Sweet Chestnut – Bushcraft Days

March 27, 2015March 29, 2015

How To…. Build a raised firepit

The final project I was involved in during the working weekend at John Rhyder’s Woodcraft School Hampshire HQ was to build a raised firepit for the students to use. John wanted this placed inside the new cookhouse to protect it from the elements.

I volunteered to do this with Jumbo Jim (he flies planes) and after a bit of a chat we decided to make it out of sweet chestnut logs that had been cut down to about 5ft lengths. There were plenty to choose from so after a bit of a trimming we lugged them back to the main camp.

We found a flat area to work on (to make the build easier) as its final placement was to be on a slope. After we finished the build we moved everything to its final location in the cookhouse.
We decided to lock the logs together by carving notches out near the end of each log to form a square. We used each log as a template for marking another one out before sawing in some stop cuts.

The axing and adzing out (these were the tools we had available) did not take long. I thought we might need to go for a square cut for each notch but we decided to try a curved notch at first as they are quicker to carve. Even though the curve would not lock the logs perfectly the curved notches worked surprisingly well, with no movement on the logs when they were locked together.

Once we were happy with the style of the notch it was then just a case of repeating this on each end of the logs so that everything locked together well.

I tested the strength of the locks between the logs by walking and jumping (with the odd jig) on each level as we built it up.

Initially we’d planned a 5ft square but after discussing this with Caron and John we went for a 5ft by 4ft rectangular shape. This was to allow the students easy access to most of the firepit without having to lean too far to reach the centre. You can see the excess wood at the ends in the bottom right picture that needed to be trimmed off.

After some more notch cutting, locking together and jumping around we got John to trim the excess wood off with his chainsaw.

We positioned the firepit where it was to sit in the cookhouse and dug out a small trench on the upslope section to flatten the firepit out a bit and lock it in place. On reflection I think we could have dug the trench a bit deeper but the depth we dug held that top log well enough even though the firepit was not perfectly flat..

When we had locked all the logs into place we had a chat with John and agreed that we would drive in four stakes to act as supports for the grill. We found four brackets to attach to the stakes to hold the bars of the grill in place and left enough room on the stakes to add another four brackets so the grill could be raised (we left John to attach these later when he got some more brackets).

The filling in of the firepit was the easy bit as we simply dropped about 5 wheelbarrow loads of earth into it. Nigel was on hand while we dug the earth to tamp it all down.

The top layer of fill was taken from the edge of a small stream where there was a high concentration of clay. I hope that over time this layer of clay will harden and make for a good surface to light a fire. I suggested to John that as the top layer dries out he could add a few more layers of clay to build the surface up a little more to be in line with the top of the logs.

When we had finished tamping the soil down it was just a case of putting the grill back on and lighting a fire. I placed some dry off-cuts over the damp soil to give the fire a good chance to get going. With a little bit of waftage from Kev it was soon going nicely.
As soon as John adds a layer or two more the surface will get a bit closer to the grill for a fast cooking time and when the other brackets are added higher up they’ll allow for slower cooking too.

The grill is as flat as we could make it although it appears to slope, because the ground isn’t level.

I had a great time building this firepit with Jim, figuring out how it would all link together and finally putting it all in place with the grill on top.

There are two more posts on projects we did that weekend. They are:

Re-building the Roundhouse

Constructing the Camp Cookhouse

Cheers

George

March 26, 2015March 27, 2015

Constructing the Camp Cookhouse

Earlier I wrote up a post on re-building the roundhouse at John Rhyder’s Woodcraft School HQ in Hampshire. This post is all about the new cookhouse we built that weekend as well.

In the top picture below is the open-fronted cookhouse we built and in the bottom picture how it all looked on the Saturday morning when we first arrived – a few post holes in the ground.

In the group building this were Scott Batty, Kev Howlett, Jumbo Jim, Nigel Painter, Paul Workman, Chen, David Willis, John Rhyder and myself. John had split a load of sweet chestnut to use as the uprights and brought into the site a load of timber to build up the walls and for battoning and rafting.

We selected six pieces for the uprights and started on the back wall first. The plan was to have the kitchen closed off on two sides (to protect from the prevailing wind) and to have it open on two sides.

The first post went in easy enough and we compacted earth and stones around it to keep it secure.

The other posts were put in and we used large pieces of straight timber to make sure the these posts lined up properly (mark one eyeball – carpenters measures).

John then used his chainsaw to make the facings of the uprights smooth so we could attach the timber for the walls.

We actually built the back wall rather quickly. One person would select the timber, another held it in place, then pilot holes were drilled in by someone and finally someone else screwed the planks in. We all took turn about and soon had the back wall up.

