41 years ago I knew this French-Canadian Metis guy who was always sharing the wisdom of nature with me , and although I never put it into practice he told me if I ever wanted to make a dugout canoe , I should float the log whole to get the log to float with the naturally dense side of the log down and then go from there and not ending up with a listing canoe! 😎
I'm not a tree hugger or anything (in fact I think we need to be planting more trees and using more wood) but in this case I only feel sorry for the tree and the forest (referring to the first tree).
Mr. Townsend; I want to thank you greatly for your hard work. I am stuck working from home, and I work the overnight shift (7:30pm to 6am and sleep all day) so I feel like I'm under house arrest. I only go out for groceries once a week. I'm fat, diabetic and have respiratory illness so I've got to be careful...Your channel has literally kept me sane since I had to cancel my cable (I get you on youtube via Ruku...). My wife told me to NOT skip the ads to help you with revenue and I'll buy some non reenacting stuff (again not fit enough anymore) on the website to support you...this is not meant as a self pity party but just explaining why I appreciate this channel so much...you and your loved ones be safe... Thanks, Seth
When I made mine I used a BROAD AXE more than anything else. Like yours, burning did not get me too far. My broad axe was kept as sharp as possible and I guess most all my energy came from wanting to achieve a beautiful piece of art. Even sanded it smooth. I wish I still had my photos. But they were lost in a house fire. I really love your videos. Thank You for sharing.
Cottonwoods grow pretty fast and aren't used for much. Cottonwood carries a lot of water when fresh and it's likely the reason why they couldn't move the log. It also rots pretty quick... overall no real loss.
In the Philippines where I grew up, some small towns still use dugout long boats with no outriggers and can sit 12 people. They're fun to paddle and cuts through the water as they're long and thin and fast. I used to transport people in them as a kid during flood season. Dugout longboats (they're longer than canoes) are still used to this day. It's also fascinating to watch the process on how they're built. It's a dying art, sadly.
I’ve watched this canoe making series multiple times now, and it always brings me such a pleasant and peaceful feeling . Thank you so much for the content as always Townsend’s .
*I admire your tenacity in making a canoe using conventional tools. Wearing your ancient attire for something such as this is definitely dedication. One thing I am not sure if you were all well aware of is just how dangerous it is with 4 guys with axes all working on the same canoe at the same time. Being Canadian such as I am, I just happen to understand well how much effort goes into making one of these. Birch tree and Birchbark for canoe is my preferred tree, but you may not have those down wherever you are. Impressive effort and result, and no one went to the hospital.*
I hope your boat comes out fine :) In Poland we had this exact type of boat. They were called "dłubanka", meaning "gouged out one". They were used for transportation, fishing and even small-scale local commerce for hundreds and hundreds of years. Some bigger boats were improved by adding planks to the rim, which heightened the board to make them safer and drier in everyday use.
The way to do it is to fall the tree, then make the dugout in place and then drag out the dugout. So much lighter; also pick a location of the fallen tree as close to the water as possible, planning is everything.
I purchased my first Conoe middle 1970s 16ft Blazer & started running the local Rivers Chickasabogue, Escatawba, Ect. After running the Escatawba many times I came across a couple who had found a dug out stuck in a Log Jam ! I had passed many times. Thinking it was just another Log. ! He placed it Accros his Conoe & Recoverd it. I never heard anything from that Conoe again. But there were two other Conoe found in this area one in Chickasabogue area. The University of S Al dated to be around six hundred yrs old. Another found in a Log Jam in the Mobile Delta. Also estimated to also be around six hundred yrs. Old. It was in the Mobile city Museum & should still be. The Conoe found that day looked Much Much older as one end was rotted off. Gee... I would Love to have it in my Living Room. It was certainly Built by the Escatawba Indians
Because poplar trees grow fast their will be more of them quickly. What is sad is that live oaks that are hundreds of years old are being cut down for firewood and because insurance companies don't like them. The Kokomo Sycamore was a similar type of tree that people would live in. They are now extinct in europe.
