Paracord key chains

If you have read any of my posts you will quickly figure out that I am not some hardcore survivalist guy.  I don't extoll the virtues of having a bug out bag or a 10 piece kit.  I don't speak badly of those that don't have an EDC or stockpiles of toilet paper and MREs in their basement.  That being said, I'm a huge fan of paracord.  Why?  I don't know, I've always had a fascination with string and rope.  I think if you look very carefully on banisters and chair legs back home in PA where I grew up, you can still find traces of blue yarn that I tied around them.  I made pulleys and slip knots and used it to make box traps out of laundry baskets, and anything else I could think of.  I guess it stands to reason that I, after probably 30 years, still like messing around with cordage.

I've been making a few paracord bracelets lately using the cobra weave and king cobra weave.  They aren't much, but I wear one every day and so does my son.  I made him an OD Green one that he rarely takes off his wrist any more.  My brother Jim wears one that I made him and I even traded a few from posts online.  The original purpose of these bracelets was to provide an emergency supply of cordage in a survival situation, but I happen to just like they way they look.  I doubt that I will ever be in a situation where I'll have to use it to survive, but I guess you never know.

I've seen a few paracord key chains online and I figured that I would make a few.  Did you know that you can buy a whole bag of split rings in various shapes and sizes for just a few dollars?  Me either, but I know it now.  So, with my trusty bag of split rings and a few different colors of 550 paracord, I made a few key chains.  They would also be great as zipper pulls on packs as well.

they are all about 8 inches long, with the yellow one being a bit longer than the others.  I used two sizes of split rings.  The smaller one is 1/2 inch and the larger is one inch in diameter.  The thin key chains are made of a single length of paracord about 6 feet long.  The thicker ones are in the King Cobra style and have an extra 6 feet of paracord wrapped around the smaller version.

I think they came out pretty good.  They are easy to make, and cost about a dollar in materials.  I think I made all of these in about an hour or so while sitting and watching TV with my wife.  I found a few other styles that I want to try and make, but for now, I have the one pictured above attached to my car keys and it will become a permanent addition.

I'll be glad to sell you one of mine for a few bucks plus whatever shipping it costs to get it to you, but there is no need for that.  Make them yourself.  Go get some split rings and a few feet of paracord.  Need help making it?  Post a comment here and I'll help you out.  It doesn't have to be perfect.  The satisfaction of making these things yourself is worth the small amount of effort you spend in learning how to get it done.

Until next time, Happy Carving, and Happy Spring!

Day 7, Different name, same game

This week has really gotten me thinking.  Is this blog even about woodworking?  It depends, it has a lot or projects that are made from wood, and it takes work to make them, so maybe.  But not really.  I'm not a woodworker, at least the way I see it.  I'm a dabbler.  I mess around with all kinds of stuff.  My wife calls it ADD, and maybe that is what it is and if so, I'm fine with that.  I'm just this guy who likes to make stuff.  I like to think about things, and I enjoy learning new skills.

I renamed the blog to Woodlake Bushcraft.  First, Woodlake is where I live, and I guess bushcraft is really what I have going on here.  Spoons are a big part of it, so is green wood working, but there are other things, that I haven't even talked about that I want to explore.  I'm excited about the future and the things that I will be posting about.

I was in the garage a little while ago looking at all of these projects that I have done this week, a crazy camp spoon with a paracord lanyard, a box for my crook knife, a leather sheath, oh and this spoon, roughed out today.  I'll finish it in a week or so when I get back from my business trip.

I watched a video by Barn the Spoon and he showed these eating spoons that I liked the shape of very much.  So today I tried to make one.  It's too big to be an eating spoon, but its more of a prototype than anything else.  Maybe I'll make some smaller ones.

I like the shape of the bowl and the lack of a defined rim.  I like how it turns up at the end.  I like how the handle is just simple and round.

So there you have it, 7 days of projects.  Done.  I'm tired, mainly because of the extra hours of work I have been putting in, but also because this whole blogging thing is much harder than it appears.  I'm not very good at it, I never care for the things I write that much, I think it either sounds too simple or too wordy.  I guess it will have to be like everything else I do, a work in progress.

