I want to be an apprentice

Posted on May 8, 2015 by Tom Green

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Occasionally life smiles upon you, and this week was one of those occasions. I was lucky to go with a party of fellow wheelwrights to an after hours private view around the Royal Mews, escorted by their coachmen.

For the want of a better term the Royal Mews is effectively the transport section of the Royal Household with a collection of 80+ carriages, including the major state carriages such as the Gold state coach, which is awe inspiring. Although I am told that due to the suspension, the body of the coach sits suspended on four leather straps, the occupants have a rotten ride, but as I am unlikely to ever experience it, I will let that pass. If you do go and see the Gold Coach you then need to go to the City of London Museum for the Lord Mayors Coach, and you can see the rivalry.

In addition to the headline carriages they have an amazing array of everyday carriages, and it seems a vehicle for every occasion. Apparently twice a day a small town coach goes to the front of the palace to collect the post, no post office van for them. There is a wagonette used specifically to transport six Beefeaters from the Tower to the Palace to stand guard at investitures, another coach used to bring new Ambassadors to present their credentials. To support all of this they have a complete maintenance infrastructure, several full time saddlers whose work as you can see from the photo taken in their workshop was magnificent. A carriage restoration shop, where they can strip something down to bare wood and start again with incredible results. Now I know it helps if you have the workshop set up and tools, but you also need skill and talent. Apparently they have a coach painter who is the third generation of his family to be the painter there and look at the results

As a craftsman in my own workshop I reckon I’m good and can hold my own most places, usually when I go to some one else’s workshop I come back inspired to get better but I have never been anywhere before when I have felt so outclassed and in the presence of true masters of their craft. I wonder if I could be an apprentice. If you get a chance do go and visit, and admire the carriages, and cars if that’s your thing, but the hidden gem is the craft skills.

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Man with Rubber Duck

Posted on May 4, 2015 by Tom Green

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The advantage of a long weekend is you can get a lot done, and so as you can see the Hot Tub project nears completion, with the structure of the tub complete, along with the seats.

I have never actually seen a hot tub in real life, just lots of pictures, I couldn’t find any designs or instructions, so before I started I did a lot of research, discovering that the ideal depth is so that the water gets to just below the top of your shoulders, when your sitting on a bench seat inside. Then followed lots of measuring my torso in privacy of my own workshop, whilst sitting on boxes, whilst sitting next too a table to give an indication of scale, which gave me the measurements. Then I built it and as you can see its big, its very big. Having now looked online again, it appears to be right, but if you didn’t already see its big. Whilst going through the design phase I seemed to have completely forgotten that not everyone is as tall as me, so I might have to make my dearly beloved a booster seat. Not sure how that will go down, although I suspect the answer is not to fill it so deep.

Today it will get transported by trolley out of the garage, along the road which will give passing motorists something to talk about, its not often you see a hot tub going along the road. Although if you look on You tube for Dutch tub you will see a guy in Canada who hires them out, delivering them behind his bicycle, which is worth a look. once in place in the garden then its a bit of “simple” plumbing, to connect it up to the water heater.

Once connected I have 48 hours of agony, apparently you have to put some water in the bottom and leave it for 48 hours to give the wood time to soak up the water, swell, and stop up any little gaps, before filling right up stoking the boiler, and in you go. So I now have 48 hours to make a set of stairs so we can get in and a cover.

So in the meantime my rubber duck and I are waiting.

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It seemed like such a good idea

Posted on April 30, 2015 by Tom Green

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It seemed liked such a good idea at the time, a cedar wood hot tub for the garden, in principle a straight forward project, no fancy joints, just wood with just a little bit of easy plumbing.

I started with the base, and it all went well, and I managed to cut pretty close to a perfect circle. I found an online calculator to help me work out the circumference, which made the maths nice and easy, and then it went down hill.

The base which is a 1.48mt diameter circle works out to approx. 4.5mts circumference which translates into 65 x 70mm wide staves for the side, each one has to cut to size, put through the planer several times, angles on the side cut, sanded, and finally the rebates marked out and then cut, times 65 staves. After a day’s hard work their all finally cut and shaped, and the rebates marked out, which alone took an hour and 268 operations of a marking gauge, you find yourself counting and calculating, how many times. To make matters worse for most of the time I’m wearing ear defenders so I cant even listen to the radio to pass the time.

The bit that keeps me going is the knowledge that the weather forecast has improved for the holiday weekend, the end is in sight, and for once I have a decent stock of wood offcuts for the wood fired water heater. On Monday when we  slowly sink into this enormous tub of steaming water it will all seem worth it. I can hardly wait.