Perhaps in the mesolithic but if you're talking about European immigrants to the US they would have used contemporary methods which make this look like a baby trying to draw a car vs a designer. Checkout the one by username "Northmen," THAT, is how to make a dugout canoe.
@@MrTwistyLive True. The Mississippian people who lived around the Midwest and close to the Mississippi River all made dugout canoes. They traveled the rivers instead of hauling trade goods overland since they didn't have domesticated farm animals. American re-enactors like to revise the history of the North American continent with an emphasis on Eurocentric colonial experiences as the true history. Europeans did have dugout canoes thousands of years before but they were already building large ships to cross the ocean. Traveling by dugout was something colonists saw Native people doing and copied it.
My heart almost sunk when I thought you were going to cut down that beautiful tree in its prime, glad to see you went with a already harvested piece of timber. Great video John.
Jon, it sounds like you needed a horse logging team to get out your cottonwood. That was a couple of awesome tree's, both your cottonwood and the tulip tree. Amazing straight timber you have. We have such wind in our area not much of it is that straight. This was so enjoyable, thanks so much for sharing.
I have a Belgian cross that I have pulled out some small logs with and I am not sure where they are located at but I thought why don't they contact some Amish folks and ask them to haul it out for the.
They're re-enactors. Do you think someone back in the 1700's would have whipped out a pair of safety glasses? You didn't think this through very well before you posted it.
A few years back I worked on an experimental archaeology project at Butser Ancient Farm in the UK. We were intending to make a dugout canoe much like this one using only the tools and techniques that would have been available in the Bronze Age. It's interesting to watch this because we had exactly the same problem! The plan was to use burning in order to remove most of the material, and then bronze tools to take out the charcoal and finish the canoe. Unfortunately that didn't work out, even though we kept at it pretty much everyday for 3 weeks the Scots Pine we were using was just too wet to make any headway other than a couple of millimetres. We eventually had to resort to modern tools and a chainsaw to meet our deadline. Looking forward to seeing if you guys managed to find a way to get burning to work.
I was fortunate to salvage my Great grandfathers hand hewn brine tank that he made of a huge cottonwood around the 1870's for salt curing meat. Its roughly 9 1/2' long and around 30" in diameter. Its been in my garage since I saved it from destruction in '94. The lid and leather hinges were destroyed. We also salvaged and rebuilt his huge limestone oven from 1870-1880 that my dad remembers his Grandmother baking up to 16 loaves of bread at a time for their family of 15 children. Happy chopping and burning !!
At around 1:50 you see Jon grin ear to ear when he says pitfalls after talking about the cottonwood falling into a pit and I just know he's holding back on making a pun. What a wholesome and delightful man.
One of the technical ways I was shown was to burn the inside with hot rocks and a fire to help get deep as the rocks would hold more heat longer. This would allow you to get the depth and that adding wood to the fire but controlling the burn rate helps keep a better depth rate as you need longer steady burns for better charring of the wood.
I saw and floated in lots of dugouts in Venezuela. I always thought the process would be tedious and time consuming to hollow these out. Gives a lot of appreciation for the strength and perseverance of those people 200 to 300 years ago!
What "work" are you talking about? When they used a big Stihl chainsaw the cut the tree down? Or a tractor to pull the log out of the woods? Or was it the bandsaw they used to cut it in half? What a joke! LOL
@@drott150 They literally answers your concerns in the beginning of the video; Jon tried to do it the real traditional way at first and it was a failure so they had to make some modern compromises. At no point did he claim they were going to do it the completly historically correct way the whole process through. So whats the big deal?
My dad and grandfather built a small 20ft boat together in the 50's, dad gave it to a family friend about 15 years ago, he still uses it every weekend. Still got the book that showed them how to do it too.
I love this channel. Despite all the swinging axes, the music and the visuals were amazingly soothing. This is something I would love to have the time and resources to attempt.
The way western countries used to live was awesome. Building canoes. Discovering recipes when there was no cookbooks. Frontiering woods. All the different varieties of exploration makes all of history and lifestyle amazing! Love this channel!
