Having made the bamboo satchel, I still had one RÖDEBY bamboo thingy from IKEA. I’ve been using a collapsible box tote for the last few years to carry all my regular SCA stuff (papers and whatnot), and it is starting to show its age. I figure these bamboo things will be pretty durable over time, so maybe a more open-top design this time. This is much like the crates I used to make a lot of, but the fabric lining makes it a continuous surface inside. I just had to figure out the right size squares for the end pieces.
Bamboo Tote with Pine Board ends and a Rope Handle
The tote is assembled with glue and copper nails . The rope is attached by inserting it through holes I drilled in the pine board. There is no finish or anything other than what came on the RÖDEBY. Here’s what it looks like when I fill it up with my stuffs:
Bamboo Tote All Filled up with Stuffs
It is a little smaller than the fabric tote it is replacing, but that is OK. I often despair of how much stuffs I carry around all the time, so tighter limits are probably for the best.
This only took me an hour or so to put together, plus the time it took for the glue to fully cure.
I made four Japanese-style sawhorses several years ago, but I realized recently that I had no way to transport them except to toss the pieces into the trunk of my car or pile them in a wagon. Then, some friends of mine moved away and gifted me with a pile of lumber they had been using as storage shelving. I spent a few days at the 51st Pennsic War medieval event constructing this 26″x16″x11.25″ crate using only hand tools, as a demo of Japanese style woodworking.
Sawhorse Crate from Pine 1-by-12
I used a ryoba nokogiri saw to do all the cutting of the pieces from the boards, and some of the joinery. I used oire nomi chisels and a mawashibiki saw to cut the remainder of the joinery and the handle cut-outs. A yotsume kiri gimlet came in handy for pilot holes so that the wood didn’t split when I drove in the nails with a genno tsuchi hammer.
Contrary to common belief, Japanese carpenters would not have used fancy joinery without nails to construct such a simple workman’s item. That kind of specialty carpentry was mostly used for devotional items or religious buildings. They probably would have used forged nails instead of wire nails, but I don’t have any of those handy. The big chunky box joints are seen a lot in shipping and storage boxes.
The linen bag holds the wedges and pegs that hold the horses together when assembled. I wrapped the handle cut-outs with some of this great palm rope from Hida Tools. I call it a crate instead of a box because there’s actually an opening in the floor because I just used two pieces of 1-by-12, leaving a 2-inch gap in the middle. This should let the sawdust and shavings out.
The completed box plus sawhorse parts is pretty heavy, so I have to store it on a lower shelf instead of storing the loose pieces on the highest shelf in the garage. I might try to figure out a packing pattern for only one horse’s worth of pieces, then make 2 of those for the other 2 horses.
Due to a confluence of funds and enthusiasm, I came up with the idea of making a new entry gate for the Debatable Lands camp at Pennsic. The camp had a gate, and there wasn’t anything particularly wrong with it, , but given that the Debatable Lands just celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of it’s founding, I felt a shiny new gate was in order. It has actually been more than ten years since I made a camp gate, so I was able to apply what I have learned regarding complexity of design and total project weight, and minimize those vital factors.
Pennsic Camp Gate for the Debatable Lands
The vertical posts are four 8-foot pine 4by4s. They are untrimmed, but they have 3.5-inch slots cut in them to mate with the horizontal members. The horizontal members are 4-foot lengths of pine 2by4, and they have 3.5-inch notches cut at each end to mate with the slots in the vertical posts. The simple joinery increases rigidity and makes sure each horizontal member is in the right place. The lower members are at a good height for use as hand rails or butt rests.
The front top panel is an 8-foot 1by12 that has been crenelated using 5 pieces cut from a 6-foot 1by10. Battens on the reverse secure the crenelations and assure that the panel is aligned properly to the vertical posts. I painted the “Debatable Lands” part myself. The back top panel is an 8-foot 1by10. It is currently not decorated, but that’s plenty of room for an inspirational motto. “Salve Accolens” would be reasonable, but I decided to let others decide what goes there. The two top panels are really the only thing connecting the sides, but they are tall (wide) enough that I’m hoping that will be fine.
The two decorative side panels in the front are 6-foot 1by10s. Owen Tegg painted the lettering, and it is amazing. They say “Fifty Years” in honor of our anniversary, but they can be replaced or repainted easily in the future. It will be a shame to see all that ornate lettering go, though. I wanted to leave a lot of room for creativity from year to year. Since they are just flat panels, anybody can make new ones if they want, and attach them to the gate once it is up.
There is another 4-foot long piece of 2by4 that runs from front to back between the top panels. This provides a little more stability, but its real purpose is to serve as a peak for the awning. The awning is just a long canvas drop cloth from the hardware store. It should provide a little shade from the midday sun and a little shelter from light weather, but I don’t imagine it is waterproof.