 

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cooking sauce or hair remover?

Posted on April 25, 2015 by Tom Green

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I have been making my own sauces for several years, it began when I started making my own bacon, when I wanted to do the whole thing, bacon, bread, and brown sauce, and I do have to say it was good. Interestingly despite fine tuning the reciepe, the version I make today is pretty close to the original, beginners luck. Roll on several years and we have a range in the larder, plum and ginger stir fry sauce, barbecue,tomato ketchup, and mushroom ketchup. But the one I am missing is Worcester sauce, a spicy piquant sauce until today.

I have been looking at this one for a while, and I think I have a come up with a reciepe that does it.

If you feel like trying this yourself you will need.

500 grm brown mushrooms -chopped and put in a pan overnight with salt to draw out the moisture

500 grm red onions, gently fried to soften in a little olive oil

500 ml red wine vinegar

2 tablespoons black treacle

paprika

white pepper

50 grm anchovy fillets

put all the ingredients in a big pot, bring to the boil and then simmer for 20 minutes. Remember to ignore the boiling vinegar complaints.

leave it to cool slightly, liquidise,and then pass through a fine mesh nylon sieve, and bottle the liquid in warm bottles.

Now theoretically you could use this immediately but like all sauces, they can best be described as a little raw, straight out of the pan. This one takes that too a new level, and so don’t spill it on the paintwork, although in the short term you could probably use it to remove unwanted hairs. Give it a month the raw edges will go and it will mature. Then you will only need a few drops to add immense flavour to anything.

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Do people still buy books?

Posted on April 22, 2015 by Tom Green

linedFor a long time now I have been working on a book about leather craft, and have been slowly gathering content. Over the same time I have made a number of videos, posted them on you tube, which if I say so myself have been well received, some better than others but I now have a couple over 100’000 views, so above average.

So I now find myself with a dilemma as too the way forward, and yet I have to decide soon. Advances in digital technology means I could self publish a book, and assuming I can put my distrust of Amazon to one side put it out there and hope someone buys it. But does anyone buy books anymore? I can’t remember the last time I brought a printed book, and for a magazine I would really need to dredge my memory. I do buy e books but due to the nature of the subject and the need for illustrations the set up costs would be astronomical.

Plan B is too create a pay per view website and put the material on there, perhaps with supporting video.

Plan C is create a pay per view video with supporting website. But does anyone ever pay, how do you get past everyone expecting free content? Am I doomed to rely on third party advertising which I am sure works for YouTube but pays me a pittance.

Any thoughts gratefully received

Tom

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Put an Old Man out of his Misery

Posted on April 12, 2015 by Tom Green

some days you just have to put aside all thoughts of hedonistic pleasure, in my workshop knocking seven bells out of bits of wood, and instead concentrate on earning your daily crust. Which is why I am spending the weekend helping at a Special Effects Makeup Show.

image  In the meantime one of my Videos on Youtube and the Youtube channel itself creak towards two milestones. The video about Hand sewing a Ladies Handbag is but a few views away from 100,ooo, and the channel is so close to 5000 subscriber’s. Two major milestones we should pass today.

In my world this is a milestone in which I take very childish pleasure, after all who really wants to watch a middle aged man, though if you look in the picture, its amazing what they can do with a bit of makeup when I take my top off.

Put an old man out of his misery and watch the video and get me past the 100,000. If your really kind you will subscribe to the channel, and I can get back to my workshop.

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It needs knobs and Dials

Posted on April 6, 2015 by Tom Green

image I am not someone who is very good at sitting still, so when I know I am going to have a few days off I like to have a project. One of my goals for this summer is to make a hot tub for the garden, a cedar wood tub linked to a wood fired water heater, and not as an elderly relation thought a large cauldron over a log fire. Both the hot tub and the water heaters are in themselves large projects, and one without the other is useless, however I worked on the theory if I made the water heater first it would be ready when I needed it, whereas if I made the tub first I can see myself trying to fill it up with the kettle, just so I can try it.

I have been champing at the bit with this one, real work has kept me very busy for weeks, but at least it gave me the time to organise all the materials first, sheet steel, and copper pipe not materials I usually have to hand.