I'm heading to the Pacific Northwest on Sunday morning early.  I'll be out there for a week.  I have a lot of work to do, so that will be my main focus, but I have some other plans as well.  I'm taking some paracord to mess around with in the evenings.  I also plan to put together a list of things that I want to work on next.  You can be sure they will make it to this page, I can't seem to help myself.

Thanks for taking this ride with me this week.

Day 6, Work gets in the way, but we press on

I wish I had more to give you tonight, but the fact is, I have had very little time to work on anything other than my job.  Work has really been going crazy these last few days, I was up for a good part of the night last night dealing with issues.  It's part of the deal I guess, and a trade off that I willingly make for being able to roll out of bed, put on a sweatshirt and jeans and be at work in 10 seconds.  Not everyone is as fortunate as I am in that regard, and I am grateful for what I have.  Things are broken, things aren't working the way I want them to though, and I can tell you, I've been spending many many hours hunched over my computer screen trying to fix things.

I don't really know how many people are actually reading this every day, maybe a few are clicking on my links that I stick around here and there, but I feel the need to hold up my end of the bargain and post.  I was watching TV with my wife earlier, spending some much needed time doing not much of anything, trying to figure out what this post was going to be about.  It took me a while, but then I remembered my net needle.  I carved it a while ago and don't think I ever posted anything about it. 

So here you go, a net needle, carved from a piece of maple that I had in the garage several months ago.

It was made after watching a few videos on net making, and then brought back to the forefront of my thoughts after watching a video on tumplines.  I'll use it one day, but for now, I'm content with the knowledge that I have one and also that I can make another one if I need to. 

You know, I have been thinking about that a lot lately.  I get down on myself that my quality isn't as good as others.  I think that is part of what it means to be human, comparing yourself to others.  Maybe all of that doesn't matter so much.  Maybe the true learning is that you develop the skills.  Does it matter if your spoon or bowl, or sheath or knife is perfectly crafted?  Or is it more important to be able to carve a spoon to feed yourself?  I don't know.  I'll let others that are much smarter than I am answer that question.  I've got one last post coming tomorrow night, then I'm taking a break, but not too long, I've got more things to talk about.  Until then, happy carving everyone.

Mora Clipper Sheath, done. (day 5)

I never have liked the plastic sheath that came with my Mora Clipper knife.  I mean it works pretty good, but it always felt cheap.  Of course the entire knife was probably in the $20 range, so having a sheath of any type is a good thing I think.  I've been wanting to try my hand at sheath making for quite some time, and finally got up the courage to give it a try.  Let me say though, that this is the first sheath that I have ever made.  I had no idea what I was getting into.

It is far from perfect.  The stitching was much harder than I expected, I broke a few needles, and it isn't very neat.  I found that punching the holes for your stitching runs is by far the hardest part of the entire process.  Everything else is fine as long as you take your time.  I used 8/9 ounce vegetable tanned leather.  It felt thick to me when working with it, but in the finished product I am happy for the extra thickness.  I designed the sheath using the knife as a template, first making a paper pattern then one from card stock.  It pays to place the pattern on the actual knife, folding it around and visualizing what it would be like cut out of leather.  I made my first template too small and only really figured it out after I had cut it out of leather. 

The sheath has a welt to protect the stitching from the knife blade and all stitching runs are grooved to prevent wear and tear.  I sanded and burnished the edge of the sheath to give it a nice looking edge as well as to protect it.

I read somewhere that there is only so much that you can learn by watching videos and by reading.  To truly understand how things work you have to roll up your sleeves and give it a try.  I have learned so much from making this simple sheath.  I made the welt too thick.  The top of the sheath is too wide, I could have made it narrower and still left plenty of room for the welt.  Stitching holes are a pain to get straight and I need to figure out a better way to do it for the next sheath I make.

I've already got plans swirling around in my head for my next sheath.  I hope that I can use the things I have learned in making this one to speed up the process, improve my quality, and become much more efficient.  I think I probably have 10-15 hours of work in this sheath, probably that much or more of thinking and worrying about it.

Two days left.  It has been a good run so far.  I'm on the home stretch, but I still have more to do.  See you tomorrow for the next update.  Until then spend some time thinking about things that you want to try.  What keeps you from doing it?  Happy carving everyone.

