Tipi project: Part two

A little update on my tipi project.

The poles

I now have 12 of the 14 poles for the tipi. I make them out of spruce, mainly trees which are already dead. I have removed the bark from five of them, and god it's heavy work. Each pole takes 30-60 minutes. The biggest problem was that they move around and turn when I try to use the drawknife on them. But after a while I decided to strap them and it got much easier and faster. Now I average a little over 30 minutes per pole. I put as as a goal to do two per day... But now a cold is delaying me a bit. Either way there is no hurry with the poles. I won't put the tipi up until spring I think since I plan to paint it and need to do that in spring weather.

The materials

The fabric arrived yesterday. It doesn't seem too thick to sew with my machine. However it's a bit lower quality than I had hoped. The threads are thick and a bit loose. And there is no impregnation. As much as I hate synthetic impregnation I think it's important on a tipi in the climate up here. So I might have to impregnate it myself. If someone has tips of what to use, please let me know!

Here is the complete list of materials and prices (updated) 

800m extra strong polyester sewing thread 26€

80m cooking cotton thread for hand sewing 6€

10 sewing machine jeans needles 18€
Set of hand sewing needles 3€
2 steel rings (for smoke flaps) 4€

60 meter of braided hemp rope 10€ on second hand (only 40m is actually needed)

1l tar for the painting 17€

Pigment (red iron oxide) for painting 2€

I will also use raw linseed oil for the painting which I had from before.

The fabric was 151€ plus 39€ extra vat because I live on Åland and we have to pay double vat here...

This totals to 276€

Painting

I mixed the paint already to get the proportions right. What seems to work is this:

1 dl tar

2 dl linseed oil

3 tablespoons of red iron oxide pigment

The final sketch

Now the sketch is final. I might start cutting the fabric today if this cold allows for it. Click it to see it bigger. The star is the center of the circle. It's outside of the tipi to make it tilt back a bit. A tipi is not a perfect cone, and the bottom is not circular but oval. The cone is tilted back a bit to give a straighter back wall which gives more room to stand and less risk of dripping from the poles over the sleeping area.

Update: As usual nothing is ever final. So I have updated the sketch again, October 19 2016

Click here to download the plan as an Adobe illustrator document in scale 1:100.

Some more projects, food dryer and bucksaw

Since the mushroom season has started here and my house isn't dry or warm enough to dry them, I decided to make one. It took me only about one hour and all I needed was a file cabinet, a cab heater and some net.
I removed the bottom from the drawers and replaced them with net.
To make an opening for the cab heater I removed the bottom drawer and only kept the "door" which I sawed a hole in and screwed in place.
At the top was a cutting board which I kept to regulate air flow.
Simple as that!

Now for the bucksaw. A few months ago I made one for my dads birthday. And it turned out so well so I made one for myself too.

The design is completely my own and if someone want the plans I can send them as PDF.

Introducing the paddle workbench

I've been looking around for ideas on workbenches especially made for paddles, but have not been able to find any. After a lot of thinking I came up with this idea. I'm sure there are a lot of ways to improve it, but so far it has worked wonderfully. I made this in spring, and wrote this post in spring. But I forgot to publish it.
If someone decides to make one I'm very curious to hear how it works and if you have thought of any improvements!

The criteria were:

- Easy to attach/detach the paddle.

- Possibility to work with any (realistic) length paddle and blade.

- No obstructions for the spokeshave/plane, even when using it in near vertical position.

- Easy to move the whole workbench.

- Both a blank and a shaved blade should get support underneath.

Construction

The basic idea is a permanent support for the shaft and grip and a blade support which can be moved to adjust the paddle's overall length and also moved up a bit to support a blade which is thinner than the shaft. For holding things in place I use wooden holdfasts. Mine are made from branches of ash (or any hard wood) but there are also iron-versions you can either buy or forge yourself. Normal clamps works too, but they take too much effort and time to adjust imo.

The base is a thick wide plank, with part of it narrowed down (see picture at end of post). On the narrowed down part a slightly blade-shaped plank with 2 support pieces can be attached to support the blade.

The base plank is supported by legs in the ends in a 20 degree angle at comfortable working height. To be able to work on the profile of the paddle, 20 mm (0.8 inches) holes for the holdfasts are drilled through the plank. To work on the flat side of the paddle one 3.5 x 3.5 cm (1.4 x 1.4 inch) piece is screwed on to the side, close to the bottom of the wide part of the plank, and another one on one of the support pieces for the blade support. These have vertical holes for holdfasts.

