As I hope you will have all noticed, I've started writing again 
Tony asked me to contribute some articles to the forum and I've found that as I've not written much over the last few years, I seem to have lost my inspiration a bit I'm sure once the creative juices start to flow again and you'll not be able to shut me up.
In the meantime, I figured the best way to get ideas would be to ask the people who will be reading the articles! I don't really consider myself a bushcrafter. Rather, most of my day to day life seems to encompass a lot of things that can be considered bushcraft related.
For those that don't know me or what I may be able to contribute, here is a little about what I do.
Primarily I make my living from making knives and tools, with some teaching of those skills on the side. The knives I make are varied and generally forged from carbon steel, with everything from small chip carving blades to parangs as well as kitchen knives and some folders; the only type of knife that I don't make is the 'scandi ground bushcraft knife'. The tools I make cover pretty much every craft you can think of (assuming that I have been asked to make it so far). Obviously I make a lot of wood carving tools (woodcraft is very popular these days and very bushcrafty too) so that ranges from the familiar spoon hooks, gouges, drawknives, carving axes and adzes, right through to more specialised tools like twybils, stock knives and broad axes. I also make tools for other crafts that people here enjoy; including leatherworking, basketry, boneworking and hideworking.
In recent years I've been making more and more for the living history community, so that when portraying ancient craftspeople they can be using period correct tools that actually work. This has led me to making a ridiculously wide range of tools that people don't see these days and it's ever growing (in the last couple of months I've added kit for maille making and stone masonry to my repertoire). Most tools haven't changed much in 2000 years.
Aside from the things that I make to sell, maybe the place or process might provide some leads?
My main workshop is off grid, powered by solar and a pto driven generator run by my tractor. The main workshop has most modern equipment that you could ever want (I like my toys!), but I do an awful lot by hand because it is often easier with my power constraints. I also have an outdoor workshop, where I teach groups of people. The outdoor workshop is an open sided structure with bellows driven Roman/Saxon style forges, vices, shave horses and that sort of thing for green woodwork and forgework. The outdoor workshop has no power and can be set up for archaeological groups that I teach on occasion, what with my background being as an archaeologist and latest training (15 years ago now) being an MA in Experimental Archaeology.
The workshops are set within 10 acres of deciduous woodland, which I of course have to manage. The woods is mostly oak and hazel, but I have lots of other native flora and fauna in there and I try and use as much of it as I can. I mill larger trees into planks with a chainsaw mill, that later get turned into thing that I make, I turn the thinnings and some coppiced material into charcoal (in a full sized ring kiln and oil drums) which I then burn in my forges.
I don't demonstrate at many shows these days, but some of you will have seen me at the Moot and the Wilderness Gathering with very simple forges (it always used to be a hole in the ground) and little in the way of tools.
So, what sort of things would you lot like me to write about?
Tony asked me to contribute some articles to the forum and I've found that as I've not written much over the last few years, I seem to have lost my inspiration a bit I'm sure once the creative juices start to flow again and you'll not be able to shut me up.In the meantime, I figured the best way to get ideas would be to ask the people who will be reading the articles! I don't really consider myself a bushcrafter. Rather, most of my day to day life seems to encompass a lot of things that can be considered bushcraft related.
For those that don't know me or what I may be able to contribute, here is a little about what I do.
Primarily I make my living from making knives and tools, with some teaching of those skills on the side. The knives I make are varied and generally forged from carbon steel, with everything from small chip carving blades to parangs as well as kitchen knives and some folders; the only type of knife that I don't make is the 'scandi ground bushcraft knife'. The tools I make cover pretty much every craft you can think of (assuming that I have been asked to make it so far). Obviously I make a lot of wood carving tools (woodcraft is very popular these days and very bushcrafty too) so that ranges from the familiar spoon hooks, gouges, drawknives, carving axes and adzes, right through to more specialised tools like twybils, stock knives and broad axes. I also make tools for other crafts that people here enjoy; including leatherworking, basketry, boneworking and hideworking.
In recent years I've been making more and more for the living history community, so that when portraying ancient craftspeople they can be using period correct tools that actually work. This has led me to making a ridiculously wide range of tools that people don't see these days and it's ever growing (in the last couple of months I've added kit for maille making and stone masonry to my repertoire). Most tools haven't changed much in 2000 years.
Aside from the things that I make to sell, maybe the place or process might provide some leads?
My main workshop is off grid, powered by solar and a pto driven generator run by my tractor. The main workshop has most modern equipment that you could ever want (I like my toys!), but I do an awful lot by hand because it is often easier with my power constraints. I also have an outdoor workshop, where I teach groups of people. The outdoor workshop is an open sided structure with bellows driven Roman/Saxon style forges, vices, shave horses and that sort of thing for green woodwork and forgework. The outdoor workshop has no power and can be set up for archaeological groups that I teach on occasion, what with my background being as an archaeologist and latest training (15 years ago now) being an MA in Experimental Archaeology.
The workshops are set within 10 acres of deciduous woodland, which I of course have to manage. The woods is mostly oak and hazel, but I have lots of other native flora and fauna in there and I try and use as much of it as I can. I mill larger trees into planks with a chainsaw mill, that later get turned into thing that I make, I turn the thinnings and some coppiced material into charcoal (in a full sized ring kiln and oil drums) which I then burn in my forges.
I don't demonstrate at many shows these days, but some of you will have seen me at the Moot and the Wilderness Gathering with very simple forges (it always used to be a hole in the ground) and little in the way of tools.
So, what sort of things would you lot like me to write about?
There are a few things that I use an angled platform for (hollow grinding grinding accurate bevels on chisels, plain irons and the like for sale), but even that takes longer to set up than it does to grind one chisel so only makes sense if I'm working in batches.
