Norwich and Norfolk group new thread!

[GearGuru]

Found this not sure if its right?

Blades for bushcraft use should be tempered at around 230C-250C for 2 hours, taken out and cooled and then tempered again for 2 hours at the same temperature.

 

[Snufkin]

JoJo, the oil will burn as you put the blade in, looks really cool but don't worry the flames go out.
As for oven tempering it depends on your steel. 220-250 degrees C will give you a rockwell hardness of around 59 with 1095 steel but 56 with 01 (a little soft I think). Also domestic oven termostats aren't super accurate. What I do is go by colour rather than a specific temperature. I put the blade in at roughly 180 degrees C and raise the temperature until it gets to a dark straw colour and let it sit for an hour. If it goes blue or purple you've got it too hot so you'll have to heat it up to non magnetic again and quench (happened on my most recent knife ). I've never bothered re-tempering the blade, I can't see what it would achieve, although I did differencially temper this latest one. When I got it to the desired colour in my oven I cooled the edge in water and layed the spine of the knife on the hot charcoal of my forge and watched as the spine turned blue and quenched the blade before the blue reached the edge. This way you get a tough blade that holds a good edge.
Post picks of your knife when you finish it though, and you Gearguru. You really don't need much room for knife making, just a workmate to work at and a bit of garden to set up your forge.

 

[Snufkin]

Day off today so I went mushrooming I got a couple of lbs of ceps, one cauliflower fungus and found a big beefsteak fungus too.
Tested out my new fire striker (see my thread in firecraft) and my latest bushseax (see my thread in cutting tools).
The knife works for trap whittling.

A few more pics.

 

[RAPPLEBY2000]

Not by any cahnce near holt or sheringham were you? i think i recogniserecognise the woods

nice fig 4 deadfall! :You_Rock_

 

[jojo]

I just got around to trying Photobucket. Just put a photo to work out how it works
Ho, good it works!!! Maybe a bit big.. That's a 15'9" canoe I built 3 years ago,

Another one I built, a 10ft kayak this time, skin on frame. This photo should be smaller.

 

[jojo]

This is the knife I am working on. The cutting edge is 3 and 3/4" long, the blade 8 and1/2" long. 4mm 01 toool steel.

The cutting edge on this one is 3 and 1/4" long and the knife 7". The scales are of rosewood.3mm 01 steel

 

[Snufkin]

Not by any cahnce near holt or sheringham were you? i think i recogniserecognise the woods

nice fig 4 deadfall! :You_Rock_

The last couple of photos were Bacton woods, Don't worry Forest Enterprise, that's not where I had the fire!

 

[Snufkin]

This is the knife I am working on. The cutting edge is 3 and 3/4" long, the blade 8 and1/2" long. 4mm 01 toool steel.

The cutting edge on this one is 3 and 1/4" long and the knife 7". The scales are of rosewood.3mm 01 steel

Those boats are lovely especially the skin one. Great knives too. :You_Rock_

 

[weekender]

JoJo

Nice pics and that canoe is beautiful (top one)

 

[RAPPLEBY2000]

yup i agree there,
text book quality canoe!!
do you have one we could take a proper look at?
how much do they go for?

 

[jojo]

Thanks for the compliments! I have sold the 15ft hunting canoe couple of years ago, in fact I must have built it about 4, 41/2 years ago time flies! I still have the skin on frame, although it is unused at the moment, my daughter is not as interested as she was and its a bit small for me! So I am probably going to sell it anyway.
I used willows branches for the ribs and a mix of woods for the rest of the frame, Alaskan Yellow Cedar and Red Cedar. The skin is painted 10oz cotton canvas. As far as prices, I don't really know, I had a quick look on Goggle and the only British builder I can find has two canoes but clinker ply buit, one 12ft for £2650 for a "basic boat" and a 16ft for £3350.
As for a price for skin on frame, again not a single builder that I can find.. I would hazard a guess at around £750/900 for a new 12ft kayak.
I would say that it would be quite possible to build a 15-16ft skin canoe for probable around £80-100, using willow branches, pine, canvas and ordinary oil based house paints, and they are actually quite tough little boats. I think they are the closest you can get to a bark canoe in that you can use natural material in the building. In fact if you use linseed oil to waterproof the skin, you can make it look like a real seal skin, without the stink!
Last year I sold a skin on frame canoe on Ebay, but I dont think I have a photo of it, my last computer died on me and I lost a lot of photos I'll look , I may have a print of it somewhere, and I'l post it if I find it.

