will only root about a month after having cut them.

Have a bigger tarp to take with me so will see what I can come up with with those.

 

[Broch]

A person from one of the willow sites informed me willow will only root about a month after having cut them.

That isn't true, I had a willow stick sprout that had been cut six months. However, the fresher they go in the ground the more likely they'll take.

 

[Toddy]

If they stay damp at all, they'll take.

Sometimes the problem is not growing willows

 

[Toddy]

Valid points.

Well that is only if you happen to have bendy type trees in your woodland, which I don't as far as I know hence why I suggested the none bendy type as those are the trees I have.

Depends though, just how bendy do they have to be? Will most tree types work to a degree just that hazel or willow work better? Ones that are less bendy couldn't you just make more joints from smaller pieces to form the bends?

Yes the angular none bendy ones just seem simpler in my mind somehow.

You're not thinking 'natural' shaping. You're a little stuck on 'construction' and squares and hard angles.

Nothing wrong with that, but it needs expensive materials, it needs more specialised tools to build, etc.,

Think round houses and stuff kind of flows.....and you can use what you have.

If you have fallen saplings (the oaks you said ? ) then I can guarantee that those will split and bend.

 

[bushcraftlearner83729]

You're not thinking 'natural' shaping. You're a little stuck on 'construction' and squares and hard angles.

Nothing wrong with that, but it needs expensive materials, it needs more specialised tools to build, etc.,

Think round houses and stuff kind of flows.....and you can use what you have.

If you have fallen saplings (the oaks you said ? ) then I can guarantee that those will split and bend.

Ok so I just had a look at the smaller bit of woodland where they are only about wrist thickness and from the leaves all over the ground I am guessing they must also be oak as well as they have the distinctive wavy shape.

Are you saying I could split big fallen oaks without chainsaw and just bow saw and chisel and such? Do I just do like one would do with breaking firewood but on a bigger scale? Make a wedge in and hammer through?

I was just reading up on the woodland trust site and they say that oak can be coppiced and pollarded too so I don't know why people were down on me for suggesting that when the creme de la creme WT have recommended it.

Types of woodland management - Woodland Trust

A detailed look at how and when to carry out the techniques of coppicing, pollarding, formative pruning and thinning.

www.woodlandtrust.org.uk

 

[Tengu]

Yes you can.

Cropped on a 25 year basis.

 

[Toddy]

Oak rives......that means that it can be split along it's length.

You can kedge it open and just carefully work the split along the entire length.

It takes care, but it's very do-able.

Pollarding, good pollarding is a skill. It's not just brutalise a growing tree.

If done well it will produce a regular crop of useful timbers for in some species hundreds of years.
The usual coppicing of hazel is something like six or seven years.
Oak however, chestnut and hornbeam...you're talking nearly double that for the latter two and longer for the oak.

 

[bushcraftlearner83729]

Oak rives......that means that it can be split along it's length.

You can kedge it open and just carefully work the split along the entire length.

It takes care, but it's very do-able.

Pollarding, good pollarding is a skill. It's not just brutalise a growing tree.

If done well it will produce a regular crop of useful timbers for in some species hundreds of years.
The usual coppicing of hazel is something like six or seven years.

Ok would the big ones fallen be rotten through most likely or could there still be good wood there? Of course all depends how long they have been fallen but from my cursory glance they weren't hollowed out, which is what I would take to be long fallen, from what I saw.

Might be some propitious new ones having dropped in these winds. Not looked yet. That would be very handy!

Oak however, chestnut and hornbeam...you're talking nearly double that for the latter two and longer for the oak.

Ok I get that one would want to treat majestic 30+ year old oaks like delicate petals but these are just babies so seems unnecessary to give them the royal treatment. Kind of like when is a fetus a human.

I mean maybe 20-30 years is 'ideal' but I could do it now, regardless of their age, maybe they are that age already and this is the ideal time perchance? Then I can leave them as I will have the willows to work with.

Just cos the age isn't in the perfect goldilocks zone doesn't make it worthless does it?

Just get enough for a frame for a shelter to last a couple of years until the willows will be ripe.

However there is also the question of the big fallen ones which may make the above unnecessary. We shall see.

 

[Stew]

Oak rives......that means that it can be split along it's length.

You can kedge it open and just carefully work the split along the entire length.

It takes care, but it's very do-able.

Pollarding, good pollarding is a skill. It's not just brutalise a growing tree.

If done well it will produce a regular crop of useful timbers for in some species hundreds of years.
The usual coppicing of hazel is something like six or seven years.
Oak however, chestnut and hornbeam...you're talking nearly double that for the latter two and longer for the oak.