All the wood pieces are stained and polyurethaned. A quart of polyurethane was just enough to coat all the pieces and seal the ends. The gate is assembled using regular 3-inch long construction screws.
Given the current price of construction lumber, this whole project (including hardware) cost around $400. I had a lot of help cutting, decorating, and assembling this gate. Thank you Brandubh, Turleough, Aaron, Catalina, Niall, Owen, Forveleth (who would have helped but did not get a chance), and to the officers of the Barony for approving this passion project in the first place. I hope the Barony likes our new gate!
The funding for this and other passion projects was available because a member of our local group passed away suddenly at the age of 33, and his family asked that memorial donations be made in his name to the Barony. Ronan took tremendous pride in the Barony and loved spending time in the Pennsic camp with his friends. He would have loved helping with this project, and I hope having it up at the front of camp would have made him happy.
I picked up some small-ish thin pieces of mystery tropical wood from a friend, and I had a pile of surplus from the Storage Trays for Tama project, so I decided to make some small lidded boxes to give away. I started this back last fall, but they sat in the garage waiting for another slice of time I could devote to completing them. The largest of these has an 8″ by 8″ lid on a 5″ tall body, so they are mostly too small for storage but a great size for gifts.
Three small lidded boxes from mystery wood
The mystery wood boxes are finished with salad bowl oil finish, so you could use them as bento boxes, but since I can’t guarantee that they are water-tight or that the wood is not poisonous, I would not recommend it. This wood is only about quarter-inch thick, so the proportions are attractive. I decided how to use the pieces by stacking up all the wood by size and then moving down through the stack making lids and then boxes to match. All the cutting was on the band saw, then glued and pinned together. Unless the pin deflects inside the wood and pokes out, this method is fast.
Three small lidded boxes from pine
These are all made from half-inch pine, and finished with a variety of shellac techniques that I wanted to try. I think my favorite one is the rightmost one in the photo. I started with a really dilute cut of light amber shellac to give the wood a little more color, then top-coated with a thin coat of blonde shellac.
Anyway, I already have plans to fill one of the boxes with braids and add it to a gift basket that our SCA Kingdom is putting together for another Kingdom. In any case, the pile of surplus wood is a little bit smaller than it was, so success.
More than ten years ago, I made a couple of small “boxes” (box1box2) by wrapping bamboo sushi rolling mats around blocks of wood. Those two little boxes are still in use, and still going strong, so when I saw the RÖDEBY bamboo “armrest tray”, I knew just what I wanted to do.
The Roedeby comprises thirty bamboo slats that are bonded to a flexible canvas backer. I cut two 7.5 inch disks from pine board, and combined it with some hardware to make this satchel-
Bamboo Satchel
The bamboo is both glued and nailed to the pine disks, so it should be pretty sturdy. I attached the sling cord by drilling through the disks and then inserting the ends of the rope and tying stopper knots inside. the “latch” is a couple of brass cotter pins that are secured to the inner layer of bamboo and project through a couple of holes drilled in the outer layer of bamboo. In the above photo, the latch is secured with a small brass “lock” that I acquired at Pennsic a couple of years ago. Here it is open-
Bamboo Satchel Open, with Sake for Scale
You can see that there is quite a lot of space inside. I haven’t tried stuffing it, but I bet you could actually get 3 full-size bottles in there. It should be big enough for a small selection of tools, or a big lunch. I didn’t base it on anything I’ve seen anywhere, so I wouldn’t call it a medieval or Japanese woodworking project, but it’s a handy object that won’t be too disruptive if I carry it to an SCA event.
A while back, a friend and fellow fiber artist asked me if I could make a tabletop-sized “Oseberg Loom” that she could use in displays and demonstrations. An Oseberg Loom is a medieval style of loom for weaving narrow bands, and it is often used for tablet weaving (aka: card weaving). My friend is an experienced and enthusiastic tablet weaver who often displays work at SCA events.
I started looking around on the Internet, and found that a “real” Oseberg loom is about 2 meters long and about a meter tall. (Thanks, Ulf!) Now I understood why my friend wanted a “mini” version. Drawings enabled me to scale the pieces down, and get to work in wood.
Mini Oseberg Loom in Pine
My completed mini-loom is about 21 inches long and 12 inches tall. It is made of pine, with a blonde shellac finish. The feet join to the horizontal beam with dovetails, the stretcher bar joins to the verticals with a pinned through-mortise, and the verticals attach to the base with long screws. I thought about using more joinery, but I realized that screws would be more rigid, more durable, and much easier. The screws also make it possible to disassemble the loom if necessary for travel or repairs. There is no glue, though the shellac may of course make the pieces stick to each other..
I was able to do almost all of the cutting on the band saw, except for some of the detail work. The beveling on the base pieces (and the rounding on the verticals) was done using a router. I have a small router table that uses a handheld trim router, which is very handy for this kind of small project. The through mortises were drilled and then squared up with a chisel.
