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Pestle and mortar fun... photo heavy...

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J

JonnyP

Full Member
Oct 17, 2005
3,833
29
Cornwall...
After learning from Toddy about how to make lamp oil from beech nuts. I wanted to give it a go......Soooo, to do this I needed a decent nut crusher, (ooh err mrs), so having been inspired by others recently, I thought I would make one.....
Out with the tools and material, a chunk of cherry wood, for the bowl and some unknown wood for the pestle....
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First, cut the cherry in half as its too big....
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Then start to cut out the inside....
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Got on well with the axe to start with, but it was biting more and more as I got deeper, so I had a think and decided to make an adze. I have always wanted a hand adze, but they cost loadsamoney. This one was cheaper though, got an old wood chisel and cut off the handle, then drilled a very tight hole in a bit of birch I had knocking about and banged in the chisel and hey presto..
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Trouble was the chisel went in at the wrong angle so I drilled another hole.....Perfect...
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Was amazed at how well it did and by the time I had had enough for the day, I had got to this stage....
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Am looking forward to completing it and crunching some beech nuts.....
 
Hey thats pretty groovy looking Jon!

Stroke of genius with the chisel :)

That really should be a cracking mortar - be interested to see how the pestle lasts (mind you tribes have been pounding millet and the like with them for yonks so I guess they must work)

Are you going to fire harden either of them?

Great post - looking forward to seeing more!

Red
 
Cheers guys...Was well pleased with the adze and amazed at how well it worked. Not going to fire harden, reckon the wood is hard enough, but can burn the pestle ends if need be....
 
I notice you've cut the log in the round. Mind it doesn't crack as it dries. Might have been better to to cut the wood across the grain and adze it out side ways on.
Nice though and I really like the adze idea. I have an old gouge lying around waiting to be re-handled. Might just pinch your idea now.

Eric
 
Eric_Methven said:
I notice you've cut the log in the round. Mind it doesn't crack as it dries. Might have been better to to cut the wood across the grain and adze it out side ways on.
Nice though and I really like the adze idea. I have an old gouge lying around waiting to be re-handled. Might just pinch your idea now.

Eric
Click to expand...

Wood should be ok Eric, I have made other stuff from other sections and all have been ok, but if it splits, like you say in another thread, it will go and another made and a lesson learnt. My food bowl I made is still in good use and has no cracking at all... It will be dried slowly, but it is well seasoned...
 
That's really neat Jon :D Smart idea on the chisel too.
The mortar looks to be about the size of my granite one too.

I only got about 30ml of oil out of all those nuts; too early Gavin says, very few actually had much nut in them. :puppy_dog He'd collected them from a fallen branch rather than the usual mast drop, so I don't suppose it's surprising. I'm going to have another go later on. Burnt with a kind of sooty flame.
I'm starting to wonder if nuts were just pounded to mush, put in a shallow dish and the edge lit as the Inuit do with a bashed soft piece of blubber, would that work like a wide wick?
More playing around needed :D

cheers,
Toddy
 
Nothing new under the sun is there!! :)
http://www.fao.org/docrep/W8794E/p115a.jpg
You have recreated a socketed type of adze, the bronze age and iron age people used that method. They use itin africa also. The tang is normally tapered (like on a file) so you get a self tighterning effect. This has a tendency to want to split the haft so it is reinforced with rawhide/wire/iron wraps or whatever. Old Jimbo put up a photo of a native american axe also done that way, the simple trumpet shaped blade set into a narrow mortise and lashed with rawide to reinforce and prevent splitting. On some of the bronze age examples a wedge shaped notch (open at either side so it could be done nowaday's with a saw) was formed in the haft to correspond with the shape of the bronze blade so it would sit in snug (I suspect our bronzie ancestpor's burnt the haft hole with a hot casting?), and then wrapped with sinew or hide or whatever, again self tightening. Oetzi's axe was made that way (5000 or so year's old). I think I saw an anceint egyoptian one where they put a leather binding between haft and blade as a reinforcement to prevent it breaking also (formed a triangle basicaly)
I am presently searching for some hafts at the right angle and in a straight plane to make up some elbow adzes, cherry ash or oak. That stryle is different because the blade is lashed onto a haft block, the lashings provide all the mechanical strength. I have some decent french axe steel I could use to make a celt (blade bit) Once you get used to an axe its a brilliant tool, mallet and gouge in one, I find a longer handle surprisingly gives more accurate cutting :lmao:
Cheers Jonathan :D
 
I'll get some photos of the beautiful bronze ones that Historic Scotland commissioned for my toy box (ahem, Resource Box :o ) The one that is hafted has been fitted onto the *elbow* of a yew branch.
My brother said that he saw an African woodcarver using one in Kenya where the back of the blade (triangular, no tang) was fitted straight into a piece of elephant hide that threaded through a hole in the haft. The man was chip carving ebony for the tourist trade, and that's *hard*.

cheers,
Toddy
 
Jon

I need a slightly smaller version for drinking the first pressing of juice and anointing the press...get chipping mate. Nice work...:)
 
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