Fabulous!!! Thank you for such excellent and educational videos. I love watching the process. Great camera and sound work. Your early videos are good but like all crafts, skill increases with doing. Good job!!! Gives us moderns a glimpse into our ancestors lives, a different frame of reference. Thank you so much!!!
I built one with a bunch of school kids 30 years ago. I really didn’t know anything. I did a little library research. But there wasn’t much info. We just started. We cut a big pine tree. After a bunch of big fires it took shape. It took a whole school year and many kid hours. Near the end of the school year, we got 6 cradles under it and 12 kids. They lifted it into the lake and it floated like a duck. It was a hellacious amount of work. It just went really slowly!
As much as that's a neat idea--wasting resources is certainly not the way our ancestors did things--I wonder how the grease from the fire would affect the wood burn? Speed it up or just create spotty burning?
When I was a small child in Malawi a large tree fell onto our garden wall, after that some Malawians came and spent, maybe a week carving it into a canoe with a similar technique. Different style though. I think it was about a 7 man job.
This looks like something you spend a half hour a day on, for a year or more. You start looking like that big guy and end up looking like John and have a canoe.
"It needs to be tall, it needs to be straight, and it needs to be untwisted, and it needs to be big." Sounds like something you would find in a Tinder bio.
Thanks for the video, Jon. Interesting work. I couldn't help thinking that you could have split or ripped out several planks with a two-man pit saw in about the time it took you to get that trench chopped. Maybe for your next boat you can saw up that log you left in the woods. :)
Very cool. As someone who has done a lot of wood work with axes, I could tell you guys don't normally do this kind of thing right away. Overall, not horrible, but you definitely need some practice. You were working your axes too hard with minimal gains. Work on your stroke and your rhythm, you'll get it. Again, it wasn't bad, and it was still very cool. This was an awesome video!
Yeah, I was trying not to sound condescending. Using an axe for work like this is difficult to become good at, and can take years to get perfected. Mainly they were letting the wood control their bikes to much, and not maintaining consistent angles through the stroke. The axe sort of rolls when they strike, wasting a good portion of the energy they expended doing it. Easier to describe the issue than to fix it. They just need practice. I'm truth, it wasn't even all that bad.
I would suggest using the axe across the grain, then use the adze to remove the chip. Might find it a bit easier. Roy Underhill uses a similar method to flatten a log with axe and broadaxe.
They actually have a time at Jamestown settlement where they actually make one over the course of sometime an people can stand and watch them work at it. The men who did this back then were no joke there were no short cuts back then it was all just work.
Thank you so very much I have found this very useful who knows when a person's will actually have to use these skills in the case of an emergency all bushcraft and last day preppers will love this. thanks again.
Well, you can bet our forefathers knew better than to hack away at the center of that log while bending over at the waist as you fellows were. There weren't too many chiropractors around then and if one developed a bad back, life from then on would be miserable! I've no doubt they'd be telling you to get that log put up a lot higher before you started in on it. if you want to accurately represent the old ways, figure out what they did to make the chores EASIER. These people were not simpletons and life was far more than a bunch of explorers and settlers just slogging uphill through every miserable job. They knew their craft and they knew all the shortcuts. Still, it's good to see you fellows out there doing these kinds of things.
I have the 9 1/2' hand hewn cottonwood brine tank I salvaged from my Great grandfathers home place, about 30" in diameter, that he salt cured meat in. He made the tank around 1870. Add salt until a hard boiled egg would float to get the proper salt content...is what my father said. We were able to also salvage and rebuild his huge limestone outdoor oven from the same time frame. My father, born in 1909, remembers his grandmother baking as many as 16 loaves of bread at a time in the oven. We rebuilt it at my brothers house and use it for family baking/family get togethers. Happy chopping and burning....
