Carved wooden bowls and troughs
burned and scraped hollow
AWhat it needs
Needs 14 other products in all, 2 of them directly.
- 02.24 Carved wooden bowls and troughsMaking Year 1 needs 14 products
- 01.08 First fire and stone hearthMaking Year 1 needs 5 products
- 01.06 Tinder and kindling storeMaking Year 1 raw materials only
- 01.07 Bow-drill fire setMaking Year 1 needs 3 products
- 01.03 Sharp stone flakeMaking Year 1 needs 1 product
- 01.02 HammerstoneMaking Year 1 raw materials only
- 01.05 Twisted plant-fibre cordMaking Year 1 needs 2 products
- 02.09 Stone adzeMaking Year 1 needs 13 products
- 02.05 Pitch glueMaking Year 1 needs 6 products
- 02.06 Sinew thread and rawhide lashingMaking Year 1 needs 9 products
- 01.15 Fire-hardened spear ⚠Making Year 1 needs 6 products
- 02.03 Stone knives, scrapers and engraving pointsMaking Year 1 needs 3 products
- 02.01 Knapping kitMaking Year 1 needs 2 products
- 02.07 Ground stone axe headMaking Year 1 needs 2 products
- 01.02 Hammerstoneshown above ↑← shown at left
- 02.04 Sandstone grinding slabMaking Year 1 needs 1 product
Open a box to see what it needs. A dashed box is a product already drawn in full: click it to jump there. In the org chart, drag to move around.
BWhy
Bamboo holds a cupful. A hollowed log holds a bucketful, or a bathful. Troughs soak hides, hold water for the camp, mix clay, and boil large amounts of food and water with hot stones. Bowls mean people eat from something other than a leaf.
CYou need
DSteps
- Flatten the top of the half log with the adze. Flatten a strip along the bottom too, so it does not roll.
- Mark the hollow, leaving walls three fingers thick all round and thicker at the ends.
- Pack a ridge of wet clay along the marked line. Fire will not cross wet clay.
- Lay glowing coals inside the line. Blow on them through the reed, steadily, to drive the burning down into the wood.
- When the wood under the coals is charred a finger deep, tip out the coals and chop out the charcoal with the adze, down to clean wood.
- Put in fresh coals and repeat. Move the clay inward as the hollow deepens, so the walls stay even.
- Stop while the bottom is still three fingers thick. Feel the thickness between a hand inside and a hand outside.
- Scrape the inside smooth with a shell, down to clean pale wood with no char.
- Dry it slowly in the shade for some weeks, rubbed inside and out with fat. Wood that dries fast cracks at the ends.
- A bowl is made the same way from a short piece, burning a round hollow and then thinning the outside with the adze.
EIt worked if
- Filled with water overnight, it has not leaked or cracked by morning.
- A trough holds enough to soak a whole deer hide.
FWhat goes wrong
- It splits at the ends as it dries. Dried too fast. Smear the end grain with fat or clay and keep it in the shade.
- The fire burns through a wall. The clay dried out. Keep it wet, and check the thickness often.
- A knot leaks. Plug it from the inside with pitch.
- Food tastes of smoke. Char left inside. Scrape to clean wood.
GIn the story
Tane has seen canoes hollowed this way and wants to be sure the method works before he risks the big cedar. So the first trough is a rehearsal. Bjorn knows it, and does it slowly and exactly, so that Tane can see every step. The trough goes to Yara for her hides. The lesson goes to the beach.