The ‘Budstikka’ was an early ’Short Messaging System’ which was used in Norway and perhaps throughout Scandinavia from the time of the Vikings and up to the latter half of the 1800’s. It was a relatively effective and rapid way to spread important information.

The name ’Budstikke’ is composed of two words. First ’bud’, which in this particular context means ’bid’, as in the ’doing the kings bidding’. In other words, not just a message, but also a command from the King or other national or local authorities. The rest of the word ’stikke’ just means that it has a sharp point to allow it’s being anchored in wood somewhere. The budstikke in Photo 5 dates from the middle 1800’s, and an older one from 1610 in photo 6.

The message could be anything from the King calling up men to arms in time of war, to the local authorities commanding attendance at an important official gathering. The recipients were most often farmers. When the farmers were not at home the budstikke could be anchored in a door frame of their house or any other obvious place where it was sure to be seen on their return. The farmers were then responsible for forwarding the message to predetermined neighbors, and they could be punished for failing to do so. Punishment could be a fine, confiscation of property, imprisonment or even death depending on the importance of the message.

This budstikke was made for a good friend. Turned and handcarved from Linde wood. The design is my own, but true to principal. I doubt that none were alike, but they were all turned and hollowed out to contain a brief message which would stay dry, and some, although not all were topped off with the official looking crown design as on this one. Perhaps the crown was to signify it as a message from the King.

My carving was not very good as I have never been much of a woodcarver and even the turning is a little crude. This all works well as far as I’m concerned because these were never meant to be woodworking masterpieces, but rather an effective way to deliver important information. There would have been many dispensed at the same time, so pretty much mass produced items. I tried to make this one look rustic by first applying brown shoe polish, then some sanding and a final coat of beeswax/carnuba combo. My friend likes to make leather knife sheafs, so I thought he might like to keep his leather sewing needles in it.

I hope you found this little bit of Norwegian history and culture interesting. Thank you for having a look.

Those of you who have patiently followed my blog series on making this project and who have hung in there with many kind and encouraging comments along the way will be relieved to see that this is my last post on that project. I had a lot of fun doing this work and for those of you who didn’t read the blog series but would like to, it can be found in my blog series HERE.

The woods used for the marquetry were Linden, Walnut, African Blackwood, Cocobolo, Yellow heart, and Sycamore. I haven’t finished it yet as I may want to French polish it later after I learn how. The frame is made of White Oak finished with Danish oil. If you want to see how I made the frame you can see it in my blog on the subject
HERE.

Instead of veneers I used solid woods about 3/8” thick which were cut on my scroll saw. The final marquetry was then resawed on my bandsaw to create 2 pictures. They are about the size of an A4 piece of paper. The original drawing was downloaded from the net and there was no artists name attached so I don’t know who to thank. The original can be seen on the above referenced blog.

Thanks for looking in.

A marquetry test piece 1/4” thick produced on my scroll saw. This piece is sawn at 90 degrees and there are no gaps between the cut-outs and inserts and no blade entry hole. The woods are Linde (similar to Basswood) and mahogany. No finish has been applied yet.

This pattern didn’t lend itsself so well to marquetry, and even though the white tail line didn’t come out so well I am reasonably happy with it as a test for my ‘new’ marking/cutting method.

I used a somewhat unusual method to produce this piece and I have described how I did it on the following blog which I posted today.

http://lumberjocks.com/stefang/blog/33732

My youngest grandson Vidar (13) made this box for his brother Erling. He scroll sawed the top bird pattern at an angle and pushed it up to make a relief motif. He also scroll sawed the the corner joints and the miters. The dark wood is Ash. The first photo shows the true color. The white wood is Linde which is in the the same family as Basswood and is slightly harder.

I think this is Vidar’s nicest project to date. Unfortunately we were both rushing to finish our last projects before Christmas and just finished last night so I haven’t been on LJ much for the last week. So I will take this opportunity to wish each and every one of you a A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Project Description
A bucket made entirely with hand tools including wooden staves reinforced with hand carved dowels, bottom also made of 3 boards also held together with hand carved dowels, and banding cut from debarked Willow tree branches to hold the whole thing together. No glue. This would be a typical water or milk bucket used as late as 1900 and for over a one or two thousand years before that.