On the grip end of the workbench is a small piece of  wood which can be switched up to prevent the paddle from sliding back. Similarly on the blade support there are 2 stops at the paddle's tip which prevents it from sliding that way.
For the case where the blade support is very far from the shaft support I have drilled holes from the top in the narrowed down part and made extension pieces for the shaft that can be inserted using plugs.

Use

It can be used for working on the paddle in both profile and flat view. Starting with a blank you remove the blade support and attach the blank to the side of the workbench using holdfasts. Here you can fine-tune the edges, then turn it and do the other side.

Now attach the blade support, put the paddle on top and adjust the distance of the blade support so it stops the paddle form sliding. Use holdfasts here too to keep the support in place.

Work down the blade however you prefer, I do most of the work using axe then flatten it with a plane and finally fine tuning using spokeshave. Do the grip while you're at it.

Now when you've done the thickness on one side you can flip the paddle, loosen the blade support and use 2 small wedges to get it to the right height before fastening it again.

Finally, to work on the shaft you can use holdfasts on the blade and grip then work it down using spokeshave, you will have access to two on the corners of the shaft unlike on an ordinary workbench where you only have access to one.

Tipi project: Part one

Now it's been a loong time since I last wrote something here. It's not because I haven't done anything, but rather because I have been doing a lot!
The biggest thing being planning for a 7 week canoeing trip in northern Finland (Ivalojki) the next summer. But more on that later.

As some of you know I lived 2 years in tipi in Sweden while studying bushcraft. After that unfortunately I moved and have been living inside for two years. But recently I spent one week in a tipi while building a canoe for the upcoming canoeing trip.And that really reminded me of how fantastic it is to fall asleep to the sound of the fire, and to wake up to the sound of the birds flying inside the tipi.

So when I got home I started researching how to build one. The one I used to live in was built after this instruction (Swedish):
http://www.naturligt-ute.se/pdf/tipibygge.pdf

So while designing my tipi I use that as reference. There is, however some things I see could be improved on that design:
The smoke flaps, for example. They are REALLY big. Both too high and too wide. So I wanted to make them smaller. The big size makes them flap in the wind and heavy to move.
The pinholes that keeps the tipi together are too big (3 cm in diameter). And they are on a separate piece of fabric, which is usually the first seam to break on a tipi. So I wanted mine on the main fabric, with no seams, possibly even some reinforcement. I also believe the holes are too close so I moved them further apart lengthwise.
The "doorstep" is very low, which makes the door quite low. As my friend Lovisa pointed out it's a good idea to make it higher to move the door up a bit.
I also adjusted the top of the tipi, where you tie the raising pole, after THIS instruction. That way I don't need the wedges to lengthen the smoke flaps.

So I needed some canvas for all this. In the Swedish instruction the width is 160 cm. There is no mention of the thickness. So I started researching the thickness needed. And damn it's confusing with the English/American oz per square yard and the rest of the worlds grams per square meter. I came to the conclusion that it should be at least 12 oz after reading THIS.
There is a Dutch site called Esvocampingshop which has some different canvas to good prices.
But even with these prices a tipi would cost over 400€. That's more than I can afford. So I kept looking.... and looking..... and looking.
And finally I found a good deal on EBAY. A 40 meter roll, which is exactly as much as I needed, of 12 oz cotton canvas. Only 147 cm wide though. But after some planning I came to the conclusion that it would still work. I ran 12 oz per square yard in a converter to g per square meters. And it says 406 g per square meter. Now if that is correct it's quite thick. I am not sure if my sewing machine will be able to sew it... But that's a later problem!

The fabric is scheduled to arrive around October 10. Until then I hope to find a big enough room to sew it in. I'm also gonna start looking for poles for the tipi.

Finally, here is my current tipi plan. It's not final. So if you have any input I would be happy to hear!

Update: The final plan is in part 2

Why not paddle with a plank?

I've been thinking about how to explain the basics of the classic paddle shape for a while now. A really simple way to understand all of it's curves and form. And today by accident I thought of a good way.
I had loaded the canoe on our car getting ready to paddle to work. It's a 10 min drive and then a short portage and a short trip on the sea out to the island where I'm working at the moment. So I portaged to the shore. Put the canoe in the water and was just about to paddle away, when I realized... I forgot the paddle at home. So I had the option to either walk to the car, drive home and get it and come back.... or find something else to paddle with.

