Need "Birch Bark for Dummies"

[IntrepidStu]

Ive seen clips of people making things with Birch Bark and have even found wet and nasty stuff on fallen trees but I have never figureed out EXACTLY what is used when making baskets etc. The stuff on the dead trees appears to be made up of several layers but just seems to crumble. If taken from a "just died" or even live tree, where EXACTLY does the bark end and the tree beggin???

Thanx peeps, I know Its a newbie question but I dont want to kill any trees by cutting too deep. I suppose it would help if I knew the interior make-up of the tree (or ANY tree for that matter).

Stu.

 

[RobertRogers]

In areas where paper birches live, you can almost always find bark that has been stripped off by natural process such as the wind - often in large sheets - and laying on the ground. Just takes a bit of looking. I find these sheets of bark most workable as it is precisely the flexible portion that is removed by wind.

If you enjoy the forest and choose to respect the land and the life in it, do not remove birch bark from live trees as it will damage them by allowing insects and rot to attack the tree. This bark is there for a purpose.

If you subscribe to the theory that the earth and its living things was put here for mankind to subdue and pillage, then by all means strip off bark in great sheets from the trees. It only takes 50 or 60 years for a new tree to reach the point where someone else, in a future generation, can strip off that bark and kill that tree too.

In addition, for those who are more into the way things look, having birch trees with ugly stripped off bark scars ruins the view and depresses the value of real estate to developers and land owners.

 

[john scrivy]

very nicley put Robert and very true

 

[IntrepidStu]

It is a good point BUT it does not even attempt to answer the original question!!

Even if the Bark is from a dead tree (which I specified in the original post) then what parts do I use and what di I scrape away???

What is the layering system for Birch bark, and what layers do I use??

I knew the implications of asking a question like this; that is why I tried to explain myself properly in the ORIGINAL post to avoid unwaranted responces.

 

[robin wood]

In areas where paper birches live, you can almost always find bark that has been stripped off by natural process such as the wind - often in large sheets - and laying on the ground. Just takes a bit of looking. I find these sheets of bark most workable as it is precisely the flexible portion that is removed by wind.

If you enjoy the forest and choose to respect the land and the life in it, do not remove birch bark from live trees as it will damage them by allowing insects and rot to attack the tree. This bark is there for a purpose.

If you subscribe to the theory that the earth and its living things was put here for mankind to subdue and pillage, then by all means strip off bark in great sheets from the trees. It only takes 50 or 60 years for a new tree to reach the point where someone else, in a future generation, can strip off that bark and kill that tree too.

In addition, for those who are more into the way things look, having birch trees with ugly stripped off bark scars ruins the view and depresses the value of real estate to developers and land owners.

I agree with this sentiment up to a point but I think we should also acknowledge that there are cultures (particularly in northern Scandinavia and Russia) that live very much in touch with the forest and for millennia have harvested birch bark in a sustainable manner without causing long term harm to the trees. There are differences that make it viable there and not here, the bark there tends to be cleaner and thicker, they strip it only during a short window in the spring as the sap rises and only take the outer layers not the inner cambium. The trees heal very quickly and show no adverse signs though the regrown bark is always grainy black and as Robert says it's not pretty. Here is what it looks like.

n some ways it is quite similar to stripping cork oaks of their bark for cork though birch has been stripped for several thousands of years longer.

 

[Toadflax]

You are bit further North than me, Stu, but I suspect that you may be in a similar position to me in that the bark on Birch doesn't really grow thick enough to use for watertight containers. I believe that it is thicker further North (e.g. top end of Scotland and Scandinavia) because it grows thicker to help insulate the tree during the colder winters.

In my experience, long fallen trees do not provide good bark for container work - the bark is too old, dry and crispy for anything other than firelighting. What you really want is a tree that has fallen not too long ago. In this case, the bark (certainly in Southern England) is only maybe 1mm or so thick. I run the point of my knife in a straight line in the direction of the trunk (i.e. vertically if the tree were still standing) and it is really obvious when you have cut through the usable bark as it does begin to separate from the wood. You then need to cut a couple of 'circles' around the trunk and then start gently to ease the bark away from the trunk. It's best to use something relatively soft to do this (e.g. a stick sharpened into a chisel shape) - I've used my knife before and it scratches the bark.

If the bark comes away cleanly and is 'leathery' then it is fairly good - it's difficult to describe, but when you've got a good bit of bark, you'll know. The inner surface is a nice shiny brown colour.

You will probably find that the bark has lots of small horizontal slits in it (which make it useless for watertight containers unless you plug these with pine resin or something similar). However, you can make containers for loose items (nuts /berries) or split the bark into strips for woven baskets. You will also probably find that there are quite a number of knobbly bits (I think where lower branches were growing when the tree was young) which limit the size of the sheet that you can obtain from the tree.

Hope this helps.


Geoff

 

[IntrepidStu]

Thanks Geoff, Thats Exactly the kind of advice I was looking for. One more thing though; how do you make the bark more Pliable to enable it to bend.
Cheers.
Stu.

 

[spamel]

use heated water, but not boiling hot or else it coils up real quick and it's a nightmare to straighten back out again! Don't ask me how I know that!

 

[spamel]

I actually took some photos from Silverwood Scout Camp a while back to show the damage that can be caused by people with a little knowledge of the use of birch bark for fire lighting duties. I forgot to post them back then, so I'll include them here. The naturally shedding bark is what is required for fire lighting from a living tree. By taking these peelings off, you don't harm the tree in any way and you can gather a lot in a short time, unless you're on a Scouts' camp!

Once you start peeling off sheets of bark, you start to cause more damage to the tree. Ringing the tree is certain to kill it off. Underneath the bark, the wood turns a nasty sore looking red colour once exposed.

I am not fully sure if a birch tree can recover from this or not, as far as I was aware, ringing the bark will kill the tree off but leaving this amount of the underneath of the bark exposed will allow beetles and disease easy access to the tree so will probably kill it too. Saying that, birch is a pioneer species and grows very fast in almost any conditions. Even from a distance, you can see the damage caused by eager scouts who unfortunately haven't been shown the correct way.

 

[Toadflax]

use heated water, but not boiling hot or else it coils up real quick and it's a nightmare to straighten back out again! Don't ask me how I know that!

And once it's softened from the water and I've shaped it, I use clothes pegs to hold it in shape until it has dried, before I sew it up with pine root lacing.


Geoff