Spoon Knife box, done (day 4)

I've been wanting to make one of these since the first time I saw the beautiful knife boxes that Jogge Sundqvist uses to keep his crook knives protected.  Then, more recently, Sean Hellman showed the simple box that he uses to protect his spoon knife.  I knew that I needed one.  You know how that is?  It's like the first time you see something it plants a seed, and then the second time it gives that seed what it needs to sprout and grow.  I mean, its just a wooden holder for a spoon knife, but still, I needed it.

I had a vision of what this box was going to look like a week or so ago.  I knew that it was going to be made of ash.  In my mind I could see leather straps holding the knife in place.   My original idea was two straps running across the case.  As you can see from yesterday's post, I even made two small square anchors for the snaps and two straps.  Sometimes what seems like a good idea at first doesn't work so well in practice.  I only have line 20 snaps, and they just weren't strong enough to hold against the pull of the strap.  I also ran into issues trying to get the anchors attached to the wood.  I sat at the kitchen table for quite a while today, sipping some coffee and trying to come up with a solution.  Finally, after filling my cup up a second time, I came up with the alternate approach you see here.

 The straps are attached on either side with nickle plated upholstery nails.  The double thickness across the top actually serves to hold the knife more securely than having just a single strap.  I am very happy with how it turned out.  I put some flax seed oil on it to bring out the grain in the Ash.  I like how it looks very much, and best of all, it works great.  I've been wanting a way to protect my Ben Orford spoon knife and now I am confident that it will be safe in its new home.  There is just one problem, I need a matching box for the left handed version of the same knife!  Three more days of posts still to come.  Tomorrow will probably end up being just an update post, the chances of me finishing this next project by tomorrow night are pretty slim.  I guess it depends on what tomorrow brings.  Until then, happy carving everyone.

Day 3, Project Update, closer than it appears

Sorry for the brevity of this post.  I burned some midnight oil last night and am paying for it today.  As promised though, here is my day three post.

This is probably the only one of my projects that I can keep a secret until it is done.  I've made some pretty good headway on it today though, and it will be done tomorrow in time for my nightly blog entry.  I think another hour or so and it will be taken care of.  I'm actually really excited about this one.  I've been wanting to get this project done for quite some time, but new ones kept getting added on top.

So, what can I say about this project that won't give it away?  Well, the wood is seasoned ash, harvested in Pennsylvania.  The leather is 8 oz vegetable tanned.  Everything else needs to wait until tomorrow.  Happy carving.

Cherry Quaich, done. (day2)

I was sitting out in the garage a few days ago working on this quaich and I knew right then and there that I was going to leave a tooled finish on it.  Why?  Well I have been trying to work up the courage to do so (I'm a bit of a perfectionist) and well it was time.  Also this one is going to be mine.  I'm going to take a sip of whiskey from it on special occasions and maybe throw it in my pack to go camping in the spring and share a few sips with some of the guys I go camping with.  It's not fancy, it isn't super smooth and defect free, it is finished the best I could get it with my knives.  Sharper knives would help maybe.  I need to do some work on that skill for sure, but I'm actually happy.  It reminds me of the mountains in Pennsylvania where it came from.  That's where I come from too, and I'm not super smooth and defect free either.  We make a fine pair.

Now let me be the first to tell you that a tooled finish is not the "easy" way out.  It takes longer, in my opinion, to do a tooled finish.  At least it took me longer.  I can also tell you that just like in the light of day, sanding mistakes become visible, so do issues with a tooled finish.  I don't recommend working a tooled finish without an adequate light source, with the sun being the best to choose from.  I kept finding tiny things that I wanted to fix, and I could have been working on this project for another week and still not found them all.  Expect more tooled finishes in the future.

It is finished with a hefty coat of beeswax and flax oil mixed together to form a paste.  I slathered it on really thick and then let it sit for a bit, I then buffed the wax into a nice shine with a clean cloth.  It smells great, like honey.  It also brought out the colors of the sap and heart wood.

How do you know if a quaich is going to work?  Well you poor in a shot of some whiskey and check for leaks.  My cherry quaich passed with flying colors.  I'm not a big drinker by far.  But there is something special about drinking out of a wooden vessel that I could really get used to.

Project three is next and let me just say that I wouldn't expect to see anything finished tomorrow night.  An update though for sure.  Until then, happy carving!