Scrimshaw

http://www.etsy.com/shop/ironwoodhollow

Ganesha Earrings

One of my crafts, practiced more in the cooler months when a quiet desktop pursuit is more what I feel like doing, is scrimshaw. Not everyone knows the word; you know those pictures of ships and whales that look like pen-and-ink drawings, on bone or ivory? That's the stuff. When I was a boy I read about sailors decorating whalebone and ivory this way, scratching designs with a knife or a nail, then rubbing ink into the scratches. It made a great impression on me, partly because I have always identified strongly with the sailing heritage that runs deep in my family, and partly because it's such a romantic image, the lonely sailor whiling away his watch with a scrap of bone and a little knife. I imagined that they dreamed of home, but still drew what they could see at the time, ships, waves, sea-life. As a lover of words, I have also always liked the word "scrimshander," which is what you call a person who practices the craft; it just resonates with crusty old-timey character.

Conch earrings

I can't remember when I first tried it, or what I designed, but over the years I have come back to it many times, untrained in the arts but wanting to create something beautiful. The method is surprisingly easy, and these days I keep a supply of reclaimed piano ivories on hand, always looking for another poor, unwanted old piano to raid for more! Elephant ivory is the best material, and although there is a completely justified international ban on its trade, it is okay to use pre-ban ivory, such as that taken from retired pianos. I think of it as rescuing the beautiful material so it doesn't just disappear into landfills. All else that is needed are some tools for shaping the ivory, either small hand-tools, or high-speed rotaries, such as a Dremel, and some paint or ink, along with rags to wipe off excess color.

I like to design earring pairs that make a tiny image when they are side-by-side, like this potted flower. Some of these are sea-scapes, some of them form a message when they are together. The challenge of writing or drawing in miniature, using a tiny blade, then adding color a tiny dot at a time, is satisfying to me, maybe similar to the enjoyment that makers of dollhouse furniture experience. I'm needing to use reading glasses these days, but a sure grip and a steady hand are the key skills. I'll be putting together a tutorial on how to do it, either as a photo-essay or series of short videos.

My very best work is reserved for loved ones, and in fact my Honey has designs that I won't make again, because they are just too special and personal to share. All the rest, though, are available at my Etsy shop, and I often fill custom orders if it's something I think I can do well. Still at the height of warm season, I'm not spending any time with the ink and ivory, but I can feel autumn in the air some mornings, and the indoor crafts will call me back to the work-table soon enough!In the meantime, if you run across any ivory, set it aside so you can try scrimshaw out for yourself as soon as I post a tutorial!

Reclaiming

The price of milled wood is high, and not only in dollars. It is easy for me, deep in the woods of Maine, to forget how much of the world's once-forested land is now bare of tree-cover, but it's worth remembering. The effect of clearing a forest is enormous. The streams, once shaded, heat up and even dry up, changing or eliminating the habitat for insects, fish, and other life that depends on that water. The trees themselves, food and habitat for a complex network of life, are no longer there to support that life. 

A large wall done in all reclaimed wood...

So yes, the price is high, whether we can afford that truckload of two-by-fours and inch board or not. When I go to my local transfer station, there's a large pile of scrap wood, destined to be burned for electricity production, that accumulates all week and is then trucked away. Frugal and green-thinking people like myself are always watching that pile for useful wood, and much of it gets a second life. Today I found two two-by-sixes nailed together, covered with staples and box-nails, but fresh, solid, and straight. That's something like fifteen dollars, maybe more, that I will save by taking them home, extracting the nails, and storing them for future use. I have a doorway that I want to close off, and they will be just what I need.

For weeks I have been watching for discarded hardwood boards, taking any that are about 3/4 inch thick and at least 39 inches long. They will be slats for a couple of twin-sized bed platforms that I'm building. Oak flooring is perfect, and I keep finding some, only needing to take a few minutes to pry out the old flooring nails and cut the boards to size. 

Re-used doors, oak flooring for bed-slats...

In the same room, I started with unfinished walls, just the studs and insulation in place, three months ago. In that time I have been able to finish the walls with mismatched inch-boards of all kinds, along with cupboard doors, a couple of closet doors, and even an old store-front sign. Most of this wood came from the transfer station, and only required a few minutes per piece of nail-removal and some light hand-sanding. It's not fine and neat in the way that drywall is, but it IS classy in a rustic way, more solid, and completely free except for the nails! In fact, many of the nails used came from the reclaimed boards in the first place. I saved the planet the cost of either drywall manufacture or tree-cutting and milling, which pairs well with my satisfaction at getting more done with less. 

