Amadou

Amadou is the soft, spongy, and flammable fibers prepared from the horses hoof fungus.  It has been used for hundreds and even thousands of years as tinder for fire starting.  Amadou was found in Otzi the Ice Man's tool kit (5000 years old).  It has even been used as a felted material for hat making. 

Looking for distractions to occupy myself with rather than studying I decided to try making some.  

While walking along the river bank with Taiga I harvested a few fungi.  Horses hoof fungus can be found on dead paper birch trees.  The amadou is a layer of spongy material just below the skin and just above the fibrous pores of the horses hoof fungus, so the first step is to shave the skin off.  The amadou shows as an orange spongy layer so I took care not to slice any of it off.  I next Sliced the amadou off in large thin slices.  The next step is to soak and boil the pieces in an ash slurry, use equal parts water and ash.  I used an old pot that I found along the river bank while on another walk with Taiga.  After boiling spruce roots for her birch bark basket in Zoe's good pot I was instructed NOT to boil anything else in her pots.  After soaking the pieces in the ash slurry over night I boiled them for 45 minutes.  The pieces are then left to dry.  I left them over night which may have been a bit too long because they turned stiff.  Any way the next step is to pound each piece to break the fibers apart which softens the material, I used the back of my hatchet and an old 2x4.  The final step is to role the pieces between your hands, to again soften the material and, to slightly fluff it up.  Using a fire steel to produce a spark and a small piece of the prepared amadou a fire can easily be lit.  The amadou doesn't flame up but instead smolders and produces a hot ember which can be used to ignite dry tinder like dry grass.  

Horses hoof fungus can be found growing on dead paper birch trees

Here I'm shaving off the outer skin or bark of the fungus.  The amadou is the brighter orange colors stuff near the end of the blade.

Amadou is very spongy and flexible and comes off in thin slices.

This image shows how much amadou I was able to get from one medium sized fungus.

Here the pieces are soaking in the ash slurry.  I noticed that the ash wanted to settle out of solution unless it was boiled then the ash particles tended to stay suspended.

Boiling the amadou on a camp stove in the shop.  Too stinky for in the house.

This photo shows the boiled and dried piece on the right compared to the finished piece on the left.  The fluffy texture of the finish material catches the spark really well.

A spark from a fire steel is all that is needed to ignite it.  I was actually quite surprised at how easily this stuff actually ignites.

This little piece smoldered for almost 5 minutes.

Knife Sheath

I just finished making a sheath for the Mora Belt Knife that I made a couple of months ago. I first made a paper pattern then traced it onto the back side of the leather. After cutting the piece out I wrapped it around the knife using small clamps to keep it in place. Wrapping leather around a knife is a bit trickier than I originally thought. You have to take into account the transition from the flat blade to the wider and rounded handle. When I was satisfied with how it looked I used contact cement to glue a third piece of leather in between the outer cover, along the edge where the stitches were to go. This extra piece will protect the stitches from being cut by the blade. The whole thing was stitched together then Sno-Seal finish was applied at the very end.

I used Sno-Seal to water proof the leather. Sno-Seal is made from bees wax and is nontoxic.

I used 4 - 5 oz leather, a heavier leather could have been used but I wanted to keep it as light as possible.

The snap closure in the front allows the sheath to be added to a belt without having to remove the belt in order to thread the sheath on.

Here you can see how the leather conforms to the handle with some heat and firm pressure.

The Sno-Seal changes the color quite dramatically. On the left is a left over piece of leather. Personally I like the color of the leather after treatment.

Varnishing Snowshoes

Ojibway style snowshoes

While the warm weather holds I thought it would be a good time to do some maintenance on my homemade wooden snowshoes. The photo shows my snowshoes (long set) and my mom`s snowshoes (short set) which she just finished building, hanging to dry after a thick coat of varnish was applied. We put down a double layer of poly to keep the mess contained then using a good brush we liberally applied the varnish. We used a good quality spar varnish which should provide an adequate protective coating.

