pot hanger – Bushcraft Days

June 25, 2015June 25, 2015

How To…. Build a Classic Aures Campfire Crane

The final part of the Aures Crane Trilogy – The Classic.

I call this one the Classic as it is the design laid out in the book Camp-Lore and Woodcraft. The author Daniel Beard called it a rustic crane fashioned along similar lines as the iron cranes found commonly over 100 years ago over open fireplaces.

The crane is named after Victor Aures, a Scout Master from Buffalo, NY. I found a good article on this from an issue of the Boy’s Life from 1915.

You do not see the classic crane often since it requires a specific configuration of angles on the forks and it’s all too easy to cut through the thin layer of bark and sap wood needed to form the loop on one end.

Aures crane — The Aures – Picture from Camp-Lore and Woodcraft

Measuring

I stumbled upon a good piece of hazel recently with a strong main fork and the necessary secondary fork at right angles to the main one.

I had a good pole that I was going to use as the upright and measured the top limb for trimming. I estimated with my eye the amount of wood I would need on the top limb to form the loop (I call this section the tail before it is formed into a loop).

Trimming

After sawing off the excess I started the slow process of removing all the excess wood on the tail. It is easy to remove the wood at first but try and remove it evenly as you work.

I tend to work from the end of the tail and work up the crane towards the fork. This helps in reducing the chance of chunking through the wood and destroying the crane.

In the pictures below I have worked my way down to the pith and then just passed it. I forced myself at this stage to take my time and work methodically.

Important to trim evenly from bottom to top

Eventually I could make the wood bend slightly (it was only a couple of centimetres wide now). I scared myself when the bark cracked but that is OK – it is the sapwood that needs to bend.

When bending down the wood do it slowly and do not try and force it.

I finally had just a thin piece of sap wood left that could be bent a bit more but not fully. To help this process along I used the tip area of my knife to cut out some more of the wood without making it any thinner than a couple of centimetres.

To help the bending process I left the crane in a stream to soak up some water. If you have the tools to steam bend wood the job would be much easier.

Once the tail was very pliable I flattened an area where the tail would be whipped to the crane then marked the tail and the main body of the crane with a pencil so that I retained the size of loop I wanted while I whipped it.

Whipping

In the book Camp-Lore and Woodcraft, Beard’s drawing shows the tail being tied off with strips of bark. I will use bark when the crane has fully seasoned (it will shrink in the process) but for now I whipped it with some old paracord. I whipped it twice with different cord as that is what I had to hand.

The loop should be big enough for your upright and positioned so that when the crane is hung on it and braced on the fork, the pot arm is level and pointing slightly upwards.

The Pot Arm

I then went to work on the pot arm, carving out little notches so that I could adjust the position of the pot easily along its length.

I also put my usual dimple on the end for hanging another adjustable pot hanger off it.

I took the crane out on a Bushcraft course with the Royal Marine’s Cadets and it was soon in action.

It is very easy to move the crane up and down with light pots (I advise removing heavy a pot from the crane before adjusting the height then replacing it).

The crane also swings easily away from the fire. If you do not trust the loop to hold a heavy pot, you can back it up with a loop of cord.

The Three

I really enjoyed making these three Aures Cranes and hope to see a few more over fires at Bushcraft meets in the future.

All three versions – Classic, Gibbet and the Single Fork

The other two cranes can be viewed here:

How To…. Build a Carve an Aures Campfire Crane – Single Fork

How To…. Build a Gibbet Aures Campfire Crane

That is it for me on the Aures Crane (I am sure you can come up with some more variations on this), however in the course of my research I discovered a Single Pole Crane – that is next on the list.

Cheers

George

May 13, 2015September 5, 2015

How To…. Build a Campfire Cooking Crane

Sometimes space around the fire is at a premium.

Sometimes you want an adjustable pot hook without a tripod set up.

Sometimes you want to pour your coffee without getting burnt by the flames.

If that’s what you want then build yourself a crane – It’s easy.

Photo 06-05-2015 13 25 33 — A robust and versatile campfire crane

There are a number of different ways to build a crane set up however I decided to try just with the general tools I would carry in my rucksack. These included an axe, a saw and a general bushcraft knife.

The wood I used was some sycamore I had recently polarded in my garden. The crane is made up of a thick upright and smaller pieces to act as the arms. I decided to make two different types of arms, one for small pots and one for bigger Dutch oven type pots.

Sizes and dimensions will vary depending on how high you want your crane to be and what weight you want it to hold.

Carving the upright

I decided which part of the upright would be the top and then flattened it to give me a working area. You do not need to do this however I find it gives me a stable working surface. You can see in the pictures below that the girth of the upright is just larger than my hand as my fingers do not fully close around it.

