Making a Gate From A Yew Log - Green Woodworking - Part 2

 So with some chunks of yew at my house it was time to break them down a bit smaller. When I've worked with sweet chestnut a froe is a handy tools for this.

The knotty yew wouldn't entertain this idea though. So it was axe and wedges for every piece. Intruth I could have donw with soem bigger bits, as it was I ended up using quarters for the styles of the gate when really it would be better to hew something square from something bigger. 

Making a Gate From A Yew Log - Green Woodworking - Part 1

 When I was in Wales working on the roof my friend text me and said they had some Yew down in the last storm and would it be any good for anything before they log it for firewood. 

I had been just making an arch from Sweet chestnut for a magazine article for Woodcraft Magazine so had been getting into cleaving my own timber. I consulted Woodland Crafts In Britain by H.L Edlin and it said - 

"It is very durable out of doors, and old tree trunks are still cleft or hewn into fence posts that are claimed, with good reason, to outlast iron."

So I decided it was probably worth a go! 

After School Light

 I'm loving the hour of light after school pick up at the moment. 

My eldest and me have been heading outside to do a little green woodwork. 

She's been working on shaving down some legs to make a raised chopping block while I've been roughing out a very rough scoop out of some pear.

She seems to really enjoy it and it's lovely to just chat as we make wood shavings together. 

Drawknife With the Children

We haven't yet moved on to our next project since making the shave horse, but I have found my drawknife and decided it would be a good tool they could use safely. 

We went into our coppice and picked a willow to take a branch from. Quite nice as the girls helped plant these trees five years ago. 

Making A Shave Horse With My Daughter

 I have an axe head I bought a while back that still needs a handle. I've looked at buying one online to match but can't find anything that I think will fit or that I like. So I want to make my own. Now I have plenty of tools that I can make one with but I know from experience that a shave horse is the easiest way to hold and work it. 

Now I have made a couple over the years (one for my brother and one for myself) but I sold mine when I had nowhere to store it after we moved here. I've decided that even if I just chuck a sheet over it it'll be worth having it outside. I also had a few lengths of less than straight 4x2 so this seemed a good use of them. 

Making A Wooden Peg With An Axe - Video

After my post on Monday about the pegs for holding down the weed matting, I thought I'd do a short video on how I make them using an axe and a little pruning saw.

I've hopefully took on board some points from my last video and as the camera is on a tripod no one should get sea sick this time! Hopefully my videos will keep improving, let me know if there's any more you want me to do.

Making Pegs And Planting Willow

I didn't do many homestead jobs over the weekend as I was working Saturday and there was plenty of rain on Sunday. We did manage to get some of my willow cuttings planted in the coppice. 

Axe, saw and froe - I idn't need to use the froe in the end as the wood split easy.

 we planted them through weed matting this time so I needed to peg it down. I guess I could have bought some off the internet but I decided it wouldn't take long to make some out of a few ash branches, so armed with my axe and a folding saw I could make about 4 pegs in five minutes with not too many swings of the axe. Anyone else make their own pegs?

Homemade peg to hold the fabric down

 The girls then came over to help plant some willows, it was really nice to have the four of us doing something together, we only managed to plant the basket willow (5 cuttings of 5 varieties each) as the rain came down pretty hard, but it's a start on this new area of the coppice.

Me and my helpers

Youngest getting muddy hands

Basket willow all in

For me doing things like this as a family is priceless.

Anyone else like to make their own pegs and things to save spending a few pennies? What other things do you knock up quick to save money and be more self reliant?
Also is there anything else I can buy in large sheets that's a little more eco friendly that the black horrible weed matting, it's better than using a spray to kill the grass but I've still got to dispose of it at some point. I did think about lots of cardboard again but it's so hard to hold down.