Hi all,
Last weekend we went to a basket weaving event in the Northern part
of the Netherlands. Because there was a “water theme” as well we took
part in the event with ropemaking and fendermaking / knot tying.
Some pictures of the event can be seen here :
Regards
Andre van der Salm
The weaved Fiat is great. Somebody ought to try that with some sort of rope and knots! ;D
Thanks André for sharing your photos.
It reminded me to put mine in an album too.
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/willeke_igkt/album?.dir=/e4b7re2&.view=t
Willeke
Hi Andre and Willeke,
Very interesting photos! 8) How on earth do they get the willow twigs to adopt those shapes? ??? Do they use steam bending or is there some form they have to build and then let it sit there for a while? Were you able to see the base of the curragh being woven and tied in place Willeke? Did they delioberately tie all the crossings on the same diagonal? How does that affect the tendency to warp? How fortunate you are to have seen such work going on - I’ll have to search out some of those activities and find out more. I have made some pieces using pine needles, but I have never seen anything like the Fiat car being made from willow twigs - remarkable! ;D
Lindsey
I have not really seen them work on the coracles, I was working in the next row of tents over, with Jo and Ria, netting.
But I have taken a few more photos on the work in different stages.
Getting willow to take those shapes is not hard. First you have to let the withes dry out, then you have to soak them for a while, I believe it was something like 2 weeks. Working with fresh withes will work too but I am told those will shrink when drying.
When soaked you can bend the twigs rather far before they start to break, and if you first bend them carefully they will take even more shapes.
The man teaching me said a willow branch is like a rope where all the fibres are paralel, just hold together. If you bend the branch the ‘glue’ holding the fibres in place looses its grip on them.
In some of the photos you can see that one of the coracles is covered with one hide only. This is the hide of a steer, and not tanned, just cleaned before use.
The branches of the both sides of the frame are bend together and tied at regular interfalls to their opposite number and ones they cross underway.
Willeke
This looks to be an Irish Boyne coracle similar to the one that I made, see attached pic. I push the sticks straight into the ground rather than using a jig. My present coracle has travelled nearly 2000 miles arounf England on the roof of my narrow boat in the last two years. Colin Edmondson, Narrow boat ‘Lothlorian’
Thank you Colin,
it is good to see the coracle in use.
I bet that most people using the jigs would just push the sticks in the ground if the ground they work on would allow them. These people took their half made coracle halfway across the country, that would have been a little hard if they had used the ground instead of a jig.
Can you tell us how the coracle behaves when using it?
Willeke
Handling a coracle is easily learned, if you don’t learn quickly you sit there and go round and round! The basic stroke is a shallow angle sculling stroke, any canoeist will use this to move sideways, but a coracle will go in any direction. It costs under ten GB pounds to make one and as such is good value fun. (I sell a little booklet telling you how). I have problems getting the calico skin tight enough so the outside is not smooth, making paddling any distance hard work. I intend to try and make a small currach next year, same idea but timber gunwhales and able to be rowed (or even sailed), more useful for exploring places where the narrow boat cant get to. Colin
Colin,
If I lived on or near the water I would like to make a coracle, the way I live now it would be a waste of space and money to own a coracle. I live just over one km from the nearest water, but it being an extremely buzy canal for seagoing vessels makes the rule of having an engine driven boat sensible, the nearest useable water would be 8 km away, which is a bit much to walk or bike a coracle.
But I would like to help one day if other people are going to make one.
One of the coracles they had at the show is covered by one hide only (a steer hide!)
I am sure you know the book, but for those people who have missed it, in the book The Brendan Voyage by Tim Severin the making and sailing in a curragh. It followed the process from the hunt for materials till arriving on the American coast.
Willeke