My wife is using the bucket for seasonal floral decorations. It sits right next to our cast iron oven/fireplace. In the winter it shrinks, the bands get a bit loose and cracks appear between the staves. In summer it sucks up the ambient moisture, the cracks disappear and the banding get quite tight. In normal use carrying liquids it would stay tight all the time.

Project History
I was looking through my project gallery and I found that I forgot to post the bucket project Mafe and I worked on about 1-1/2 years ago. We each made our own bucket version using special hand tools that we also made, including a wooden hand plane with a radiused plane iron to plane a curve into the staves (one at a time), a dado knife with a very long shoulder handlel to cut the dados for the bottom and a special wooden lever used to install the bands with. For me, the bands were the most difficult part. I made about 12 bands before I finally succeeded with the special carved joint which keeps them together. I am therefore most proud of this part.

I wanted to get this project into my project gallery and that’s why I’m posting it now. It was was a lot of fun and some aggravation too, and more challenging than I first expected. Both Mads and I blogged our bucket projects, but I was using photo bucket at that time and I inadvertently deleted the related photos, so I took these pics today. If you want to see more basic details you can look it up on Mafe’s blog. http://lumberjocks.com/mafe/blog/20676

This photo was taken about 3pm here in Norway. As you can see we are having a bit of snow today. It’s now 7pm and still going strong. I may be spending the next few days at home.

WOOD CHARACTERISTICS
These baskets are in fact the only woodworking project that I have made more than one of. These are made of Linde wood which is the European version of Basswood. Fantastic for carving with very little grain showing and also pretty light weight, two characteristics which make this a great wood for basket making. Easy to pass around and the scroll sawn pattern shows up well.

CONSTRUCTION DETAILS
I started off with a plank about 3” thick which I cut into about 1/4” thick slabs and then handplaned smooth. The top rim is a flat frame with mitered corners reinforced with small butterfly inlays and with a 15 degree cut on the outside edges.

The sides are cut with compound miters to give them a 15 degree flair and the top and bottom edges are also cut at 15 degrees to make the top and base flat for gluing on the rim and the base frame. The bottom frame is cut to the same angle to mirror the sides while flaring in the opposite direction.

GLUE-UP
Pretty easy. I glue up the sides first using masking tape to clamp with. The top rim and base are cut to length (with miters) based on measurements from the glued up sides. The frames are glued up separately and the butterfly mortices are thru-cut on the corners of the rim. The frames are then glued to the sides after the glue is dry on the 3 components. I just use rub joints on these then I wrap masking tape around the whole thing just to be on the safe side. No real stress involved here.

The finish is just 3 coats of spray can lacquer (1 hour drying time with light sanding in between coats). I still have two more coats to go on these. They will be sent in the post tomorrow which is the deadline for packages to Sweden.

DESIGN
The design, including the scroll saw pattern, is my own (for better of worse). I’ve made 3 of these so far as Christmas gifts, and they are all used on a regular basis by various family members. These two are headed to our extended ‘new’ family in Sweden.

MITER CUTTING METHODOLOGY
Instead of cutting the compound miter angles with two settings on my miter saw, which is difficult to set accurately, I rip a 12” long piece of pine at 15 degrees on one edge to use as a utility fence with the 90 degree side against my MS fence so I can just place the workpieces against it to produce the 15 degree angle and then just cut a regular 45 degree miter with only one miter saw setting. The utility fence is placed with the narrow edge at the bottom for cutting the sides and the wide edge at the bottom for cutting the base.

HISTORY
I made the first basket of this type about 6 or 7 years ago in response to the woven baskets we normally used disintegrating after a year or two of use. We are still using it on a daily basis as a bread basket for breakfast and lunch. It’s easy to keep toast or buns warm when we use it with a decorative kitchen towel as show in one of the photos above. These would also be great as candy dishes, etc. I have posted the other baskets I made, but these have new patterns and I also wanted to remind everyone what great Christmas gifts these are.

MESSAGE TO MY LJ FRIENDS
I’ve been away from LJ for awhile now laid up with a bad back and knee. I found it frustrating to just read what my buddies and others were doing while I couldn’t actively participate myself.

I will be catching up on all the projects and blogs posted by all my buddies during my absence and commenting on them too. Meanwhile I’m glad to have something to post to get started up again and I’m looking forward to enjoying having a dialog with you once again.

