Butterflies

The big elm yoke blank should be dry.  John Sarge stored it inside at least a couple of years, then it sat in Tillers' shop for a year, then it sat in my outdoor shop for a few months.  Once the rough shaping was done, I brought it into my basement shop.  Then it happened.

A check.  Not deep, but long.  All across the belly and spanning the neck seat on one side.  Maybe it won't get worse, but there's a lot of work in a blank that big, so fixing it now seemed the better course.

John Sarge jokes that one of Tillers' yokes has been repaired so often that there is more Bondo than yoke in it now, but automotive dent filler is not really in my wheelhouse.  I'm a woodworker, so WWWD:  What would a woodworker do? 

Butterfly keys.

Shaped like an opposing pair of dovetails, the keys hold a check or a split together.  The particulars of shape and angle aren't critical, so long as the butterfly is cut along the grain and then placed across the grain of the split. 

I started with a 2 1/2" length of cherry and cut out a key with a handsaw.  I debated walking out to the shop to use the bandsaw for the cut.  I'm glad I didn't.  A dovetail cut is a dovetail cut.  (see photo) Then I smoothed the edges
with a chisel while creating a very slight bevel.  Think of the butterfly like a cork in a wine bottle and you get the idea. 

The next step was to lay the key across the split and trace it carefully.  I bored a few 5/8" holes in the "hole" area of the key to remove most of the material from the hole, then chiseled up to the lines I had traced.  Finally, I used a router plane to (mostly) flatten the bottom of the hole to a consistent depth.  The small recesses where the lead screw of the drill bit left a mark? I left those to give excess glue a place to go.

For glue, I chose a 2-part epoxy.  The combination of strength and the ability of epoxy to fill in gaps made it a logical choice.  I most often use hide glue for woodworking, but it's not water-or-heat resistant.  And the waterproof woodworking glues only bond on surface-to-surface contact.  My "cork" bevel would result in a tight fit at the surface, but would leave the possibility of a slight gap below.

After mixing and spreading the epoxy, a hammer and a

block of wood drove in the key. 24 hours later, I planed off the part of the key that was proud of the hole and used a scraper to level the surface.

It looks pretty good. 

Does it work?

I'll let you know in a few years.  

Update:  click here to see if it worked. . .

Dawks

A Sargent 414, the "off-brand" Stanley #5

The big elm yoke could have been done weeks ago, perhaps months.  Ok, more like a year.

Inadvertently, the process of shaping one section, then writing about it has me exploring different methods some traditional, others unconventional.  

Last week, I smoothed one side of the belly,  just a gentle, fair curve.  Starting with a circular saw, then following up with the Excaliber blade in the angle grinder - you know, like the pioneers did -  resulted in a cratered surface like that of the moon.  From there, I did the secondary fairing of the curve with a cheap Stanley Surform rasp blade in a shopmade holder.  For lots of woods, this works well.  Not so with elm.  The shavings are stringy and bunch together, clogging the rasp every few strokes.  

Starting on the other side this week, I searched for an easier (read: faster) option.  That option had been waiting for, oh, 250 years or more:  a fore plane.

The curved blade, across the grain, takes a hefty bite.

Fore planes are medium-sized bench planes that fall between shorter "smoothing" planes and longer "jointing" planes.  The most common example is a Stanley #5.  

To coax the magic from a fore plane, do two things:  First, grind the blade to a curve with about a 10" radius, which allows the tool to bite aggressively.  Second, work it across the grain.  

The first tip takes a wee bit of skill at the grinder, but you'll think you can, and just like the little engine, you will.  

The second requires a leap of faith.  Across the grain?  Are you nuts?  Maybe, but 10 minutes, maybe 15, of shaping and the process is complete.  Half the time of the other side.  

Dawks, close-up

The resulting surface is made of lots of small cross-grain grooves, historically known as "dawks."  A spokeshave easily smooths them.  

Don't have a foreplane?  Go t0 10 garage sales and take $20 bucks.  You'll end up with one. . . and a few dollars left for tacos.  

Carve a Spoon Yoke

"It's the first few thousand miles.  After that, a man gets limber with his feet." - Buster Kilrain, a fictional footsoldier in The Killer Angels and the movie Gettysburg.


After you've carved a few yokes, the ability to read the wood and the direction to cut with an edge tool like a spokeshave, drawknive, ax, adze, or chisel starts to come along.  Also, the value in carving "green wood," fresh cut material with more moisture in it, becomes apparent.

In other words, by the time you've finished the last yoke you'll ever need to make, you're ready to make yokes.  Handy, isn't it?

To fix this dilemma, start by carving small yokes, which come disguised as spoons.  Spoons have curves- just like yokes.  Spoons are carved with edge tools- just like yokes.  Spoons can be primitive yet functional, or fancy as the day is long- well, you get the idea.  

