Friday 12 November 2010

Medieval Nail

 In my post of December 12th 2009 I wrote about a lump of Oak I'd been given which had come from the restoration of York Minster.  Yesterday I decided to make some Medieval style spoons with it.  You can hardly call it green woodwork when the wood may be 800 years old!
In the evening as I was clearing up I was dismayed to discover a chip in the edge of my Gransfors carving axe - couldn't think how it had got there.

I discovered the culprit this morning...

...a medieval nail hammered into that beam hundreds of years ago and concealed by the charring.

I'll have to regrind the axe and remember to use a froe next time I'm working old timber.  The Oak looks gorgeous though and not as hard to work as I'd expected.

6 comments:

Uncle Tractor said...

That ancient oak is beautiful. I'd love to get some. Nice job.

Les Taylor said...

Lovely job, did you save the nail, you don't come across them very often.

Anonymous said...

Ouch!

I did the same thing with a bandsaw blade, a new one, only this week. All i had to do was replace the blade though...no arduous re-grinding.

The colour in the spoon is wonderful...so rich. A great job, Robin, and a very worthwhile re-use of salvaged wood.

Gorges Smythe said...

I've always heard that OLD oak, generally being what we call virgin timber, as opposed to second grow, is softer than the second growth. Shame about your axe!

Premodern Bloke said...

What a beautiful piece of timber and such a nice spoon. Just be thankful that you have that wonderful brown English Oak, and not our rock-hard White Oak.

Mike D said...

Robin, whilst taking a chunk out of the lovely axe is a great pity... its almost a privelege for it to be such an old piece of metalurgy to be the culprit... hand forged with care...

all the best - give our love to V and fingers crossed for 2011...

Mike