Well, what are the requirements for something I could paddle with?  Just a stick would have been enough. If it's long enough it can propel the canoe forward and even simple steering is possible. But it's not easy to hold, since it has no flat grip neither horizontally or vertically. And because the part in the water is also round it won't get a good grip in the water. So I went the more sophisticated way and took a plank I found lying around. This gave me a flat surface with both a horizontal and vertical area to hold. And a flat blade for better grip in the water. But unfortunately the only plank I found was too short, just a little under a meter (3 feet) long.
Either way I decided to head out with this. Paddling with such a short "paddle" was very exhausting for the wrist because I didn't get the leverage of a longer paddle, so had to press harder.
When I arrived at the island I found a longer plank for the trip back. Now this I think is the minimum for comfortable and efficient paddling, a thin plank in good length. From here on it's mostly luxury adjustments to make paddling more comfortable.

My next concern was that I couldn't do underwater recoveries. The plank was too thick so the underwater recovery would turn the canoe toward the paddling side and slow it down. So I had to lift the rather heavy plank above water every stroke. This could easily be adjusted by sharpening the edges with an axe. And to lower the weight the whole under water area could be made thinner. I didn't do this as I was just paddling a short distance. But if I was on a trip and lost my paddle I definitely would. Assuming I had an axe or knife with me.
Next problem was the middle part of  the plank. It's too wide to get a good grip around and the lower hand comes too far from the center for good J-strokes using the gunwale as leverage. This is the reason for the shaft. This too, would be quite easy to do with an axe in an emergency.

Now at this point all other modifications are pure luxury. Except one. I mentioned the curves of the paddle in the beginning. They are not just there to look beautiful. A good even curve in the transition from shaft to blade adds a lot of strength. Same from shaft to grip. The reason is that each fiber in the wood gets an underlying fiber that stretches further. Imagine a blade which just has a 90 degree transition from the shaft. When you paddle pressure is put on the sides of the blade. A lof of pressure is put on the "corner" closest to the shaft. It will be forced to bend backwards and the point that bends most easy is in the 90 degree corner. Eventually it will bent too much and crack. By having an even curve the "bending point" will be split up over the whole area and allow the paddle to do a smooth bend.
To try and explain this I made a simple (but ugly) drawing in illustrator. Click to see it bigger.

Well, to summarize it. I think this thought process is how the paddles have evolved. The very first watercrafts, maybe just logs, were propelled by sticks. Someone noticed something wider has better grip in the water, and from there on it just kept evolving into what we have today.

For more in-depth read about paddle design see some of my first posts:
Open canoe paddles 1: The paddle and materials
Open canoe paddles 2: The shaft
Open canoe paddles 3: The grip
Open canoe paddles 4: The blade

Nine days solo canoeing trip

At the end of May I finished my woodworking course at Insjön in Sweden. The school was quite far into the country and I usually live by the sea. So I saw this as an excellent opportunity for a long canoeing trip.

Dalälven

Dalälven is the river I paddled, it is one of Swedens biggest rivers. It starts off as two rivers, west Dalälven and east Dalälven which both have their sources in Norway, and then meet up and flow a little bit south of the middle of Sweden to finally reach the Baltic sea close to Gävle, about 100 miles north of Stockholm. East Dalälven passes close to the school so I decided to follow it down to the sea, a total of 256 kilometers (159 miles).
The name Dalälven consists of two words, "dal" which means valley and "älv" which means a river starting in the mountains. It flows through the county Dalarna (valleys) in Sweden which I believe has given it it's name.

Preparations

The stream pass by some cities which allowed me to resupply along the way. This gave a lot of freedom in the planning process. I did not calculate how long it would take, I decided to not be in a hurry and just paddle as far as I felt like each day.
The time between deciding to do the trip and actually starting was very short, a little under one week. And I did not have all of my outdoor gear at school so some things were just improvised or simply left out. I dried a lot of food before heading out; potatoes, carrots, zucchini, paprika, onion, mushrooms and other vegetables. I only ate vegeterian food, and except the butter most things were vegan. Oat milk for example lasts much longer in warm temperature than milk product and works just as well in food.
I printed the maps from http://kso2.lantmateriet.se It's a free service where you can print your own maps of pretty much anywhere in Sweden. Unfortunately I only had access to a black and white printer so sometimes during the trip I had trouble navigating.

The trip

The rainy beginning

I started in east Dalälven and reached the meeting point already the first day. It was a day of constant rain, not an excellent start of a trip but I didn't get let down by the rain. And later I would have a lot of benefit (and some trouble) from the high water level the rain made. I also had to portage past the first dam this first day. There was about one dam per day to pass, but sometimes more. During the whole trip I portaged 14 dams.
I spent the first night in an abandoned storage shed. It was nice to have a dry place to sleep at after a day of constant rain.