In many ways having too much time to think this through, over many sleepless nights and bored days, created a design with a number of refinements, which probably made it far more complicated than it needs to be. In essence it’s a double skinned steel box, with a copper pipe bent into a coil. You light a fire inside and the fire heats up the water in the copper pipe, which exits into the hot tub, making use of what my academic daughters refer to as a temperature gradient, or as I know it “heat rises”.

image Once the outer panels are attached and a coat of paint applied it just looks like a very heavy steel box, and I feel vaguely  disappointed. The principles are so simple and the controls even easier, if you want the water hotter, you open the door letting in more air and put some more wood on the fire, if it’s hot enough shut the door and restrict the air flow, which reduces the fire. It’s too simple, there aren’t any pumps, or whirring motors, just a simple wood fire. I’ve slaved for three days to make this and all I have to show for it is a black box. Its not complicated enough, it needs knobs and dials with a Bluetooth connection as a minimum, and really it needs an app. How else can I impress the younger generation, and retain my street cred.

Alternatively I can just get on with the hot tub, but I might just find a way to fit in a dial somewhere.

thanks for reading

tom

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First build the Bath

Posted on March 29, 2015 by Tom Green

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I have two major projects planed for the garden this year, A proper wood fired bread oven ( not to be confused with a pizza oven) and a Cedar Hot Tub ( not to be confused with a Jacuzzi). However one potential problem I see is with all of these wood fired appliances I am going to need to take on more wood based projects in order to generate the waste wood I need to fire them all.

I have decided to start with the hot tub and as is often the case with stuff I make I can find very little information about making one so the design is mine, as is the wood fired water heater that goes with it. To build it  I have taken delivery of 46mts of western red cedar planks along with several metres of copper pipe and some chimney sections. A bit of a shock to the wallet but the finished project will still come in at about 20% of the cost of buying one, and with a design life of 20 years strikes me as a bargain.

If you haven’t experienced one a cedar hot tub is effectively a large wooden bucket, at 1.5mteres across by 1mt deep its a very large bucket. This is linked to a water heater which slowly heats the water and becomes a luxuriant relaxing bath, rather than the bubbling maelstrom of a Jacuzzi. There are no pumps or whirring motors, the only noise comes from the  wood fire, so you can sit back, possibly with a loved one, and enjoy the peace and tranquillity of an outdoor soak. I cant wait.

The materials are now all assembled, next weekend is a four day weekend,So finally its time to “first build the bath”. keep in touch to see how I get on.

Tom

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Its time for an experiment

Posted on March 13, 2015 by Tom Green

Last weekend I created my stone lined fire basket and very popular it is too. As always there is a video and that’s just been published, so if you would like to see a middle aged man at the height of his powers then have a look.

Every time I post a new video at some point I get asked for the plans, so by way of an experiment for this project I have drawn some basic plans with a cutting list and published them on my website at www.heritagecraft.co.uk . Have a look and see what you think, any comments are always welcome especially if their kind.

I have two large projects planned for this year, and so with the fire basket out the way I am ready to start with one of them. At the moments its the exciting bit, the thinking it through, the research, the dreams of how magnificent its going to be, and at the present time nothing has gone wrong. Its a shame I actually have to make it.

I have a design, some of it is even on paper. This one is going to be expensive, and involves lots of wood, steel, and even some copper pipe, so definitely not an experiment, although I don’t know anyone else who has made one. I am starting to amass the materials, and have some time in the diary put aside.

What’s it going to be, well all will be revealed soon.

thanks

Tom

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Ready for the summer

Posted on March 8, 2015 by Tom Green

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A fine spring weekend is the perfect time to look forward to what will be undoubtedly a fine summer, so I took the opportunity to build a fire pit, something I have been considering for some time.

Now like every man I enjoy a fire,the problem is you go through wood at an alarming rate. However as someone who works with wood I should have lots of offcuts so it shouldn’t  be a problem. The trouble is I have so many ways of using up waste wood, I am running out of waste. For example many years ago I met up with a craftsmen in America who taught me to use up my hardwood offcuts to make Charcoal, so all the good wood gets turned into charcoal which is then used as fuel in my hot food smoker. With a wood burning stove soft woods get used for kindling, and so I am starting to run out.

Therefore if I was going to build something else that burnt wood I needed to find a more efficient way of using the heat. As I see it you burn wood the heat is gone so what I have tried is creating a reservoir in the form of cobblestones loosely packed in a frame around the fire, therefore some heat gets through the gaps and some soaks into the stone which then radiate the heat outwards. Having tried it I now have some refinements that can be made to the design but the concept appears to work, unfortunately all work stopped for several hours as a family we warmed our toes.

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