But unlike yokes: you can make a spoon in about an hour, if you screw it up, you can burn the evidence and not feel too badly, and you can present the finished product to people who don't have oxen without awkward responses.  ("Gee, thanks for the fancy ox yoke. . .I'll treasure it always and it will look great in my apartment with my cats. . .")

I stopped to visit my mom and dad yesterday, absconding with a small piece of maple from their firewood box.  With a couple of hours yesterday and today, I roughed out two spoons, one hideous, one merely ugly.  Both are left-handed.  But each gave a good lesson in reading grain direction.  


Ironically, in carving a spoon, I had to work around the big elm yoke, still unfinished.  

Working for Money

I know people who open books and read the last page first.  If this is you, I'll save you the trouble.  Working for money: avoid it.

We've been snowed, then "colded" in for 4 straight days.  -19 on the mercury this morning.  It's hard on the animals, but that will be a tale for another time.  For me, stuck in the house, it's been a chance to write up some interviews, record a new one (with the venerable Bill Speiden), shave away on the big yoke, turn at the lathe, read, watch Cool Hand Luke (Hey, for you end-of-the-book-bizarros: skip to the ending credits then turn it off.  Take my word on this.  You'll be glad you did.) and edit a MODA Newsletter.

None of this pays a dime.

Taking a break this morning, with Shadow, our outside-cat-who-becomes-an-inside-cat-when-it's--19-degrees, and Luna on my lap, I re-read part of The Anarchist's Tool Chest.  Specifically, this quote:

I'll keep plugging away on my oral history of oxen.  I'll keep at the newsletters and the blog posts as long as it's fun.  Just don't try to sweeten the deal with money.

Working for money: avoid it.  Back to work.

Ripples on the Water

Just as ripples spread out when a single pebble is dropped into water, the actions of individuals can have far-reaching effects. - The Dalai Lama


On a Saturday afternoon last March, after spending a day in the woods at Tillers with the Logging with draft Animals Class, Brandt Ainsworth and I sat down for an interview, part of the collection I'm putting together.  

Howard Van Ord, with John and Henry

A couple of cups of coffee, a couple of rocking chairs, my digital recorder, and a west-facing window. . . and we were off to the races.  As the sun went down, we spoke about a number of oxen and horse-related topics.  

When I sat down to transcribe the interview this winter, the first few minutes struck me.  Throughout, Brandt is obviously a credit-where-credit-is-due guy, but his affection for, and admiration of, his oxen mentor Howard Van Ord is especially personal and touching.  I'm just sad that I didn't send Mr. Van Ord a copy.  

What follows is the first few minutes of our conversation:

Brandt Ainsworth: I used to pull horses in the Warren County Fair in Pittsfield, Pennsylvania and we would see oxen down there.  They had an ox pull and I know I missed it one year and my dad told me about it and then the next year I was competing at the horse pull and saw the oxen pull in the oxen classes and I was very impressed.  I kind of had it in my mind I wanted to do that, but it was intimidating. I couldn't hardly get a cow to come out of the pasture and into her stanchion, I didn’t think I could train a steer to do something without ropes or reins or anything.  Later that winter, I was in Burton, Ohio pulling horses again and I had a breakdown on one of my harnesses and I stopped at a local harness shop and they had a copy of Rural Heritage magazine with a team of oxen on the front and I picked that up and it sparked my interest. I just called the first number in the classifieds where they list the oxen teamsters and it happened to be Howie Van Ord and he happened to live fairly close to me and we struck up a friendship and he taught me what I know about oxen.  Almost all of it came from Howie, actually.

Rob Collins: Did you go visit him?  Did he come to you?

BA:  A lot of phone calls to start with and then we were only, maybe, 60 miles apart, so I would go visit him fairly often and we got to where it would work both ways and he would come up and visit us.  Sometimes he'd even - and Howie has almost no interest in horses - but because we were friends, he’d come watch my horses compete in the horse pulls.

RC:  Do you drive like Howie?

BA:  Yes. I think so, because we interchange pretty well.  I can drive his team; He can drive my team and that doesn’t always happen.  I’ve seen people struggle to drive Howie’s team- even people who are successful ox teamsters - just because we have different cues and stuff and I think we drive similarly.  I try not to be in a hurry just like Howie. I think Howie is patient and calm, but he also- when I met him, Howie was in his late 60’s- and that made him want to work the team slower and I think that’s. . . you know, if you use good techniques you’ll get just as much done at a slow pace as you will at a fast pace.  Maybe more.

RC:  So, how does Howie drive?  You say it’s a little slower.  What does that look like?

