Wooden Shingle (shake) Making

Hi All, It's been a little while but I hope to get back into blogging again now.

Over the last few months I have been reading up on shingle (shake) making and giving it ago to cover the woodshed roof. Shingles are wooden tiles, they are normally called shingles if they are sawn or sometimes shakes if they are split.

I read up on the traditional technique in Ben Law's new woodland craft book and also found a couple of great educational videos on youtube, here are the best two I could find. Many thanks to these people for sharing, I learn so much from youtube.

So you need to make a 'brake' to help split the shingles off how you want them. Here are the pics of my process for making this:

 and here is me and my Dad, starting to make them in the spring sunshine!

and we were very lucky today with mum making us all some lunch!

Note the wild garlic addition, picked from about 20 metres away

So far we have made about 150, and its taken a couple of days, I think we need 2000 so it's going to be a long job, but it's a great way to spend your days, so it's all good :)

A Few Items I have Made Over the Summer

Another stool, I wanted to make a really chunky sturdy one, I plan to refine the design as I make more

Table and bench for my flat

 

In fact I am sat, using them right now writing this blog post!

Bow and arrow for my God Son (foam practice golf balls glued on the ends!)

Green Woodworking

One of the main reasons I bought a wood was to do green woodworking, I love making stuff and doing it in the middle of the wood just using hand tools is fantastic. I am hoping to progress to running courses one day too. Now at last I have had chance to get into it a little more and here's what I have made over the last couple of months.

The shave horse! Very important piece of kit, thanks very much to Harry Rodgers for this video giving the dimensions and advice for making one, mine is made mainly from sweet chestnut.

First stool, chestnut top, laurel legs and hazel for the er..other bits.

Simple chopping/serving boards. I do chainsaw these so not quite so green I am afraid. The walnut oil finish on the darker one is definitely preferable to the varnish.

Probably my 5th or so attempt at a spoon, this time using hazel, I do like this one and used a lot of reference  from other spoon carvers to get the form right.