Misery campfire after a rainy day.

The abandoned storage shed I slept in first night.

The city of portaging

The next day was also raining but in the evening it had stopped. I reached the first city now, Borlänge. I spoke to a man which explained that the name is old Swedish and means "carrying far". And that proved to be very true. The city had 4 dams. I did the first dam, which was just a short portage and then set up camp in a small forest on an old dirt road.

The next day was probably the heaviest during the whole trip. The first two dams were not too bad, quite short portages. But the last one was a lot worse. It was a total of over 3 km because the riverbank was blocked by a sewage plant. I first carried my packing and managed to hitch hike to the bridge where I was planning to end the portage. Then on the way back to get the canoe I put up my thumb again... and surprisingly got picked up by the same guy again. So then I portaged the canoe all the way. It was windy so the canoe caught wind all the time while carrying, When I got the chance I used the areas with high grass in the ditch to pull it instead of carrying on my back. I found it to be nice to alternate between the two a bit. At least it was fun to see the look on the psaserby's faces when I walked around in the city with a canoe on my head.
When the canoe was in place I decided to go into town and get some new boots, this far I had only used my working shoes which were in very bad condition, since I didn't have my tripping shoes at school. My shoes had gotten totally soaked by the rain and were also falling apart. So I bought a cheap pair of rubber boots which I used for the rest of the trip. It wasn't ideal but it was much better than the wet ones. I didn't want anything with lining as those never dry.

Lost in the forest and thunderstorm

The next few days were quite straight forward. The weather was better. It was a bit windy some days but I soon got into the rythm of waking up between 4 and 6 before the wind got strong and then setting camp between 2 and 5 when it was too windy to be comfortable to paddle.
Up until this point the stream had been narrow all the way, never widening into lakes or such. But on the 5th day I reached the first lake, close to Hedemora. By now the water level was very high and the land in this area was very low. This in combination with my bad maps and that I didn't have a compass made it hard to navigate. I decided to take a shortcut in a narrow canal between the mainland and an island. But it was hard to find where it started because the forest was flooded. I thought I had found it and started following it through the forest. But soon lost it and realized I was just paddling between the trees and because of the cloudy weather couldn't really tell directions.

High water level...

Eventually I got out again and decided to paddle around the island. But when I did so I found the canal and it was quite big because of the high water level. It was however blocked by some roads which I could easily pass because they were flooded too.
But now the wind got a lot stronger really quickly and I see some big dark clouds in the sky. It has kind of been building up for this the whole day but at one point it's no longer possible to paddle. I set camp at a big green field already around 2 o'clock. The thunderstorm and rain comes in th evening and is really close. But when it passed by it left one of the most amazing rainbows I've seen!

Halfway point, party and a change in nature

Next day I reach the city Avesta where I resupply for the rest of the trip and also buy a compass which I realized I will need. It's the last city I pass during the trip. It also has 2 dams which I do in one portage, quite far but not as heavy as the one in borlänge. In the afternoon I reach Sjöviks folkhögskola which is the school I did my 2 years bushcraft program at. I've been looking forward to reaching this point as it's the halfway mark of my trip. And after this the nature gets much more wild and untouched. The bushcraft students are still there and have just got back from a two and a half week paddle trip. It's their penultimate day and they celebrate it by visiting one of the teachers and having a barbecue party which I join. It was very nice to get some real food and meeting friends and my old teachers again.
The start of the second part of the trip was amazing. There was no wind and just a very thin layer of clouds, just enough so the sun wouldn't burn or blind me. And I was familiar with the area I paddled this day since we did trips here from Sjövik. From here on the river widened a lot and it was more like paddling in lakes than a river. The first rapids also started showing up now. I could paddle all of them except one. It's called Balen and is famous for it's huge monster wave which now with this much water was 1-2m high and followed by 2 more nearly as big waves. I decided to do it the safe way and portaged past it.

Balen

This day I did close to 60km (37 miles), it shows how much knowing the waters and good weather do for the speed. In the evening I set camp at a windbreak and baked bread in the pot.