Through a combination of gifts, purchases, and gift purchases, I have acquired 64 of the 100g tama from Braiders Hand. Right now, they are all in use, but eventually, I may have to put them in something for storage. Since boxes are easier to make than tama, I retreated to the garage to make these storage trays.
Four pine storage trays for tama
They are made from 1/2-inch thick pine boards, and each can hold 32 tama. My general rule for storage options is that you should always plan for twice as many whatevers as you have now. The corners are mitered, and the bottom is rabbeted and then set into a dado that goes all the way around. This lets the bottom expand and contract with humidity changes while still being 1/2-inch thick. There are no fasteners in the tray, just glue. I can make two trays from a single 6-foot 1-by-10.
Four pine storage trays, stacked
It takes a while, though. Plus, it takes a planer (to turn 3/4-inch 1-by into 1/2-inch lumber), a table saw (to cut all the pieces and joinery), and a sander (so that everything looks nice and smooth). These trays might someday become become drawers in a kind of kotansu, but that day is probably far off.
Update: I realize that I did not do a very good job of describing how the bottoms of the trays are joined to the walls. I made a diagram –
So, I’ve made a bunch of these Shogi folding stools, and I thought it would be handy if I used up some surplus lumber to make a small tabletop that would turn a stool into a table.
I didn’t have a real plan, so I just cut two pieces of 1-by-8 and edge glued them together to make a square, then I nailed some miter-cut 2-by-4 trimmings around the edge to make it into a tray. A little polyurethane and it was ready to go. It was fine, but I realized (too late) that if I’d made it rectangular instead of square, then the rim pieces would slide down over the ends of the stool pieces and it would never slide off.
It took me some time to get around to executing my brand new plan and make a second tabletop, but I finally declared this project done when the second coat of polyurethane was dry. You can see that making it just a little larger makes it a lot more secure.
It almost looks like a real table, and not just a tray sitting on a stool.
I have been putting off the next step in this long-running experimental archaeology project more because I wanted to work on it at a particular event than because of my normal level of procrastination. I planed down the 1by lumber months ago, then I cut and assembled the chest at Aethelmearc War Practice. I started this project working on the Mark Zero “proof of concept” chest at War Practice back in 2018 or 2019.
Anyway, this is the fourth try at making a tool chest that looks like one you can see in the Kasuga Gongen Engi-e. This emaki illustrated scroll is from the 14th century and shows scenes from the history of a Kasuga shrine, including the shrine’s construction.
To better match the size and look of the Kasuga chest, I started with 1×6 lumber instead of the 1×8 I used on the Mark 2. It’s only about 39 inches long instead of the fifty-something inches of the Mark 2. I also used the thicker battens like I discussed, which I think worked out well.
Here is what the four chests look like laid out in a row:
I think I really have the look now. The size an proportions may not be exactly right, but it’s pretty much there. I’ll maybe work on a few tweaks at some point in the future.
It’s long enough that I can get some of my longer saws in there, just deep enough that things don’t get buried under several layers, and still wide enough that some of my organizertills fit in there sideways to keep things from sliding around.
We are going to need some auxiliary seating at an SCA event in March, and most of the benches I havemade are locked up in a storage trailer. Plus, they are large and not very portable. My breakdown bench is nice and portable, but somewhat of a pain to re-create given the weird joinery. I decided to design something based on the shape of a Japanese endai bench, but a little smaller than normal, and with folding legs so that it be a little more portable. Bonus points if I could make it so that it would fit in a little fold-up wagon we use to transport stuff at events.
The endai with folding legs
The top of this bench measures 15″x30″ and it is about 15″ tall. It took me most of a Saturday in the shop from start to finish. I was able to construct it entirely from lumber that I already had in the garage. The majority of the 2by4 material came from a single 12-footer that’s been up on the rack for three or four years. As a consequence, the bench has a bit of a twist to it and doesn’t sit completely flat on the floor until you put some weight on it. Even the axles for the legs are made from a poplar dowel I had “in stock”.
The endai with folded legs
Late in the design process, I decided to move the legs in one inch from the ends. I did not think about the fact that this would mean that the legs would have to be shorter if they were going to fold entirely into the undercarriage. So, it does not fold up entirely, but it does fold up mostly. If I cut the legs an inch shorter, they would fit, but I also would have to cut clearance curves onto the ends so that the corners wouldn’t jam things up.
I used screws to hold the whole thing together, which I’m not proud of, but I just was not in the mood to do fancier joinery than that. I am proud of the fact that I did most of the cutting by hand with a ryoba saw, though the curves at the tops of the legs were much easier on the band saw. The sanding and assembly were all done with power tools, because I really did want this to be done in one day. Success!