True but this is historical channel and also I dont think he cut down the tree he show us before but he used another one that they had in the sawmill. The last time when he cut down tree there were many negative comments.
we did it having the guys standing on the log swinging the axes with the grain of the tree. I think it sped up the chopping process, and bring stiff brooms. I love this series, your canoe looks awesome in the end
if they allowed it to dry out they would not be able to steam-bend it into shape - see a video of how to REALLY make a dugout canoe. When you see it done by guys who know what they are doing, it's pure art.
Erik Vosteen literally says 'pitfall' about the prior canoe building effort's.. pitfall. (2:00) 10/10 avoid this man in punning contests but definitely catch him on poetry jam night.
Keep this visual in your head. And then go and read the river of doubt and imagine how many of these Teddy Roosevelt’s crew had to make along the journey.
People in other areas of the world still make dugout canoes as a matter of need. Many places in subSahel Africa for instance. MANY years ago I had the opportunity (necessity) to cross a river in a pirogue. My travel buddy and I were in one dugout and our respective motorbikes were each in two other ones. It was a disconcerting crossing as I kept thinking that our bikes might wind up on the bottom of the river. A small boy was sat on each bike and they balanced themselves and the bikes by having their feet on the gunnel on either side of the bike. A very memorable river crossing.
Explaining how to use an axe without visual is tricky. Honestly you'd be better off finding a video. Main thing, gotta get your gut in the swing. Whole body
@@uncledanni9352 he was swinging only with the force of his arms. Really your arms should only be exerting force to keep accuracy and return the axe above your shoulder after the swing, all down force should be gravity, back, and legs.
My spine kept sending me memo's every other second "Don't you dare think about trying this, don't you dare think abou trying this" LOL. GL and Happy New Year
@@brianwest4283 I tried, but couldn't remember the password to the account I had almost maxed out. The one I haven't touched in years? Remembered that like it was yesterday.
We just got blessed with a 14 foot long piece of cherry that is about two feet wide. My son wants to make something out of it instead of me using it in the smoker. If I give in an say yes to him having it do you have any suggestions. He's 11 1/2 and homeschool and studying carpentry this year. If you have any suggestions I appreciate it.
ChrisC our Amish friend had been showing him how to use chisels and other techniques that doesn't require electricity just in case. He wants to build this like game that requires a marble. It's like a roller coaster in a way. He talked about doing wood work in the winter months when he is not cutting grass with his dad. And two my son said it could be a way to make money for him.
If I may, you should check out a channel called Wood by Wright. He has uses nothing but hand tools and even has a video on splitting and milling logs into boards by hand.
@@lacyhay6502, the engineering and materials-science involved in preparing wood by hand--even just the splitting--is pretty amazing stuff. Worthwhile to watch the oldsters in Norway splitting out a log with nothing but wedges and mallets!
@paulflute - True that! I think plants would be thinking the highest calling humans have, would be to decompose fast and provide some semblance of nutrients to the next tree!
41 years ago I knew this French-Canadian Metis guy who was always sharing the wisdom of nature with me , and although I never put it into practice he told me if I ever wanted to make a dugout canoe , I should float the log whole to get the log to float with the naturally dense side of the log down and then go from there and not ending up with a listing canoe! 😎
This never even crossed my mind as a possibility...
The wisdom of nature 😭😂
I would have never thought of that but it makes sense.
You are extremely fortunate to have had such a person in your life.
Thanks for the free knowledge.
I feel like its cruel and unusual punishment to give the biggest guy on the crew the tiniest hatchet. Lawd have mercy on that man's back.
LAAAWWDD hahahahhaa
I'm not a tree hugger or anything (in fact I think we need to be planting more trees and using more wood) but in this case I only feel sorry for the tree and the forest (referring to the first tree).
@@haraldblotand5460 Nah, it'll be fine
Maybe it just looks small because he’s so big 👀
I thought the same thing. He should have had the biggest axe with more oomph behind it.
"We couldn't get the tree out becuase it had fallen into a pit."
"Yeah there are a lot of pitfalls when making a canoe."
I think he was using the term pitfall in its original sense.
@@youngmrjazz That doesn't make it any less punny.