The plan initially was to overlap the planks of wood so as to let the water drain off but we estimated at the start there were not enough to do that so we had to place them directly on top of each other.

There was excess wood on one side so after using a plank as a measuring device John trimmed the excess off with his chainsaw. We left just a lip of wood at the edge to overlap with the side wall that was to go up next.

Once the back was completed we built the side wall in the same way as the back wall (no pictures I’m afraid) and then started on the front.

The cookhouse is on a slope and John and Caron wanted a decent slope to the roof to help with runoff of rain (but not so tall as to be a problem in high winds). The first thing we did was decide on the height, then we marked it off on the uprights and got John to trim each pole to the right height.

We built a strong lintel at the front and I trimmed a couple of sweet chestnut poles to act as main rafters. We also had a selection of smaller machined battons to act as rafters.

I secured one of the sweet chestnut rafters in the middle and the other one at the open end of the cookhouse. The other machined rafters were all spread evenly along the roof and screwed down.

We did not have the shingles for the roof so we just nailed down a large tarp as a temporary cover.

In the bottom picture you get a feel for the angle of the slope the cookhouse sits on.

You can just make out the sign above Caron naming her kitchen (I have no idea who wrote it). In the pictures on the right you can see the shelving unit that Paul and Nigel built. Seemed pretty secure as it offered a perfect seat for John to survey it all.

You can also see the internal battoning (to the left of the jacket in the bottom tight picture and also to the right of John). This really strengthened the walls as we dug the battons deep into the ground.

Kev and Chen moved the kitchen platform from its old spot to inside the cookhouse. They did spend a good bit of time getting it secured properly on poles and perfectly flat.

We had some great food over the weekend with our dinner on the Saturday evening and breakfast on Sunday morning cooked inside it.

There were some other projects going on involving re-building the shower house, laying new chippings on the paths and building the raised firepit you can see in the picture below (that will be my next post in this series).

The Sunday was a very frantic day as we strived to get everything done. When we took the group photo some of the lads had already left (about three or four I think) so apologies if i have not mentioned everyone involved in this project.

More on the raised firepit in the next post.

Cheers

George

March 23, 2015March 24, 2015

Rebuilding the Roundhouse

If anyone reading this has been on one of the Woodcraft School courses run by John Rhyder at his woodland site in Hampshire you will certainly remember the roundhouse. This little building has been a refuge on many a cold night for many people including myself.

Every now and then the roundhouse needs a bit of TLC. John had recently replaced the roof beams, so now it was the turn of the walls.

A group of us who are all ex students of John’s agreed to spend the weekend with him working on improving the camp facilities at his woodland HQ. I was not involved in working on the roundhouse (I was helping to build the new kitchen and raised fire pit) but I did get a number of pictures of the guys working on it.

Working on the roundhouse were Charlie Brookes, Keith Bosely, Scott Batty, Jack (aka Warren Frost) and Pete Bastable, helped from time to time by Fin Rhyder.

The guys stripped the tarps away from the sides to expose the outer ring of poles. They were well worn but some were showing signs of damp at the base. The guys started in one section by putting braces in to keep the roof in place and then dug out the outer pole for that area. They would then slot in a new piece of split sweet chestnut and trim it to size. You can see all that happening in the pictures above.

The new uprights had already been split and de-barked so Pete and Fin got to work de-barking the poles that would be uses as lintels between the uprights to support the roof.

Soon the guys had a few of the uprights in place and they put some temporary lintels in place until the permanent ones had been finished.

After the lintels had been debarked, the lintels ends were carved so that they could be attached securely to each upright. This involved a bit of axing out to produce a flat platform at the end of each lintel.

The door of the roundhouse also got a makeover and was rebuilt to fit in with the lintel above it. Also as each section was finished the tarp walls were put back securely in place with some battons.

John uses these tarp walls as they can be easily rolled up in the summer to give good airflow through the roundhouse.

The roundhouse has a small extension at the back covered in wood instead of tarps on the walls. This area is used for storing wood for the stove . The uprights and lintels were replaced here but the wood panels had deteriorated so they were stripped off as well and replaced.

I think the guys did a good job of this area making it secure and water tight in a very short period of time.

The job took the guys a day and a half to do and by the Sunday afternoon the outside of the roundhouse was looking good and strong again. At some stage John will be adding new shingles to the roof as tiles instead of just the tarp they have at the moment.

This is just a brief summary and no doubt misses out many of the issues they faced as I did not work on this project, but I do know they did a cracking job.

Cheers

George