There's another positive aspect to this kind of re-use that is hard to put into words, but I'll try. Each board that I bring home and clean up has its own history, and I can guess at that history while I work on it, and thereafter whenever I notice that particular board on a wall in our home. I think that may be hard to imagine for people who live in pre-made homes, but picture this...

Oh, the history in those boards!

In the kitchen, one of the logs in the cordwood masonry wall above the range is a piece of my grandmother's apple tree, from a branch that fell. That tree shows in photos from the civil war era, it is so old, and touching the wood reminds me of my grandmother, a fine woman who raised my remarkable mother. That's one piece of wood that I know very well. Among these reclaimed boards are sweet mysteries; a piece that was part of a very large packing crate, holding what, I have no idea,  one that held old square nails and showed signs of decades of paint and wear, that I imagine was on someone's living room floor through generations of good life, one that looks like it was used in a lath-and-plaster wall, so was part of a very old house that is now being remodeled. One that is wide, mellowed into a lovely deep amber with age, may have been on a living room wall of someone's summer camp through many seasons of canoeing and fishing...the clues in the wood are intriguing, and give the walls so much more character than they would have if I had simply plastered together some mass-produced drywall.

A sneak peak at the girls' room in process...

In the converted library, I'm painting those boards a daring teal color. In the main bedroom I'm leaving them in their natural rustic glory. I'm going to love looking around and seeing the mill-marks, the re-used old square nails, the paint edges that hint at each board's history, the texture and color differences between the pine, the hemlock, the spruce, that oak, the inevitable dents from pulling out old nails. The best thing, though? We get to give all of those boards a whole new life; they will witness generations of life in our home, soak up the cooking smells, take the dents of life being lived, shelter us from the cold and the sun for decades to come, instead of being sent off to be rendered into a moment's power supply.

How to Pull a Nail

Pulling nails is an important part of reclaiming used boards. You can start with a porcupine of pine and finishing nails, and with a bit of patience end up with a perfectly good ten-dollar board. Sure, it'll have nail holes and hammer-marks in it, but those just add character. When I use these boards, I give them a light once-over with a sanding sponge, so no splinters are threatening, and use them as-is, aside than that. The slight variations, the evident history of the boards, and the marks from removing nails, screws, and staples, all add charm to the finished project. 

Add a couple of screwdrivers, and you's set!

I know that a lot of people know how to clean up a board, but I bet some don't, and there are a few tips that can help. Here's how I do it. First, some tools...I like to use a pair of sawhorses to work on instead of a workbench or the floor. With nails sticking out of both sides of a board, it's easier to hold it flat on the sawhorses, and they are a good working height. Other tools are a claw-hammer, a cat's paw, a splitting wedge if boards are nailed together, a small board for a fulcrum, and for larger nails, a wrecking bar. For removing staples, flat scredrivers and an assortment of pliers are handy, and for removing screws, a screwdriver, cordless if you like, with the appropriate working tip.

Finish, twist, ring-shank, common.

Nails come in many types, but basically you have a couple of variables. There are plain shanks and twisted- or ring-shanked nails. Flooring nails are an example of ring-shanked, and there are a number of twisted nails, which are designed to stay in place without backing out. What this means to you, in removing them, is that they need to be pulled harder! Plain nails pull out much more easily.  The old-fashioned rectangular nails, called cut nails, come out very easily too, as they are tapered. Once they get started, they are loose immediately. 

The other variable is the head of the nail. Common nails are the ones with a head that is like a tiny coin shape. Those are easier to get a grip on for removing. Finishing nails are the ones with just a little dimpled bump on the top, and they are harder to get a grip on. Sometimes a large pair of pliers work better than a hammer on those. 

Let's say we have a board with three nails in it. One is partly hammered in, with the top end sticking out some. The second is hammered all the way in, and sticks out the other side. The third is hammered all the way in, but isn't long enough to stick out the other side.

The first one is the easiest. All you need to do is slide the claw of the hammer under the nail head, put a board under the hammerhead if there is room, and if you want to avoid denting your board, and pry out the nail. Easy-peasy!

Some nails to pull

A scrap board helps

The second one takes two steps. First, turn the board over, bend the pointed end of the nail with your hammer until it is straight, and pound on the point, driving the head back out the other side. Then turn the board back over and pry it out like the first nail. 

The third one is where the cat's paw comes in. There's no way to hammer the pointy end, and the head is flat or buried so you can't get the hammer claw under it. The cat's paw is designed for this; line it up against the nail-head, and bang it with the hammer right on the curve of the paw, driving its claw under the nail-head. Then pry until the nail comes up a little, and then you can use the hammer on it as above.

