How do you handle it?

Fmont said:
I'm a serious canoer, so I don't know if it will hold interest for anyone else, but I need to recommend a old documentary film:

https://www.nfb.ca/film/cesars_bark_canoe/

It's free to watch and not narrated. It's just documenting a First Nations fellow making a birch bark canoe. And it is utterly fascinating to watch. I'll bet there average person in this forum would find the same. Worth the time.
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Towards the end of that he laid what looked like cloth over the stem. Do you know what it was?
 
I'd have to watch the part but probably something like a keep strip to protect that seam if it's near the end of the film.
 
quinton said:
I would quarter it, paint the ends, and put the quarters in a building until spring. This coming spring I would remove the bark, and by this time next year you should have wood that is dry enough to work with.
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What kind of paint? Special sealant? Tar? Rustoleum? :D
 
Fmont- great film ! Very important to keep these skills alive. About canoes, some good books; "The Bark and Skin Boats of North America" by Edwin Tappan Adney and Howard I. Chapelle, Smithsonian Institution, 1964, Museum Bulletin 230, 242 pages ; "Canoes of Oceania" by A. C. Haddon and James Hornell, Bishop Museum, Hawaii, special publications 27 (1936),28 (1937),29 (1938), combined into one volume and reprinted 1975, 884 pages. Both are hard to find.
 
Square_peg said:
The heart being off center is a natural growth pattern. Trees in the northern hemisphere tend to to put on more growth on the sunny south side.

Indigenous canoe makers knew this and always split a trunk in the east-west direction to separate the north and south wood. The tight north wood is heavier. A trunk split north-south would make a canoe with a terrible list.
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This is fascinating. Thank you for telling us, sir!
 
Question for you knowledgeable folks. I made a hop hornbeam handle for a boys axe of mine and wedged it with black locust. Went out today and chopped at a fallen apple tree for 10 minutes and the wedge backed out about 1/4". Both the handle and wedge were cut from fully dried staves that had a few too many knots to become self bows so I don't think it is a drying issue. Is it possible a lack of friction between these two very hard woods caused the wedge to slip? It was sanded to 80 grit.
 
Malus said:
Question for you knowledgeable folks. I made a hop hornbeam handle for a boys axe of mine and wedged it with black locust. Went out today and chopped at a fallen apple tree for 10 minutes and the wedge backed out about 1/4". Both the handle and wedge were cut from fully dried staves that had a few too many knots to become self bows so I don't think it is a drying issue. Is it possible a lack of friction between these two very hard woods caused the wedge to slip? It was sanded to 80 grit.
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You nailed the problem. I've had the same issue using rock maple for wedges. They all didn't back out so there is still a little mystery there. I just used a steel step wedge to rectify the problem. Hornbeam is a super tough wood! My uncle is a woodcutter and he's going to bring me some in the near future. How was it to work while shaping?
 
Yankee Josh said:
You nailed the problem. I've had the same issue using rock maple for wedges. They all didn't back out so there is still a little mystery there. I just used a steel step wedge to rectify the problem. Hornbeam is a super tough wood! My uncle is a woodcutter and he's going to bring me some in the near future. How was it to work while shaping?
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Hornbeam is tough to work green and is a real chore when it's dry. The grain changed directions so many times on that handle that I gave up on using the spokeshave and resorted to a rasp for the final shaping. I mainly wanted to use locust to give some contrast from the white hornbeam. I wanted to avoid steel wedges and glue, but I suspect this wedge will just back out again in its current state.
 
Try running a rasp across the wedge perpendicular to the grain. Then coat it with Swel-lock and drive it back in.

Another trick is to leave the haft 1/4" proud of the eye. Then drive the wedge until it's almost tight and then stop. Trim the wedge off flush and use punch carved of hardwood to drive the wedge down 1/8" further. Then the protruding sides of the haft will swell over the wedge, locking it in place.
 
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