This is my first intarsia after first doing a little practice piece which I didn’t complete. It is based on my son’s drawing of Thor, his version of the comic book hero. I traced the main features from his drawing on my light board and then changed the details to something I could cut seen in photo #3. There are about 150 pieces altogether. The intarsia wood is recycled pine shelving and the frame is White Oak and it is the size of an A4 piece of paper.

I have to admit that the results aren’t very good, but this was meant as a learning piece and I did learn a lot from it, and I enjoyed the work so much that I plan to do a lot more. Who knows? Maybe I will get better at it. That said, I still think it is a fun piece to look at, especially if you’re not a woodworker!

I took the unfinished intarsia with us to Sweden when we visited our son in June and it was my intention to glue it to a backing and frame it there, as it was intended as a gift to him. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, so I had to take it back to Norway with us, and I just now got it done and ready for mailing.

Thanks for having a look.

Another something found at my MIL’s house after her move to the old folks home. Nothing very exciting about the basket, except for the pattern which I designed myself and I also cut it in my scroll saw. I really am using this project to showcase some carving done by my wife’s Uncle and given to my MIL as a gift by him. It was done not too long after he started carving. I like it a lot and I wanted to share it with you.

I suggested to my MIL that she give the carving back to my wife’s uncle, but she doesn’t want to do that, so I guess It’s home with us to stay.

Still clearing out my MIL’s house and found this old Christmas project I gave her as a gift. Even though they look like plastic, they are turned out of solid Birch.

I know most woodworkers would rather see the actual wood, but painting stuff like this is accepted in Norway because it was done traditionally, although usually with some designs painted on top of the basic colors.

The candlesticks aren’t leaning, it’s just my really bad photo.

After moving my 92 year old MIL to an old folks home with the possessions she wanted with her, she said to just take whatever we wanted that was left at her home. My wife and my BIL and his wife are at an age when we are more interested in getting rid of stuff than acquiring more, and our kids have what they want too. We were over at her house today to tie up some loose ends and my wife found this little music box I made for my MIL’s birthday 14 years ago. Boy, time really flies!

It’s always fun to see old work. Some times I’m surprised that it was better than I thought it was considering my skill level at the time. This one is kind of like that. Looking at it now there are several easy changes that would have made it a lot nicer. One thing is the legs. At the time I thought the bottom shape looked something like those large kettles from way back when, and so I made legs like the ones I had seen on some of them.

In retrospect I guess French provincial or curvy type leg might have looked better and If I had made the heart inlay on the top thicker, I could have given it a little domed shape on the lathe. The cheap fake stone in the handle could have been a nice genuine polished stone instead.

Anyway, it was fun to see this again and it still plays the music and it stops when the lid is put on.

Once upon a time I decided to give spoon carving a try. This one, which I did several years ago is also the last one I did. I never sanded or finished it, as I wanted a rustic homespun look to.

In Norway, it used to be a tradition to make something as a gift to the girl you wanted to marry. If she refused the gift, then the outlook for marriage was bleak. These gifts were mostly made of wood and could be almost any small project, but my guess is that carved spoons were a favorite as it was easy put some romance into it, like the double heart pattern on this one.

Spoons are easily cut out on a scroll saw to remove most of the waste and then carved. I have seen many fine spoons here on LJ, so I posted this one to make the others look even better!

My DIL’s mom has built a nice ‘cabin’ In Sauda Norway overlooking Suada fjord. My youngest grandson Vidar 12, told me she needed a key cabinet, as the one she had there was way too small, and he wanted to make one for her as a Christmas gift.

I checked on the net and found a style that looked nice and which Vidar liked. Then we found a nice old time key pattern in one of my scroll saw books to decorate the door with. Next we printed out the pattern so we could glue it onto a workpiece for cutting.

We worked out the size of the door and made a half pattern for that and then sized the case piece to it. Its all made from pine except we used hardwood slats glued in grooves in the back piece that could hold the screw-in hooks real good and tight. We used box joints for the case and rabbeted in the back.

Vidar cut out out all the parts including the key ornament glued to the door face, the box joints and other pieces on the scroll saw. He hasn’t used the scroll saw for awhile, but he did a real good job with it. I routed the door edges the dadoes for the hook strips and the rabbets around the back piece, then did the glue-up for him as we were a little pressed for time.