The last challenging dams and the sea

The last days I did about 2 dams a day and they were quite challenging. The portages were not very far. But the riverbanks were artificial, high and steep and the water flowed fast. To get ashore I had to hold the canoe in a rope while I carefully unloaded the packing. Putting it in a bad spot would make it roll down into the river. Then I had to somehow pull the canoe up. This was also challenging to do without damaging it.
Then I had to do everything again to get it back in water below the dam. I first put the canoe in, and if I had something to tie it to I did so while loading it. At one place I was a bit careless. I had stored the map inside my rolled up sleeping mattress and while loading the canoe I tried to throw the sleeping mattress into the canoe, but missed and it was caught by the stream. So I had to hurry and pack the last things then untied the canoe and jumped in. I managed to catch it but the maps had gotten wet, but was still readable.

An old dam

One day I got into another thunderstorm. I was paddling on open water with just a few islands around. So I went on shore on the closest one which had a small cabin. At first I just waited behind the cabin taking cover from the rain but when it started raining more and seemed it wouldn't stop I went up to it and checked the door. The door to the veranda was unlocked so I could go inside and wait out the storm. It was all white and clean in there so I felt very uncomfortable. When the storm ended I wrote a message thanking the owners and left.
The last dam, in Älvkarleby was easy to get ashore at and from the water it looked like a quite short walk. But when I went to take a look there was a huge waterfall behind it with a long steep rapid following it. I realized it would be a long portage so I asked a pair I met (Magnus and Ulrika which would be the quickest way past it. They explained and in the end they even said they could help me carry. So me and Magnus took the canoe and Ulrika took the gear. Not having to go back up to get the canoe saved me a lot of energy and time. They were very helpful and told me this was the last dam and that the rest of the way would be a breeze.
And they were right, the river got narrow again, much like the beginning of my trip and the water was flowing fast. I just had to sit back and go with the flow, literally.
Reaching the sea was a great experience. It was a feeling of relief and freedom but also a scary feeling. The sea is big and wild compared to the predictable river.

This trip was a great experience! I didn't put much time into planning and preparing the trip. I just did the necessary stuff and went out. It was amazing to be alone for this long time. Lots of time to think and reflect and I got much closer to nature than I usually do on trips. I really learned to predict the weather and could sometimes go ashore even before the wind arrived.

And finally some more photos from the trip.

Amazing construction!

Ten paddles project part three (last)

So, time for the last update on the project.The paddles are hanging from the roof and waiting for the oil to dry. And I'm even too tired to enjoy being done with them. But I think it's nice to get some distance now, then I'll enjoy them much more later.

Since my last post I've formed the grips, smoothed the surface and oiled them. And I've learned a lot from this. Especially how to make, prepare and use cabinet scrapers. But let's take the grips first.
I did most of the forming using spokeshave, knife and gouge. I used the spokeshave where I could then used the knife in the notches and the gouge for wide concave surfaces, like the fat part you grab on the grip.

Roughly forming the grip went really fast, much quicker than I had thought it would. But in return the fine tuning of everything took longer. I saved the shaft for last since a square shaft makes it much easier to clamp the paddle to the workbench.

As I mentioned I used a cabinet scraper to smooth the blade. I made this myself from an old felling saw. I used an angle grinder to cut it out roughly then fine tuned it on the bench grinder. Then just followed the standard sharpening procedure for cabinet scrapers. It worked very well, I gave it a slightly convex edge on one side and a concave on the other. And after using it and playing around a bit I found that I could attach it to an old felling saw handle for much more comfortable and effective use.

For rounding the shaft I made and used a tool described in Graham Warrens's book Canoe paddles - a complete guide to making your own. It's a small plank with two pegs sticking down and between them pencils marking the lines. The proportions should be 7:10:7 to get the lines in the right place. Then I just held it angled and drew the lines on the shaft. I also added one pencil in the middle to mark the middle line at the same time. But in the end it didn't work very well to draw all three lines at the same time so I just knocked down the pencil I wanted to draw with and repeated for each line.

Another very useful tool I made for the rounding of the shaft was a cabinet scraper shaped after the shaft. After 8-siding and 16-siding the shaft I just used this scraper to get it round. Unfortunately I didn't make this until after I finished half of the paddles. So the first ones didn't get the same perfect roundness.

I used sandpaper on the modern design ones. I started with 120 grit, then 240 and finally 600. I wet them to raise the fibers then repeated with 240 and 600 grit a few times.

Finally I oiled them with cold pressed raw oxidized linseed oil, just rubbing it in with my hand, then did a few strokes with 600 to remove any raised grains and wiped them off as much as I could with paper towels.

Cozy workplace. The blanket helps to protect the paddle when it's clamped.