Monday was a Big Saw Day in Dalbeattie. As in, an important day about saws and a day of big saws when I joined Gavin Phillips in his workshop to learn about pit sawing from Barbara Czoch and Kevin de Silva of the Carpenter’s Fellowship.
I’ve been interested in two-man crosscuts for a while and buying a few here and there as an alternative to bow saws and chainsaws then Gavin announced he’d bought a brand-new pit saw and was looking for someone to show him how to use it. I found this blog showing Barbara’s expertise in pitsawing as part of a synagogue reconstruction in Poland so Gavin invited her and Kevin up to show us the ropes.
The first thing is laying out the log, choosing it’s best alignment and then snapping ink lines to mark out where the boards will be sawn out. Gavin is keen to do some sawing as part of a demonstration/ hands-on activity for the public at shows so we were looking for a setup that could be safely done on a show field and Barbara suggested using an A-frame for which the cleaving brake would do to start with.
Barbara had brought a frame saw with her which she’d built from regular softwood and a section of discarded bandsaw blade. Okay, got the log marked out, got a saw – time to do some sawing. Barbara and Kevin had first go, then Kevin and Gavin, then Barbara and Gavin, then they agreed it didn’t work; the teeth were spaced too far apart, only 7 per foot and it was too hard to pull that through the timber. Bummer.
Actually, this is where we were really lucky; if the saw had worked we have happily sawn out a few boards, played around with different setups and patted ourselves on the back. Since it didn’t work we had to switch to plan b and, make our own saw! A few hour’s work with an angle grinder and files gave us a set of shiny new teeth at 15 teeth per foot with a less aggressive shape to suit human powered sawing. We jointed the teeth and used Gavin’s huge saw-set to bend the teeth and form a kerf. While Barbara and I worked on that, Gavin and Kevin fettled up a vintage pitsaw which Kevin had recently picked up on ebay and we also made and tried out a setting anvil as an alternative to the saw-set – I love these kind of busy days when there’s lots of innovation and experiment with a group of people who can all get on and do things, bouncing ideas off each other.
The pit saw was ready first and we moved indoors to set up the log on a scaffold. I was at the other end of the workshop when they started but the sound of the saw at work quickly brought me over; it’s a beautiful sound and really distinctive from crosscut sawing. Barbara had bagged herself ‘top dog’ position and while her cut was running true along the ink line, Kevin was having trouble keeping the saw straight at the bottom. The saw was covered in some unidentifiable gunk which might have been affecting the set and it was time to eat so we put the saw to one side and went inside to replenish our energy with Clare’s wonderful cooking – suddenly we were all starving.
Back out to the shed and time for the new frame saw, had we really made a saw and would it work? YES! oh yes it worked, singing it’s way through the wood almost as shiny and bright as the smile on Barbara’s face. The shavings weren’t quite as long as from the pit saw, the exit line was more ragged and again we had trouble holding the line on the underside but without doubt the saw worked with our hand-cut teeth which was a revelation for me, to make a saw so quickly. The next step is to learn more about teeth shapes and get some more bandsaw to make an improved version. At 10:30pm we finally called it a night and went in to toast our big saw adventure with a big glass of wine.
The village of Bradwell in the Peak District is perhaps best known for it’s icecream. The Orchard Group, formed in 2009, hope that in the future there will be no end of fruit to go with the icecream! We have planted around 40 different varieties of fruit tree – many types of apple, and some pear, plum, gage and cherry. But scythers will not be surpised to learn what a handful our crop of grass is proving to be.
Last year members of the group brought scythes to some of our monthly work parties, cutting paths through the grass in June, and continuing in July and August. At the end of the year a local contractor was paid for some strimming so this year we are hoping to swell the ranks of scythers and improve our skills by hosting a mowing course. Recently we have been raking the orchard grass in preparation for the scythe course.
I had brought my kitchenware, chairs and fan birds and we arranged our marquee with polelathes, shavehorses signage designed to tempt people over to have a look and have a go. As I unpacked, I casually showed Gavin the toy helicopters I sometimes make. He was immediately taken by them and set me to making some more. Well, I pretty much spent the rest of the weekend carving ‘copters to try and keep up with Gavin’s amazing ability to sell them. Simple in a way; walk up to someone, offer to show them how it works and then wait for a break in their enjoyment to ask if they’d like to buy it to take home and continue the fun. By Sunday we had established the ‘Dalkeith Flying School’ and families, as well as buying a helicopter each for competitions, wanted their photo taken by the sign.
But hang on, I’m a craftsman and these are just gimmicks aren’t they; why am wasting my time on them? The simplest answer is that they gave a lot of pleasure to a lot of people and meant I went home with some cash in my pocket when other things weren’t selling. From a larger viewpoint I think that anything which engages the public with natural materials and the idea that they can make their own toys or whatever from local materials is a good thing.
In years to come thousands will claim to have been there but in truth a select bunch of six scythe folk turned up to Sprint Mill in Cumbria for International Peening Day. Huge numbers was never my objective and our group spent a really enjoyable and productive day together. Though it wasn’t a true teaching event I was of course happy to answer questions and help everyone out with their blades. There’s a lot to learn in peening; it’s a real skill which takes time, practice and timely advice to learn. It’s great to see people who’ve been on my ‘Learn to mow’ courses and are still mowing and I want them to continue enjoying it.
During the day we also took some time out to try a variety of push mowers, including a new Al-Ko 380HM Soft Touch Lawn Mower which 
We’d elected Edward to make the maiden voyage. He’s the most experienced curach-man among us, it will be his boat and I think he was the most excited to be finally getting on the water. He didn’t argue and, once the friends were gathered and cameras poised, he stepped nimbly in and was given a friendly push out onto the lake. We were fortunate to have 
Of course we couldn’t get away from the ‘Three Men in a Boat’ tag so we called Edward back to let Ian and I join him for a photocall. On top of his reluctance to stop playing, Edward was somewhat dubious about this venture; the curach is only 10ft long and not really designed to carry three men but we assured him it would be fine. We climbed carefully in and sat ourselves fore and aft as comfortably as possible on the hazel ribs.
I’m no sailor and much happier with my feet on dry land but there’s a special thrill in building a boat yourself and getting out on the water in it. The curach is wonderfully stable and even with all of us in barely drew any draft. Sitting low in the boat with just a sheet of canvas between me and the water gave a wonderful feeling of closeness to the lake. Ian had had the forethought to bring a bottle of holy water (from the Bushmills distillery) which we used to toast our success.
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