Hammer it under the head, then pull

Pound it back through

Once you have all of the nails, screws, and staples removed from the board, you have a usable piece of wood to be proud of, and some nails that you can straighten out and use again. Nails are expensive, and re-using them saves you money as well as the environment. The two basic ways to straighten a nail are to either lay it down on scrap-wood and nail out the bends, or to unbend it with one or two pairs of pliers. It's easy, and doesn't take long.

Channel-locks work as a lever

One last caution for you; if you are planning to cut the board, or rip it to a different size on a table-saw, be VERY thorough about looking for nails. Recently I missed a couple of nail ends that had been cut off with a reciprocating saw during someone's demolition work, so there were no points or nail-heads showing. When I was putting that two-by-four through a table-saw to make a pair of 3 1/2 inch boards, I hit them, making a dramatic shower of sparks, and dulling my thirty-dollar blade terribly.

Now that you know how, I hope you go out there and scrounge up some good usable boards from scrap-piles, transfer stations, collapsed barns, any number of sources, and that you take pride in giving that wood new life in your own projects!

Nesting

I am nesting. Have been for months now, and the whole process is culminating in a way that makes my toes curl and my stomach get the best kind of butterflies. I've been building my house for the last 15 years, raised a daughter in it during much of the process, and often look around when I am alone here, unsatisfied, seeing unfinished edges everywhere. Things like ceilings not painted, doors not trimmed out, floors still only exposed plank in some places. Everything has changed now, though; I am in love. Crazy in love, in the kind of love that fills my heart to overflowing, that has me writing love-songs unabashedly on a weekly basis. The kind of love that always used to make me sad when I saw it in a movie, read it in a book, heard it in a song, because I knew I didn't have it, though I wanted it more than anything. 

So here I am, a grown man feeling like a teenager in some ways, alone in a very unconventional unfinished home, with the woman-better-than-my-dreams moving in, bringing her kids, her cats, her enthusiasm, her own hopes and dreams. Am I excited? Oh, Hell yes. Nervous? Well, of course. Prepared? Oh, boy...

Some of that reclaimed wood.

For months I have been making room, hoping against hope that she would say yes. Several unfinished rooms had become, over the years, floor-to-ceiling storage areas. The "utility room" is simply mounds of tools, scrap wood, totes, motorcycle gear, with just enough room for a litter box and a bowl for cat food in the middle. The "library" was, until not long ago, simply filled with boxes of books, the mismatched shelves stacked with rugs, photos, paperwork, unwanted nicknacks, camping gear, and the like. The "balcony" was blessedly hidden behind some stapled-up batik fabric and overflowed with mead-buckets in various stages of production, books, lumber, junk, empty boxes. We're not talking about clutter here, but about whole parts of my house that couldn't be navigated without a flashlight, a duster, and some climbing skills. 

I'll be coming back in detail to some of the specific projects, but for today I just want to touch on some of them briefly. The bathroom, for years mostly finished, is finally getting its corner trim, small slats of cedar customized from cedar closet-paneling. The outdoor shower, long a fond dream, came together in two days of intense soldering and drilling, and now needs only some enclosing and floor-surfacing. The balcony and stairs are getting a complete make-over, railings made of peeled hemlock saplings. Watch for that entry; for the cost of some screws and just a handful of three- and four-inch boards, I am building what would cost hundreds to build conventionally. Saving lots of money, at the same time as conserving natural resources, is great when you can do it, and I'll talk in detail about how this works for me.

Almost ready to tame the wild railing risers.

The library is empty now, and I've been surfacing it with reclaimed lumber from the transfer station, my goal to finish the room with only the cost of screws, nails, and paint. One wall is surfaced completely with cupboard and other doors. A built-in bunk and a secret cabinet are further signs of nesting, wanting so much to have two girls find it beautiful and magical as their new bedroom.

What once was going to be a study for me, then morphed into a guest-room, can now be home to two teen boys. Since I made it from my boyhood dreams of "the perfect bedroom," I have some reason to hope that they will like it, secret shelves, hanging chair, curved walls, and all. Am I prepared? Not yet, but working on it is indescribably satisfying.

This journal will be about much more than my nesting, this process of making my home suitable for my Beloved, sweeping, fixing, improving, building; today that is my focus, but as my new life, OUR new life, grows, many other facets of this love-filled path will find their way to these pages, and I will try my damnedest to bring you inspiration, motivation, hope, beauty, song, art, and goodwill.