What explain this year old joke
I need to know the 18th century version of a rimshot.
Best I got is a tavern's worth of people pounding their tankards and yelling "WAHEY!"
I love how James giggles when Erik says "there are a lot of pitfalls" with no pun intended.
Man, that's some work they're putting in.
Came here for this. "There are a lot of pitfalls" Y'mean like the pit what the first one already fell in?
While everyone else wears 1800 clothing there's always that one dude who wears a hoodie
Yeah, just like they wore in the 1800's
How else would we know this wasn;t actually shot in the 1800's? DUH
It's period correct. Historical accounts tell us that a good portion of the continental army was outfitted with Vans hoodies.
He's from the future! Hahaha
@@maarten332 barche usate paesi bassi in vendita
Mr. Townsend;
I want to thank you greatly for your hard work. I am stuck working from home, and I work the overnight shift (7:30pm to 6am and sleep all day) so I feel like I'm under house arrest. I only go out for groceries once a week. I'm fat, diabetic and have respiratory illness so I've got to be careful...Your channel has literally kept me sane since I had to cancel my cable (I get you on youtube via Ruku...). My wife told me to NOT skip the ads to help you with revenue and I'll buy some non reenacting stuff (again not fit enough anymore) on the website to support you...this is not meant as a self pity party but just explaining why I appreciate this channel so much...you and your loved ones be safe...
Thanks, Seth
read bob proctor, he can helps you ma broda
"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening my axe." - Abe Lincoln
"you cannot verify the accuracy of a quotation on the internet" - Alexander Graham Bell
@Death spy 9 u win lol
@Death spy 9 lol
Lol
L
When I made mine I used a BROAD AXE more than anything else. Like yours, burning did not get me too far. My broad axe was kept as sharp as possible and I guess most all my energy came from wanting to achieve a beautiful piece of art. Even sanded it smooth. I wish I still had my photos. But they were lost in a house fire. I really love your videos. Thank You for sharing.
Pull up to yo girl in ma homemade canoe with my 1800s fit
Yes papi 🤓
They see me rollin'
They hatin'
Gotta catch me riding dirty
Gotta catch me riding dirty
“Today a tree like this is really valuable.”
“Really a few months back we chopped one up in my parents woods.”
Tulip is used by woodcarvers. It had grain similar to olive.
Cottonwoods grow pretty fast and aren't used for much. Cottonwood carries a lot of water when fresh and it's likely the reason why they couldn't move the log. It also rots pretty quick... overall no real loss.
@@WobiKabobi Firewood or animal habitat, same as any tree knocked over during a windstorm.
@@WobiKabobi you're acting as if that tree has personally affected you
@@WobiKabobi Wait, where did this happen? (Timestamp please)
I love your videos! I have been a re enactor since 1968 and respect the thought you put into what you do.
In the Philippines where I grew up, some small towns still use dugout long boats with no outriggers and can sit 12 people. They're fun to paddle and cuts through the water as they're long and thin and fast. I used to transport people in them as a kid during flood season. Dugout longboats (they're longer than canoes) are still used to this day. It's also fascinating to watch the process on how they're built. It's a dying art, sadly.
I’ve watched this canoe making series multiple times now, and it always brings me such a pleasant and peaceful feeling . Thank you so much for the content as always Townsend’s .
*I admire your tenacity in making a canoe using conventional tools. Wearing your ancient attire for something such as this is definitely dedication. One thing I am not sure if you were all well aware of is just how dangerous it is with 4 guys with axes all working on the same canoe at the same time. Being Canadian such as I am, I just happen to understand well how much effort goes into making one of these. Birch tree and Birchbark for canoe is my preferred tree, but you may not have those down wherever you are. Impressive effort and result, and no one went to the hospital.*
I hope your boat comes out fine :) In Poland we had this exact type of boat. They were called "dłubanka", meaning "gouged out one". They were used for transportation, fishing and even small-scale local commerce for hundreds and hundreds of years. Some bigger boats were improved by adding planks to the rim, which heightened the board to make them safer and drier in everyday use.
cool! Are there any re-enactment museums that still make those boats?
