Things from Ron Edwards Bushcraft series of Books

[tombear]

For a long time I've been a huge fan of the late, great, Ron Edwards books on Australian Bushcraft. By Bushcraft I mean how people lived in the bush rather than the usual sense, stuff culled from the memories of those who lived through the hard times of the 30s to 50s and earlier, as much social history as anything else.

The whole series is full of wonderful things to make, mainly from scrap, so I thought I'd start a thread to show some of it.

The middle son has been hard at it all day moving a big stack of wood from off the area we have cleared for planting so as a reward I'm letting him have a bit of a fire at the top end of the back lot . He likes to do a bit of cooking when we have a fire so I knocked up a flip toaster for him

Excuse the crudity as I've not done any wire bending for a long hand. When I was doing a lot of big balsa and tissue planes I was a dab hand at doing the undercarriages and what not. It will soon come back soon enough. The handle was made from 120cm of 14 gauge fencing wire ( 10 gauge would have been better, I'll get a roll tomorrow) , and the bread holding part about 70cm. Back in the day they would use scraps of discarded stuff and sell them to housewives when on the tramp. I'll have a go at the more elaborate one later, be a bit neater, not that it would make it any better to use. You could easily make one with a Leatherman and a bit of stick.

ATB

Tom

 

[Dave]

I like books like that, from that period.

 

[Man of Tanith]

I need these books in my library.
Now t convince Lisa of this......

 

[John Fenna]

I have his "Skills of the Australian Bushman" (which I think is the one you have in the photo)- excellent ... except perhaps for his tin boat.....
I must look out for his other books

 

[tombear]

The MK 2 version of the first one, used one of my many many hand vices ( a vastly underrated tool and plentiful on carboot sales ) to do the twisting and it came out much neater.

I've since put a curve in the cross piece so the arms are closer together.

 

[Mesquite]

Nice work Tom

I need these books in my library.

Me as well... though I won't have a problem getting them past my beloved

 

[John Fenna]

Now that looks neat and very effective!
So much better than a toasting fork...

 

[tombear]

Ta! The lads out back now using his. There's patterns for the three pronged extending sort of toasting fork as well but they tend to rip the middle out of any bread I put on them...

I've just been flicking through the 8 volumes I do have and there's an awful lot on leather working and saddlery, with patterns. After the wire bending I think I'll have a go at the plywood saddler clamp there's illustrated instruction for making. It just happens as yesterday I lifted up a couple of sheets of suitable ply I was using to protect the carpet in part of the shed back when there were serveral deac MGs dripping oil. There will be plenty between the patches to do it, all it needs is 6 x 860mm x 100mm pieces. The illustrations are very clear, here's another example.

 

[lou1661]

Good skills, I made one a few years ago, nice little project and still going strong.
http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=101975&highlight=wire+toast

Cheers
Louis

 

[Tengu]

Which book would be best for leather?

 

[tombear]

Best one for leather is one of the ones I don't have, no. 8 which is just leather work but there's chunks in all of them. If you go to the website and click on books there's a section just on leather work and the guy did collections of all the leather related bits from his bushcraft books as separate volumes. He was very big on leather braiding.

the neighbours are away so I indulged in some late night bandsawing and with the help of the a lad I got the laminations for a clamp glued together. Unfortunately the glue I used ( Deluxe Materials Alphatic Resin) was drying faster than I liked so we had to rush clamping up. The instructions said put paper between the two three thickness laminations to catch the glue which squeezed out of the edges which I did but of course the glue soaked into that. What I should have used was strips of plastic sheet but by the time I thought of this it was too late. Never mind, I'll just have to run a scalpel blade between the bits and sand the paper and glue off. No biggy as I will be taking a mill or two off each edge to tidy things up anyway.

Heres it clamped up, I'll digi pic the relevant section in the next post.

ATB

Tom

 

[tombear]

Excuse the the poor quality pics, roll on getting the scanner hooked up again.

on the dimensioned pic the writing is, from left to right,
scrap timber
100mm
Glued ply
280mm
510mm
clamp here
127mm.

Assuming they are open tomorrow I'll get 4 suitable bolts from the hard ware shop.

Come to think of it when I plane or sand the sides down to size I will remove any of the squeezed out glue then. D'oh!

I'll probably make a simple stand for it, although currently I do most of my sewing cross legged on the floor.

atb

Tom

 

[SCOMAN]

I hope this is of some use

http://www.survival-gear.org/Guides/Bushcraft/bushcraft leather work PDF.pdf

 

[John Fenna]

I hope this is of some use

http://www.survival-gear.org/Guides/Bushcraft/bushcraft leather work PDF.pdf

Nice one!
I will download that one too

 

[tombear]

Excellent! That saves me buying a copy!

Rather too much plaiting and whip making for me but the chapters on pouches, rolling thread and especially making tools are just my thing.

Thanks for posting the link.

Sitting here trying desperately not to unclamp the plywood before the glues at its maximum strength. I just hope the hardware shop is open being a bank holiday weekend, he only does a morning on a Saturday at the best of times.

ATB

Tom

 

[richardhomer]

I hope this is of some use

http://www.survival-gear.org/Guides/Bushcraft/bushcraft leather work PDF.pdf

Thanks for that, Iv also downloaded it

 

[Tengu]

Thanks Scoman, just what the doctor ordered.

Have you PDFs of his other texts?

 

[tombear]

Well folks, the clamps came off and low and behold the laminated curves are staying in shape! I have clamped them back together so tomorrow I can smooth off the edges with the belt sander, clamp it up, mark the intended bevels, put them in and bolt it together with whatever tarting up I feel like. Being made of ply and to be used with leather I'll probably slap some varnish to hinder it getting dirty or wet.

ATB

Tom

 

[SCOMAN]

Thanks Scoman, just what the doctor ordered.

Have you PDFs of his other texts?

No sorry only found that one. His whole series of ten books are available from ram head books at $450Aus. A little too rich for me.

 

[tombear]

About a hours work finished the clamp less varnishing which I will do when the dust settles. For scrap plywood and about 60ps worth of coach bolts , washers and square nuts I'm pretty damn chuffed with it. It grips quite nicely as is but could be adjusted by moving the top bolts up or down the length of the piece.

I just followed the instruction.

A belt sander made doing the jaw parts easy, I just sawed ithem roughly to the right angle after marking with them clamped together and finished on the belt, it took a few test fits to get it right.

After drilling the 4 1/4 inch holes for the coach bolts I used a square permagrit to square off the hole on the prettiest side to fit the square section on the bolt. Once the washers and nuts where on I used a ballpein to secure the nut, there was just half a mill of the bolt proud which was fortunate.

All in all a very satisfying make and dead easy.

atb

Tom