 

[jojo]

Found them! quality not so good, they are scans of prints.

The skin on this one was a polyester fabric used in industrial osmosis pumps! Tough stuff. I could literally bounce a hammer on it when I first skinned it. Polyurethane varnish made it quite translucent.

 

[Snufkin]

Great stuff JoJo :You_Rock_ .

 

[RAPPLEBY2000]

:You_Rock_
wow a real master in boat building, i like the kayak too, amasing how you've got the curves on it!

shame i can't afford them...

mabey when i come into some cash

 

[jojo]

Thanks. I forgot to say that if anyone wants to come and have a look at the kayak and other bits and see how it's made, they are welcome. Just let me know and I'll pm my adress to you. Maybe that would give a kick up the back side and encourage me to tidy up the workshop

 

[RAPPLEBY2000]

VERY GOOD NEWS!!!!!
we have use of a new site near Norwich, it's a site i have personally asked the land owner use of for my Bushcraft/survival teaching business, and i've got it!

because the site is private and the land owner has concerns about people abusing the site i'm not going to give full details of the address on this site, prehaps better if we meet up somewhere nearby and drive to it.

basically it's a huge site encompassing part of a WW2 U.S.A.F. base, including (that i've found there are more) 3 working air raid bunkers(good condition) and many parts of buildings that are now very overgrown some just the concrete base remains, others have strange designs prehaps trench or gun sites? i have no idea. sort of chest height walls in "L" shapped rooms.

there are no water, washing, or loos. though all we need is people to bring enough water for the weekend (NO baths! )
the actual wood has several areas, derilict USAF base, hazel woods, young fruit woodland, grassland.

the woods themselves have little to offer in thatching material apart from leaf litter. there are many many hammock sites! and it's totally wild.
though there is not running water a large muddy depression indicates a possible big pond in winter.

because of the derilict nature of the USAFsite, there are areas we need to be cautious in because of holes in the ground not deep but shin snapping depth! if you were to climb over the bunkers they have a roof exit so a possible10ft drop!

the Air raid shelters (3 found so far) are usable though some debris needs clearing, before you'd spend time in them for comfort reasons.
here is one a 10 min tidy would would be enough! the shelters are approx 30ft x 8ft x8ft prehaps not for sleeping in, but good to store stuff in if it's raining

this is the entrance to the shelter very difficult to spot from any other angle notice it is totally overgrown! remember this used to be an airfield!

and here is the view imedeately to the left! and very simular to the front and right!

it's a site which as i say i am going to use for my business and for invitation only it is Private land! and not somewhere we can visit without permission by request of the owner, we need to respect this or he may not allow us to continue going!.

i suggest we should spend a weekend there fri/sat -sun and enjoy it!

certainly no trains, busy roads, public, i have visited the site twice with Damascus, he shoots for the landowner and we saw a deer in the woods!

as i say it's a bit of a gem this site! if nothing else just to figure out what the building's were for!

 

[RAPPLEBY2000]

didn't really think about it but, i've wondered what would happen to our towns if everyone up and left..

well the site has been vacant for 60 years, and has full grown trees growing through buildings! and even large concreted areas have plants growing on top, only visible because of the brick step around it!
i need to do a thorough site saftey check as i've heard of a few water stores 10 ft deep, with the manhole covers removed! so we must be be carefull, i'm not totally sure whats out there hazard-wise!

 

[leon-b]

sounds a bit like a death trap mate lol
we have something just like that round our way, it is an old navy base and is full of manholes, underground tunnels and buildings, its called the HMS Ganges maybe someone on here has heard of it
leon

 

[RAPPLEBY2000]

not a death trap, the base is only in one fairly obvious area, the woods are separate and have no remains of the base. probably over emphasizing the hazards you'd only really be in danger if walking about at night without a torch on the base remains.

 

[leon-b]

sounds like a really good place
leon