Photo 06-05-2015 13 33 25 — Basic parts and flattening the top of the uprght

For the crane to work you need a hole at the top of the upright. The size of the hole will depend on the size of the arm you will put through it and how much wood you want left around the hole for strength.

As I was going to carve this with my knife I opted for a square hole as this style is easier for me to carve. Once I had pencilled out one side I marked up the opposite side. In this crane I made the hole at 90 degrees to the upright (makes life easy) but you can angle it if you want so that the arm will be pointing upwards more when inserted.

Photo 06-05-2015 13 34 30 — Marking out the socket

I used my knife to score lines into the wood I wanted to remove. You can do this by gently tapping your knife handle with a batton or rolling the curved part of the blade. You need to do this gently so as not to cause unwanted splits in the wood. Also make sure that the work piece is secure on the ground and that your free hand (if not battoning) is well clear of the knife edge.

To remove the wood I just pushed the tip of my knife inbetween the scores and prised it out. Again I did this gently alternating between pushing on the handle with my hand or doing light taps with a batton. When I twisted the point I did so gently so as to not cause any unwanted splits or worse still – snap off the tip of my blade.

I did another set of scores and chipping until I was about halfway through the upright.

I then repeated the exact same procedure on the other side until my knife popped through the other side.

Photo 06-05-2015 13 57 15 — Repeating the scoring and chipping

Once the plug of wood was removed I trimmed the internal walls of the hole (using the wood I would use as an arm as a guide) and chamfered the edges off.

Photo 06-05-2015 14 01 36 — Finishing the socket

The upright was finished off with all the knobbly/sharp bits being removed and a point was axed out at the bottom of it.

Carving the lightweight arm

I made the arm for the lightweight pots from a thin piece of sycamore. I trimmed a flattened piece near the end and carved a small dimple with the point of my knife in it.

The small dimple is needed to keep the adjustable pot hanger in place. I have covered the making of the making of an adjustable pot hook in my post How To…. Carve and use an Adjustable Pot Hanger.

Photo 06-05-2015 14 11 56 — Lightweight arm

Set up

In my previous post on making a Double French Windlass Cooking Rig I explained how to make a pile driver. I used this pile driver to make a hole for the upright to sit in.

Once you have created the hole it is just a case of gently tapping the upright into place. If you did not use the pile driver you would need to hit the upright hard to drive it into the ground and very quickly the wood around the hole would crumple or snap.

Photo 06-05-2015 14 14 12 — Using the pile driver to place the upright

As I had not made the hole at an angle I carved a small wedge to hold the arm securely and also to raise the tip up slightly.

When the arm is in place in the hole just tap the wedge into place gently. Do not ram it in as this could cause undue pressure and split the wood.

Photo 06-05-2015 14 16 55 — Create a wedge to secure the arm

Then it is a simple case of attaching the hanger with your pot or kettle onto the arm.

I like this system as it is easy to adjust the height of the pot and the whole crane can be swivelled to move the pot away from the fire easily.

In the picture below I have left the back of the arm overly long but I will trim it shorter eventually.

Carving a strong arm

As I had made a square hole I got a bigger piece of sycamore and squared it off along its length to fit exactly in the hole. This arm was designed to take bigger pots like a dutch oven.

Photo 06-05-2015 14 22 10 — Creating the heavyweight arm

The end was shaped to fit the pot hanger.

Photo 06-05-2015 14 25 27 — Finishing the tip

Then set up exactly as the first arm.

This time though I tested it out with a dutch oven half full of water.

Photo 06-05-2015 14 27 57 — Heavy Duty Cooking

I have a few of these cranes so I set up another one to put the kettle back on.

I had used an auger and a palm gouge to carve this one out so you can see it ended up with a round hole. No wedge was required as the hole was set at a slight angle.

Photo 06-05-2015 14 36 52 — The crane made with an auger and palm gauge

After the water in the dutch oven had boiled it was easy to raise it all up off the heat.

Photo 06-05-2015 14 31 39 — Easy to adjust the pot height

If you plan to use these cranes on a longer term basis they may develop a crack if you are using green wood. This happened to this crane about a week after I made it but I secured it with a bit of whipping. You can do this right at the beginning if you wish or when you see a split start to appear.

The whipping will be well clear of the flames so I am not worried that it will be burnt through.

If I had not being taking pictures along the way I would have completed this rig in about an hour or so.

There are other ways of doing this and other tools you can use so I will leave it to your imagination but if you are someone who likes to tinker around the campfire then I would give this one a go.

Cheers

George

May 22, 2014January 1, 2016

How To…. Carve and Use an Adjustable Pot Hanger

The main benefit is – is that the tea gets made

I was trimming an ash tree in my garden recently with my friend Paul and I managed to save a few pieces for Atlatls and pot hangers.

I have previously shown you how to carve a collapsible pot hanger so that it can fit into a pot when not in use but on a lot of occasions I just whittle one when I need one.

