Rustical

Category: Rustic Wood Stuff

  • Turning tool handles

    Turning tool handles

    Never has ‘All the gear and no idea’ been so apt for my wood turning exploits. Plenty of good intentions that are never acted upon came to a head for two reasons. However, non of this has been enough to shame me into turning on my trusty old Albion Jubilee and making something specific… until…

  • Removing Diseased Elms

    Removing Diseased Elms

    Dutch Elm disease is not a thing of the past and is still a problem for the long suffering trees that survived the wave of disease that spread in the 1960’s. The disease is spread by beetles who bore through the bark of the elm. We count ourselves lucky to still have a few elm…

  • Lancashire Woodturners Meeting

    Lancashire Woodturners Meeting

    The inaugural meeting of Lancashire Woodturners went well with more people than expected turning up to the meeting held at Ulnes Walton Village Hall. Chris and Richard did a meet and greet and pointed out the brew making facilities before outlining their thoughts on what the club might look like, the format of meetings and…

  • Growing Firewood – 2019 Update

    Growing Firewood – 2019 Update

    We originally chose a six year trial for hybrid willow to test the claims made by retailers of the willow for firewood production. Not a particularly scientific approach but, hopefully, it might be useful to share the findings: Hybrid WillowThese were established willow stools which had been previously cut annually to provide more plants. Bred…

  • Work starts in our new Coppice

    Work starts in our new Coppice

    It really doesn’t seem that long ago that we were pricking out these trees as seedlings and growing them on in pots ready for planting out. It turns out we started planting out in this field in 2010. It was a bit of a milestone to be starting to do the first cut on selected…

  • Processing Oak into wood chunks

    Processing Oak into wood chunks

    Processing Oak logs into wood chunks for use in offset smokers It might be Bank Holiday Monday and it might have been a lovely sunny day but all I could think was to get some Oak wood chunks split, sawn and seasoning to replace all those being burnt in BBQs and Smokers. It is a…

  • 2018 hybrid Willow SRC harvest

    2018 hybrid Willow SRC harvest

    A dry day (at last) allowed a late afternoon walk through a row of hybrid willow short rotation coppice (SRC) to hand cut poles of 7cm dia or more for processing into wood chunks to be used as fuel in BBQ’s, wood fired Pizza Ovens, Wood boilers wood burners. Whilst a mechanical harvest is much faster,…

  • Growing Firewood – 2018 Update

    Growing Firewood – 2018 Update

    The latest annual update in our trial of a number of species planted specifically for firewood. All species are on the same soil type so whilst not particularly scientific the findings are sufficient to judge which performs best for us. Storming ahead in both rate of growth and quality of logs is the Eucalyptus Omeo.…

  • Cold Day At The Office

    I was out and about before the inevitable traffic chaos that goes hand in hand with a dusting of snow and glad I did so judging by the traffic later on. First stop was feeding the hens, the goose, his pheasant lady friends and two robins who stopped fighting for a few minutes so they…

  • Harvesting Hazel sticks

    Harvesting Hazel sticks

    A nice frosty morning allowed a quick venture into our hazel coppice to select and cut some sticks for our stock of blank walking stick shanks catering for local stick makers. In the main they only get offered for sale after being seasoned for at least twelve months (necessary for the stick straightening process to…