Are you suggesting he rives the oak and builds from that? Are you sure that’s a good idea?

 

[Toddy]

If he has fallen saplings, that are already down, well, why not ?

I'd be vexed if I thought he was going to fell living timber out of laziness though.

 

[Stew]

I just think there are easier options. I bet witha bit of wandering some hazel could be found in a hedgerow!

 

[Dave Budd]

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 growth. So if it has grown twisted them you will get propellers not boards or beams.

I think you need to try actually building a few things, starting simple with what you have. I get the impression that you don't have any experience with building structures of any sort? Play with things on a smaller scale just to get the construction and tool using techniques honed a little ;-)

Here is another structure that I made from wood. The long poles are a mixture of whatever I had that was the right size, but mostly birch, hazel and ash. The weavers were hazel, but anything that will bend will work (even cleft from larger bits, or blooming brambles in a pinch!). This structure was up for a good decade before being abandoned. I slept in it in all seasons and had a fireplace in the centre.

 

[Laurentius]

You can mould willow to make all sorts of living structures.

 

[bushcraftlearner83729]

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!

This is the million dollar question asked many times and I have had to answer no idea each time!

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 growth. So if it has grown twisted them you will get propellers not boards or beams.

I think you need to try actually building a few things, starting simple with what you have. I get the impression that you don't have any experience with building structures of any sort? Play with things on a smaller scale just to get the construction and tool using techniques honed a little ;-)

Here is another structure that I made from wood. The long poles are a mixture of whatever I had that was the right size, but mostly birch, hazel and ash. The weavers were hazel, but anything that will bend will work (even cleft from larger bits, or blooming brambles in a pinch!). This structure was up for a good decade before being abandoned. I slept in it in all seasons and had a fireplace in the centre.

Great, thanks. Your images give me a much better picture of what I can do. Yes I certainly would have enough to make something with whatever the little trees are that I have. It is just everyone mentions either hazel or willow for these types of structures I thought anything else was 'worthless'.

Now brambles...I have a seemingly infinite amount of. Trip over those blighters most days and there is about a 30ft x 30ft patch of almost only brambles! I had actually considered clearing that and siting a structure there.

I have used the brambles a couple of times for cordage. The more use I can put those things to the better!

If you slept there in all seasons how did you keep rodents away? One unforeseen thing that I came across as I got back is they had gotten into my rice bags I had left on the ground. I thought there would be no problem since they were air tight so figured they would not know to gnaw into them but I also saw they have chewed right through empty meths HDPE plastic bottle caps! So I guess they just have an instinct to gnaw at stuff until they chew into something tasty!

Will have to keep that in mind now for food storage.

 

[bushcraftlearner83729]

Ok so update.

Today I felled 8 bits of 'roundwood' timber ranging from 5cm to 10cm in thickness. I measured them all to be around 12ft in length in since I have had the general idea of 10ft x 10ft for a structure. No Idea how I should arrange them now though?

As I was hauling from the other part of the woodland I suddenly realized this would not be fun to carry the whole structure's worth the approx 1km which is how far it is to the main site. By 8 I was done for the day.

Although I will make use of the bigger tarp I actually prefer a lean-to type of idea with wooden walls like the woodland huts I was looking up recently. I won't have enough wood in the other woodland for pieces that thick for the walls though.

I think I could with the thinner trees which are right where I want to make it anyway. It will probably use up most of this smaller, but denser, patch but then they count as 'coppiced' don't they and will be more inclined to grow thereafter.

Just want to know how to use these thicker ones I got today. Would these be good for the main struts? Then how to attach the wall wood to them? If no better suggestions I might just do the simplest one of parallel uprights and the wall logs thrown in between.

Perhaps cut them in half to give 6m which is enough to stand up in and shorter for one end to give a sloping roof.

 

[Stew]

What design are you going for now? Bender, cordwood, shed?

 

[bushcraftlearner83729]

What design are you going for now? Bender, cordwood, shed?

I wrote it in the post, lean-to.

This kind of design in terms of how the walls are stacked. Just did a quick search, not seen this round design before but was the first one I saw with the walls I had in mind.

I like that because no messing with joints or suchlike. Just stack 'em in!

I also just saw this article:

Woodland Shelter Build.

Woodland for sale throughout the UK, including woods for sale in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Advice on buying a wood, as well woodland activities, flora and fauna, conservation and other woodlandy topics.

www.woodlands.co.uk

Looks like a nice way to make use of the tarp and this is off the ground which is a bonus.

So can try both.

 

[The Frightful]

Have you thought of cob or partial cob construction as you have a small stream ?