BA:  Methodical.  I don’t know if I showed it much with the team today driving, but if I’m hooked to a log and I’m going to turn, I stop the team.  I turn a few feet. I stop them again. Maybe pull ahead, maybe turn. I don’t try to do everything all in one motion. I also try not to “over-drive” them, overuse the goad.  If they’re doing what they should, there’s no reason to give that same command, either visually or with a goad or with your body position, or verbally. I think I picked all of that up from Howie and just some of the cues we give.  Howie always says, “Come along” to start a team. He says, “I don’t want them to get up. They’re already up!” (laughs) and he would literally have his trained. They’d be laying in the pasture and he would say, “get up, John,” and John would get up.  “Get up, Henry,” and Henry would get up. Get up is for horses. You’re behind them; You want them to get up. Oxen? You want them to come along with you, and so I either say “Come along,” or I chirp to a team to start them. I touch them in the same spots with the goad stick.  I believe Howie touches them between to horns for “Whoa,” like I do.

A lot of that plays all around.  I believe that Howie learned a lot from Ray Ludwig.  I know he did. Howie learned his earliest stuff from John Lamb, who was a guy who I remember seeing with oxen; I really didn’t know him well.  I didn’t have the interest in oxen at the time, but I got to know his family well and he actually lives fairly close to me, or did live, fairly close to me. Howie learned all his basics from John Lamb back in, I think, the late 50’s.  John Lamb started with oxen in 1928. I remember reading that somewhere.

RC: Howie always says that he’s only got one way of doing things: The right way.  Everybody else has ways that work, but his is the right way. (Laughs) Do you think the way you work is tradition, or do you think it really is. . .does it matter if it’s “the best way” or if it’s working regardless?

BA:  Mmmm, I kind of do think there is a “right way,” and then the other ways.  I try to be open-minded and if a better way comes along that becomes the right way, I guess.  I also try to be diplomatic. I don’t want to offend anybody. You can’t alienate anybody: it’s such a small industry.  We want to keep everybody happy, you know, and interested. You don’t want to tell somebody that they’re doing it wrong and discourage them.  And, are they really doing it “wrong” if it’s working for them? But, even though I say that on the outside, I’m a lot like Howie. I’m like, “Boy, I would never do it that way. You wouldn’t catch me doing that with my own team,” that’s the kind of things I think.  I’m not quite as opinionated or as vocal about it as Howie is, but I think I feel as strongly as he does. Especially when it comes to yoke fit, fitting the yoke to the team. I don’t think there’s a lot of different ways. I think it either fits correctly or it’s wrong.

Snow Days

"Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody ever does anything about it."

Zeus on our cold Monday morning.

Kids like snow days.  Not just a little.

But teachers?  We love 'em. 

We just finished up the first semester at school.  Grades.  Exams. More grades.  Prepping for the second semester.  That, and a winter storm last weekend kept me inside and hard at work much of the weekend. 

Then Monday, to kick off the new semester, we had a "cold day."  It was -15 in the morning, and it got up to 9 by midafternoon, but the sun was out and the wind was low, so it wasn't too bad. 

Today, we had an ice storm overnight that made the roads nearly impassible, so we had another day off. 

Both days were not conducive to working the boys, and with homework caught up on, I got to spend some time with teamster interviews.  And I discovered a trick. 

The two-handed set-up for interviews.

I didn't put the necessary time into developing my typing skills when I had typing class in the 10th grade, so transcribing interviews is slow going.  Listen to half a sentence.  Pause.  Type.  Repeat. 

I found out, though, that if I listen on one computer and type with the other, I can go 50% faster.  Still slow, but faster than before. 

I also made some turned boxes and coffee scoops,
but that's another tale.

I finished a nice interview with Rob Flory from Howell Farm and then moved on to a conversation with Brandt Ainsworth from last March, getting about 5 pages done and enjoying listening back to a couple of great teamsters and nice guys.    That's a win for the home team. 

1 Spacesuit Needed

I try to consistently uphold my position on making yokes:  It's a necessary evil.  Somewhere, someone must enjoy doing it.  Some sick, demented soul, deprived of conventional entertainment (i.e.- sunsets, lemonade, root canals) could come to love the process, but I never have. 

If it wasn't for pride and vanity, along with a small helping of frugality, I'd just buy yokes.  As it is, I've made all of my own -with the exceptions being an 8" yoke I purchased used when it came across my radar and a "new" 6" one that was given to me.  

The bigger they get, though, the less fun they are.  Shaping a timber the size of a Buick requires a bit of a self-pep talk.  So it was that last Saturday the weather was just nice enough that it seemed like a good idea to carve away on the 11" elm beam that is my current nemesis.  

I had a nice, sharp Lancelot blade in "Ye Olde Angle Grinder," a face shield, earmuffs, coveralls, boots tucked inside the coveralls, a hat and gloves.

The result inside my coveralls.

So what.

The best, smoothest cut with the Lancelot wheel is a skimming, shearing cut.  Done right, it is a rip cut (along, rather than across the grain).  This makes for long, fluffy shavings that eject straight up into the still January air.  They float gently down and - guided by thermodynamics and a dose of Murphy's law- come to rest just inside the collar of said coveralls.  

Long story short: The yoke is finally roughed out and I had shavings INSIDE my socks when it was done.  Maybe there's a used spacesuit for sale on Ebay. . .