I’m glad my grandkids like to make stuff and I hope they will continue to show an interest for woodworking as they continue to grow up. They live about 100 yards away on another street, so I hope they will get good use of my shop, perhaps even after I’m too decrepit to use it myself. In the mean time I am slowly introducing them to the tools/techniques and keeping a close eye on their safety. When they have finished their projects, my son always asks them what I have broken now for them. Admittedly a fair question.

I get depressed every year before Dec.25th. I’m not bi-polar, but I do fret about what to get my wife for Christmas. Her wish list is usually too short and way to0 modest! This year she gave me her list on the 23rd (we exchange gifts here in Norway on Christmas eve). At the bottom of her list she wrote “a fancy mobil phone?” Wow! I really hopped onto that one. At last, something worthwhile giving her. The problem was that I couldn’t get an iPhone locally without a contract with a service provider, so I had to order it from the online Apple store, which meant no delivery until after Christmas.

I didn’t like the idea of her not getting a package from me, so I did what any woodworker would do, I made her an iPhone out of wood. My son found an iPhone cut-out pattern on the net that could be printed out and. My son said that he printed out 5 copies for me. I thanked him for his confidence in my abilities (I did after all succeed with the fourth one). I made up a wood blank in the right dimensions, rounded the edges and the corners then stuck it on with two sided tape around the edges (fourth try). This worked like a charm as you can see from the brilliant results. I then made a fabulous gift box for it which took me 15 minutes to make (give or take and hour). I hope you like it.

Now that my wife has gotten her real iPhone, I am tempted to keep the wooden one and just flash it around to make folks think that I have one too and that I don’t really dislike mobil phones.

As for my wife, she isn’t particularly happy with her gift (yet). It takes awhile for her to get used to new things these days. We are, after all, 71 years old, so while the old things are easy, it does take us awhile to figure out the new stuff. Eventually she will wonder how she managed without it! As for me, I am proud to have entered the electronic/digital age!

My son is getting his apartment ready to sell as he will be moving to Sweden soon. My wife and I were helping him out when I ran across this box I made for him about 14 years ago. He asked me if I could refresh the finish for him, so I took it home.

I thought it might be fun to show you this old work. It was my very first box and my very first wood carving. I really worked hard at that carving and I know it’s not good, but I was proud of it at the time (or maybe just proud that I actually finished it). The box is made from Birch.

The one thing I still like is the clasp on the front. As you can see from the pics above, the clasp locks onto a very short, small dowel that sticks out a little less than 1/16”. The clasp is doweled into the box at the bottom leaving it just flexible enough so it can be pulled out at the top enough to slip onto the dowel and keep enough pressure to keep the box firmly locked. The clasp is hollowed out a little on the inside top part to accept the dowel. This was my own idea/design, but I’m quite sure the concept has been used a lot since the stone age.

I also want to take the opportunity to tell all my LJ buddies that right now my participation is pretty hit and miss, but I’ve got so much to do outside the shop right now that I’ve been too tired at night to sit much on the computer. I do have your posts in my mail notifier (about 150 of them at present) and I will be looking at and commenting on your posts, but in catch-up mode. So don’t think I’ve forgotten you!!

It is a Norwegian tradition in some parts of the country to carry porridge in a container like this to a mother as her first meal after giving birth. That is the reason for it being decorative. I composed the decorative elements myself, but they are true to tradition. I’ve never seen two of these alike. Decoration in the past varied between carving, rose-painting and wood burning and often a combination of the foregoing.

The originals were made from coopered stave’s and banded with a thin band riven from a solid piece of wood to hold the stave’s together. The bands would have been pre-soaked in water and then installed tight as possible. While drying, the bands would shrink thereby keeping the stave’s nice and tight.

My version looks pretty authentic, but instead of stave’s it is turned from solid green Birch (wet wood). The bands also look very authentic, but they too are just turned.

The bottom was a dry disk placed in a groove near the bottom of the container. The container walls were then left to shrink in around the disk making the container water tight. The top is held in place by a nub on the handle piece which inserts into a shallow hole in one end, while the other end is held place by a pin with a handle through the ear and into the other end of the handle piece.