The type of pot hanger I am talking about is shown below hanging off a ‘Wagon/Waugan Stick’ (pronounced waygone or worgan – I hear different variations on this from different people) campfire set up. The pot hook is adjustable in that the pot is easily raised or lowered by using the different hooks on the pot hanger.

Photo 22-05-2014 00 36 16 — A simple pot hook

I started off with a piece of ash that had a fork in it at a good angle (to form a hook) and finished up with something that allowed me to be able to quickly or slowly cook/boil something.

On the right you can see the finished pot hanger in action. To help stop any confusion I will refer to the large hook holding the small kettle as the ‘pot hook’ and the small hooks as the ‘adjusting hooks’.

Photo 22-05-2014 00 26 15 — Before and After

To begin with I trimmed off all the knobbly pieces using powerful chest lever and locked arm cuts. See my How To…. on knife Safety for more information on these types of cuts.

Photo 15-05-2014 15 30 23 — Powerful cuts

I then trimmed the bark off using a powerful shoulder cut. I had the work piece placed on the ground here off to one side so as to brace it and to work safely.

To strip the bark around the hook area I used a gentle chest lever grip.

The bottom of the pot hanger was more difficult to trim as I had not left any excess wood to hold on to. The main thing I needed to consider here was keeping my eye on where my thumb was on the hand holding the pot hanger.

Photo 15-05-2014 15 36 33 — Work safely near the ends

As I needed to use the point area of the blade to trim around the hook I kept the pot hook resting on a small log so that if the knife slipped it would hit the ground. My friend Charlie showed me how to use the knife and the curve of the pot hook to create a fulcrum, making the stripping of the bark safer. I tried to photograph this but they did not turn out well.

Photo 15-05-2014 15 39 40 — De-barking the hook area

I also rounded the bottom of the pot hanger and then used the back of my knife to strip off the remnants of the inner bark.

Photo 15-05-2014 15 47 07 — De-barking with the back of the knife

To make the adjusting hooks I used a batton (a large stick) to carve a cross into the wood – an X cut. I placed my X cuts in line with the pot hook as much as possible. After a couple of good smacks with the batton the knife had cut well into the wood.

Photo 15-05-2014 15 48 08 — Batton in the first X cut

I then repeated the process for the other part of the X cut.

Photo 15-05-2014 15 49 57 — Then the second X cut

A simple X cut – this cut makes the carving of the adjusting hook much easier.

So that the pot hanger can hang properly you must remove the wood at the bottom of the X cut first (the bottom being the quarter of the X cut closest to the pot hook).

I use very fine cuts here and the original X cut acts as a stopper point so that you only cut away the wood that you need to.

I normally remove a small area of wood just below the point of what will become the adjustable hook.

Photo 21-05-2014 15 42 08 — Remove the bottom of the X first (nearest the hook)

Once I’d removed the wood from the lower quarter I then removed the wood from one of the side quarters.

Photo 21-05-2014 15 45 36 — Remove the sides of the X

Then I removed the wood from the other side quarter leaving only the top quarter to act as the adjustable hook.

Photo 21-05-2014 15 47 12 — Deepen the sides of the X

I kept carving down until I had exposed enough of the wood that I could carve out the final part of the adjustable hook.

Photo 21-05-2014 15 48 47 — Ready for the undercut

The final part I needed to do was to make an undercut below the point of the upper quarter. I kept reducing the wood until a nice point appeared.

Photo 21-05-2014 15 51 16 — Fine cuts again on the point

You can really see that undercut appearing in the picture below now. For safety I kept the pot hanger braced on the ground (a stump works as well) while I was carving it out.

For this pot hook I carved a further 2 hanging hooks along its length.

Photo 15-05-2014 15 51 59 — Carve deep but safely

This is the final rough shape you are looking for. Any further carving or sanding would be purely for decoration only.

Photo 22-05-2014 09 42 42 — A good point

This pot hanger is particularly suited to the Wagon set up – Wagon (‘way gone’) coming as far as I know from the old tale that if you leave this set up standing when you leave your camp, it points the way for the naughty wood spirits to follow you 🙂

Photo 22-05-2014 00 49 44 — Side view of the Way Gone set up

The hanging hooks attach to the Wagon stick by sitting in a small dimple on the end of it. In this set up I also used a forked stick to give the Wagon height and a smaller (Dead Man’s Finger) stick at the bottom of it to counterbalance everything.

The whole set up is very easy to adjust for a fast or slow boil/cook.

Photo 22-05-2014 00 19 01 — Adjustable height

This is a great project for any bushcrafter to keep their hand in with simple carving techniques. It looks very simple at first but there are some tricky cuts that if you are not careful can cause a nick or two but the main benefit is – that the tea gets made.

Cheers

George