Hand forging a damascus knife blade
John Neeman and company have done it again, and produced a stunning mini-documentary video about the production of a damascus knife blade, in Birth of a Tool: Part III. Damascus knives are extremely labor-intense, as they require multiple layers of different types of steel to be forged and folded repeatedly, with a minimum of at least 300 layers. The resulting blade is intensely strong, and intensely beautiful, too.
Check out the folks at John Neeman Tools hand forging these knives, and creating the leather sheath in their latest video below! Beautiful work, and excellent filmmaking, too.
There’s an up-and-coming outdoor oven out there: the wood-fired barrel oven promises some pretty compelling advantages over a cob or masonry oven, and it is the subject of Max and Eva Edleson’s latest Build Your Own Barrel Oven book. It’s the first I’ve heard of this particular design, and I must say, it has definitely captured my attention, and the Edlesons’ book does a fantastic job describing the plans and construction process of these relatively simple, efficient pizza and bread-baking wonders.
Have you been considering building an outdoor oven setup of your own, or are you intrigued by the idea baking pizza with wood heat? Read on for my review of the book and a better understanding of the advantages of building your own barrel oven.
Two of Greg’s miniature Windsor chair samples
We’ve really been enjoying ourselves at Greg Pennington‘s shop and trying our hand at chairmaking. Greg’s been giving us a lot of great instruction and tips along the way. What a pleasurable workshop to create in! (See Greg’s timber frame shop interior here, if you missed it.)
Here are a few photos from the past couple of afternoons of our chairmaking adventures. My recent highlight: carving the seat blank with some new (to me) tools, including a scorp and some really well-made spokeshaves. That pine sure is like butter…
We are happy to announce our first building workshops of 2013 — come learn how to build your own backyard, wood fired oven in our Cob Oven Workshop.
In September and October, visit Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage in Missouri for our latest three day natural building course — learn cob oven construction essentials, and get a great glimpse into sustainable living in a well-known ecovillage community in the process.
Outdoor ovens are extremely popular, and for good reason. A cob oven can be built with inexpensive natural and recycled materials, and the results are fantastic. No pizza party will ever be the same again!
The quintessential dream house
I really enjoyed stumbling upon this tumblr page dedicated to a boatload full of pictures from The Hobbit movie, specifically of hobbit houses from the Shire set. The close-up captures are great — all the little construction details are really quite stunning. I only wish… well, that they were real. I know that sounds really dumb, but it pains me to know that it’s probably mostly a bunch of nasty foam we’re seeing, and not actual carpentry, living roofs, and really cool brick work. Oh well…. but the hobbit house pictures are really quite inspiring, nevertheless
Read ahead for more pictures!
Save on one of these elusive Gransfors axes….
If you’ve ever scoured the internet for Gränsfors Bruks axes, you’ve probably noticed that there really aren’t any sales or deals out there… or are there? Yesterday, I was happy to find a nice little discount code for Gränsfors axes through Wood Trekker for Omaha Knife.
A great space to create…
We’ve recently had the pleasure of spending time with Greg Pennington in his lovely timber frame shop, here in Hendersonville, Tennessee. Greg is a chairmaker and woodworker, and makes and sells some beautiful handmade Windsor chairs. He works with hand tools and creates some really beautiful work, in addition to teaching others how to work wood with hand tools.
Figure out how you will acquire your timbers… early!
This is the first of many posts where I travel back in time, and fill in missing parts of the Strawtron building timeline with essential information for how we built our timber frame and straw bale home.
If you want to design and build you own timber frame home, you should be prepared to determine how you will acquire the timbers for your frame. You almost can’t determine this too early, nor start your search too soon. The timber frame can be a significant portion of the total expense of construction for an owner-builder, and as always, it is helpful to know how to keep costs manageable.
Here are a few tips for how you might acquire timbers for building your own timber frame home.
About The Year of Mud
Hi there, I’m Ziggy. In 2008, I launched The Year of Mud while building my first natural home. This website is a collection of personal stories and experiences building with clay, straw, and wood over the past 15+ years. A few of the things that get me fired up are natural plasters, timber framing, & Japanese architecture. In 2012, we started offering Natural Building Workshops, so you can learn essential hands-on skills to build your own natural home.
