Coal Burning

[Wentworth]

Hi All,
Bushchef and I went out in the bush today for some crafting. We used both the hand drill and the bow drill which is always good fun.

While lunch was on the boil, I had a go at some coal burning. I've used it once before for the bowl of a ladle where it worked fairly well.
I carved a divot into a chunk of wood and moved a few embers from our fire into it. Using a piece of tubing (thanks Darren) I blew through it onto the embers.
Unfortunately with this one I rushed the burning process. Fine cracks developed in the wood which meant that it was no longer water tight. I remember when working on the ladle that I had to go very slowly, burning a little then scraping it away before burning again.

I had planned to keep going with this one until I had a long trough, then find some stones and give stone boiling a try.
Next time!

 

[Aussie123]

Thanks. I'm keen to give this a try too, just haven't had the time for a while.

You may be able to rub some clay into the cracks to seal them, if they are small ?

 

[darren]

Just thinking about this as i have never done it, an issue would be the rapid drying of the wood close to where it was burning. This would account for the cracks i suppose.
It will be interesting to see how this progresses
I guess whan you filled the bowl with water the wood may swell enough for them to be less of an issue.

 

[Wentworth]

Thanks guys. Clay and water might be the go regarding the cracks. Ideally I would have been more patient and only burned out half as much before scraping the charred material away. I used a piece of sandstone for the scraping, which worked well.
I left it out there, but I can always head back out on the weekend and see if repeated dousing closes the cracks.

 

[Blake]

Good effort mate. Something I would like to try one day. I saw this video a while back on making a bowl with this method and thought I would add it here:

[video=youtube;HmW9Q70OtjI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmW9Q70OtjI[/video]

 

[AussiePreppers]

Nice one guys n gals - I have wanted to try this on one of those huge agave(???) stalks and saw one the other day totally dead and dried, so I should go and get it.