I woke up yesterday morning and felt like making a canoe paddle, so I went out the my shop and prepared the pieces. I had an extra cedar / ash shaft made up from the last bunch of paddles I made so I used that and laminated walnut pieces on for the blade and top grip. I left it to cure over night. The following day (today) I did the shaping. Everything went well, I haven't played in my shop very much since I started back to school so I took my time and really enjoyed the carving process. For this paddle I choose what I call my Trapper blade design with a modified northwoods top grip. The cedar/ash shafts are very light and with the addition of the walnut blade I was concerned that the paddle would unbalanced so I decided to add the northwoods grip because it would provide more weight on the shaft and thereby balancing the paddle. I'm happy to say, it worked! The finish is oil.

Close up of my logo and the interesting light and dark grain in the walnut.

Here's a look at the modified northwoods top grip. This grip is 11" long

I cut two strips of wood off of a larger 8/4 piece of walnut that I had. I book matched the grain patterns but as I carved away the material the lighter grain pattern on the one side became less and less. I ended up with a paddle with an asymmetric grain pattern.

Maliceet Paddle

Here are a few photos of the Maliceet paddle I just finished this evening. It is made of the same stock (cherry and ash) as the voyageur paddle that I posted a couple of weeks ago. I haven't weighed it yet but it measures 59" long and has a 28" blade. The finish this time is a combination varnished blade and oiled shaft and top grip.

Carbon Fiber Paddle

I just finished my latest paddle. It's a modified ottertail with carbon fiber laminated blade. The 5.7 oz carbon cloth allows for just enough flex in the blade that should reduce impact on joints. The core material is cedar with a 1/4" strip of ash running the length to give it some rigidity. As with all my paddles the edges of the blade are very fine for silent paddling. It weighs 470 grams.

Here's a close up of my bear logo and the great 3D effect that the twill weave gives.

The over all length is 56.5 inches, the blade is 5.5 X 25 inches

Here's a close up of the top grip and the book matched grain patterns

Make'n holes in ice

I just finished putting the finishing touches on a new piece of equipment for winter camping. To make collecting water for drinking while winter camping easier I decided to make an ice chisel. Now I'll be able to open a hole in the lake ice, provided we are camped near a lake to obtain fresh liquid drinking water. For the last few years I've been melting snow which works fine but is time consuming and uses a lot of fuel if a stove is used. Plus there really isn't much moisture in snow so it takes a lot of it to fill the water bottles. Another draw back of melting snow is that the area right next to camp can get a bit messy with ash from the fire and saw dust from cutting wood, making it difficult to find clean snow. On recent trips some of the fellas have used an axe to open a water hole which works also but they got very wet and inevitably iced up from the spray. One of the benefits of collecting lake water is the opportunity to star gaze with an uninterrupted view from the lake ice.

Specifications:

Measures - 10" X 3" X 1/2"

Weight - 5 lbs

Handle - 60" hardwood with a lanyard

Blade - high carbon steel with 45 degree bevel

The chisel is big and heavy so there will be some trade offs. On the plus side it will open a hole in the ice in short order but on the negative side it is a bit too heavy to use as a probe while traveling on dangerous ice. (which I tend to avoid anyway)

Pulk Tarp

I just finished making a tarp for my pulk. It'll be used to wrap my gear in to keep all the odds and ends from being lost on the trail. I usually pack my gear into large duffel bags so there aren't too many odds and ends but it will be nice to have everything contained nice and neat. The tarp can also double as a ground sheet or as a wind break. It's just a piece of ripstop nylon with webbing loops on all four corners. It measures about 13 x 5.5 feet. It's a bit too long but that shouldn't be too much of an issue. To test it out I wrapped up a bunch of sleeping bags. It looks like it's going to work well.

Where's the snow???

I know it's only the begining of September, and as far as I'm concerned summer lasts until November but I just finished building a pair of traditional snowshoes and I'm dying to try them out. My first pair of snowshoes were the new style with aluminum frames and Olefin decking. I like them but the problem is they are very loud. The deck material produces a defening crunch on the snow reducing any chance of seeing wildlife. A number of people that I snowshoe with use the traditional wooden / rawhide style of which are much quieter which is why I've decided to go that route. Another reason I chose to use wood as the material of choice is that I'm trying to, somewhat, revert back to more traditional materials. I'm trying to come up with a blend of new and old, low tech and high tech. Some of the materials of old perform just as well as the new space aged materials so I see no reason to use them.