After cutting out at the base and the top ‘ears’ I carved the decorative details. The center is chip carved with a simple repeating pattern, mainly to give some texture to the piece without being flamboyant.

The piece won’t be handled a lot, so I just used a light finishing oil and topped it off with some beeswax to give it a modest luster.

Thanks for looking in. I hope you like it.

I had big plans to make a lot of Christmas gifts for family members this year, but due to circumstances beyond my control, I only managed to do this one jewelry box for my DIL. I finished it at 2am Thursday night and the gift was opened on Christmas Eve which is when we celebrate Christmas here in Norway. I try to make gifts small enough so that they can be easily hidden away in case the recipients don’t like them. This box is about 7”D X 10”L X 4”H.

Unfortunately there were some imperfections in the finish which I didn’t have time to correct. I told my DIL that I wanted to take it back for some remedial work, and she said “no way! It looks just fine to me”. Ok, what’s a guy to do? I’ve been thinking about some kind of stealth operation where I could get it, fix it and return without her knowing about it.

This is my own design which I did first in Sketchup. I am hoping that this is an original design, but if you have seen something similar, please let me know. The Sketchup plan was very handy to get the cutting angles of which there are four main ones; the back corners, the front corners, the sides and the side bottoms. The corners all have three splines each, one is visible at the top corners and the other two are covered by the leg pieces The wood is Ash with Mahogany accents. I want to make at least one more of this design because I got lots of ideas for details that could enhance the design and add a lot more interest to it, so you might be seeing another version in the future.

I’m sorry about the bad photos, especially the last three. I had to take them at my son’s house today and I made the mistake of using two different backgrounds and poor lighting on some of them. My philosophy is that a bad photo is better than no photo.

Thanks for looking in and wishing all of you A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I have 4 air guns. 1 for staples, 1 for car lug nuts and 2 nailer’s. I’ve had them stored on the shelves in the plastic suitcases they came in. This takes a lot of space and they aren’t conveniently at hand when they are needed. This results in them being underused.

I have very little wall space to just hang them, just 20”, so I decided to build a cabinet for that little space between my bandsaw and the drillpress. I wanted to store all four tools plus the nails, staples and lug bolt sockets and extension. This little cabinet does that.

The whole thing is made out of pine. Most of the wood is recycled shelving materials. The drawer is joined with box joints cut on my scroll saw. They took about 15 minutes to mark and cut and they fit perfect, so I just had to glue them up straight off the saw. The drawer front is a separate piece screwed on. The drawer bottom and the main door panel were ply backing under some oak panels on my son’s old kitchen bar (I knew I could use that some day!). The door frame is mitered and rabbited on the back where the panel is inset and glued on. The drawer bottom is just glued and nailed on. Oh, and I almost forgot. I hung it on a French cleat just to please you French cleat fans.

Now I am planning to improve my whole workshop storage to make things easier to get at and to free up space wherever I can. Meanwhile I will probably be doing a lot of nailing!

My inspiration for this post came from Timbo’s post about fruity dovetails.

I was visiting my son the other day and he showed me these carvings he did using avocado pits and a pocket knife. They look and feel more like baked clay than avocado pit. They are about the size of a quarter. The pits were carved when they were still moist.

This is a slat bench I made for the Wife. She needed a simple sturdy bench to take short rest breaks while working at the further end of the garden so she wouldn’t have to walk all the way back to the deck. It’s made out of pressure treated 2X4s. Threaded steel rods hold the slats together with spacers between each of the 6 slats. I you are interested in how it was built you can click on the blog link: http://lumberjocks.com/stefang/blog/16020

I was up in the loft over my shop today and ran across this candlestick. I had drilled the candle hole off-center, so this one will be trashed. I just thought it might be a good project for someone fairly new to the lathe. The base and stem are glued together with a mortise and tenon joint. I rough turned the base and then finished it up after the glue dried. These are fun to make and an opportunity to be creative on the design side.

I made some of these candlesticks in the past as gifts. The gifts included two matching candlesticks and a bowl designed to look a part of the 3pc. set.

All the pieces were painted two tone with contrasting paints because I didn’t think the birch grain was very interesting. I did make sure to paint each individual set in colors that fitted nicely into the decor of the recipients. They would probably look better in just wood providing it had an interesting grain.

They work equally well in an entryway, on the dining table, a side board or a coffee table.