Using Gilpatricks book Building Snowshoes as a reference, I chose the Ojibway design mainly for its simplicity in the construction. Unlike many Ojibway snowshoes which are symmetrical I've decided to make mine asymmetric with the widest point forward of center. They measure 62" X 12". The filling for the main body is 3/8" nylon webbing. For the toe and heal sections I used 1/8" nylon cord. Three coats of Spar Varnish was applied to seal the wood and filling. As for the bindings, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. For now I'm thinking about just using lamp wick but am concerned that it will not hold my foot secure. I am seriously considering the MM 103-U binding from American Mountain Man. Or may make my own.

The form

Frame strips soaking in water for a couple of days

Frame strips steaming or 2 to 3 hours

Frame bent on the form

Near disaster when one frame strip split (I repaired it with epoxy)

Repaired split

Cross braces

Mortis and tenon joins the cross braces to the frame

Finished snowshoes 62" X 12"

Song of the spokeshave

Graham Warren, author of Canoe Paddles, A complete guide to making your own, has posted the following video on Youtube.

A new whitewater paddle for Zoe

In a couple of weeks Zoe and I will be joined by a group of friends in the Barker Lake area on the Churchill River for a weekend of instruction and playing in moving water (rapids). Being new to paddling Zoe didn't have a whitewater paddle so as usual I decided to make her one. I used a bunch of Ash pieces that were left over from previous paddle builds. This is a heavy and study paddle, the blade measures 8 1/4 X 20 inches and the shaft is 35 inches for a total of 43 1/4 inches. It weighs 989 grams. To make it durable the shaft is 1 1/8 inches in diameter and the blade was left much thicker than any other paddle that I've made. One evening I found myself standing in the 3-5 year old isle in Walmart try to decide which color of play dough describes me.... actually I had decided to add an epoxy tip to the blade and needed the play dough to make a dam along the tip that would contain the epoxy until it hardened. I decided on neon orange for the color. To the epoxy I added as much walnut sawdust as I could produce from the small scrap pieces left over from the Peruvian Walnut Otter Tail that I made earlier this summer. The sawdust adds color as well as makes the epoxy stronger. Epoxy on it's own tends to be a bit brittle.

Every time I make a paddle for Zoe I tell her "keep it off of the rocks!" but this one she can bang on the rocks all she wants (I still hope she doesn't), I also added 6 oz fiberglass to the blade.

Barker Lake area.

Play dough dam around the tip contains the epoxy/sawdust until it cures.

Whitewater paddle 43 1/4" long.

Close up showing the epoxy resin tip and the fiberglass blade.

The "T" grip ensures a secure grip as well as good control over the pitch of the blade. And of course the Cree syllabics.

A couple of canoe related projects

Today I finished up a set of canoe stands that I had started a couple of days ago. They are made from a couple of 2 X 2's and 1 X 2's with nylon webbing to make a sling. Now I won't have to crawl around on the ground when I want to work on my canoes.

I also took some design ques from Gnarlydog and added a couple of permanent canoe anchors under the hood of our sunfire. The Hood/trunk canoe anchors that I made earlier in the spring work well but I was always worried about a strong wind (which there has been a lot of this year) pulling on the canoe which in turn would pull up on the anchor and possibly deform the hood. Now with the anchors bolted under the fender bolts I don't have to worry about that.

My 17 foot solo tripping canoe on the canoe stands that I built today.

The anchor fastened under the fender bolt.

Zoe's Otter Tail

Modified Otter Tail with squared tip

My latest paddle is a modified Otter Tail design with a squared off tip. This time the shaft is ash and the blade is laminated with Peruvian Walnut which was fantastic to work with. The board that I bought was the color of dark chocolate and felt as though I was carving chocolate. I'll have to do more projects with it. As I shaped and shaved the blade down the grain really came out and shows as fantastic golden streaks throughout the darker wood. In the sun light I really takes on a rich color. The weight is 690 grams.

I just got back from a canoe trip in northern Saskatchewan where I had an opportunity to use this paddle and was thoroughly impressed with it. It's light, flexible and quiet. The blade measures 25" X 5". The long and narrow blade allows for long paddling days without the muscle pains.

Bear logo

Large, old bear (Cree Syllabics)