“Get in your costume Erik!”
“ I don’t wanna!!”
“GET IN YOUR COSTUME!!”
😂😂 yeah I imagine how that went
As a Finn that axehandling really hurts my soul
Erä Jorma - As an American, it hurts mine also. Yikes!
vituttaa katsoa moista nysväämistä
I've seen similar techniques used when people are tired. The instinct is to twist the blade so it does not dig in to do less work.
Vladimir Putin - You're funny. These guys shouldn't be swinging axes.
the way the morbidly obese guy swings is insane, like he literally can only bend over and only uses from his elbows on down.
You want to live in the 18th century? Find a mule team and drag it out!
Too much work and a wasted tree just to move on and forget it
Right... I'm stunned that they didn't factor all this in before hand.
The way to do it is to fall the tree, then make the dugout in place and then drag out the dugout. So much lighter; also pick a location of the fallen tree as close to the water as possible, planning is everything.
@@fredmanicke5078 this confused me bc they did fall the tree first. How does one move the dug out?
Another option would've been , making the canoe on the same spot where the tree fell!
Yeah so true
The guy in the white chopping at 5:31 cracks me up!!!!!
Looks like a little girl trying to swing an axe 😂
Na big boy in tha blue sweater weak asf lol i was cracking up my g
its like he is reenacting chopping... he is not using any force what so ever
Someone needs to take his hatchet away .
lol 🤓
Don't know why I clicked on this, but it was deeply relaxing
Can't wait for part 2!
I purchased my first Conoe middle 1970s 16ft Blazer & started running the local Rivers Chickasabogue,
Escatawba,
Ect. After running the Escatawba many times I came across a couple who had found a dug out stuck in a Log Jam ! I had passed many times. Thinking it was just another Log. ! He placed it Accros his Conoe & Recoverd it.
I never heard anything from that Conoe again. But there were two other Conoe found in this area one in Chickasabogue area. The University of S Al dated to be around six hundred yrs old. Another found in a Log Jam in the Mobile Delta. Also estimated to also be around six hundred yrs. Old. It was in the Mobile city Museum & should still be. The Conoe found that day looked Much Much older as one end was rotted off. Gee... I would Love to have it in my Living Room.
It was certainly Built by the Escatawba Indians
Wait... so what happened to that beautiful cottonwood tree?? Breaks my heart to think it went to waste.
It didn't go to waste! It's... uhh... providing nutrients and shelter to the local bugs!
Alfonso Munoz it still could be used as firewood. It's virtually impossible to waste wood
Because poplar trees grow fast their will be more of them quickly. What is sad is that live oaks that are hundreds of years old are being cut down for firewood and because insurance companies don't like them. The Kokomo Sycamore was a similar type of tree that people would live in. They are now extinct in europe.
@@stevenbryant4718 Sycamore aren't extinct in Europe.
You treelovers are nuts. It's a dumb plant and it was useful.
Ahh, authentic bespoke colonial bandsaw work.
Hats off to the early pioneers back in the day! Very hard work!!
That learned from the ancient people who lived here long before you.
Perhaps in the mesolithic but if you're talking about European immigrants to the US they would have used contemporary methods which make this look like a baby trying to draw a car vs a designer. Checkout the one by username "Northmen," THAT, is how to make a dugout canoe.
@@MrTwistyLive True. The Mississippian people who lived around the Midwest and close to the Mississippi River all made dugout canoes. They traveled the rivers instead of hauling trade goods overland since they didn't have domesticated farm animals. American re-enactors like to revise the history of the North American continent with an emphasis on Eurocentric colonial experiences as the true history. Europeans did have dugout canoes thousands of years before but they were already building large ships to cross the ocean. Traveling by dugout was something colonists saw Native people doing and copied it.
@@gnostic268 exactly thank you for this!
The amount of labor this took is mind-boggling, I can't even imagine it. This takes an entirely different mindset than we possess in the 21st century.
that may be why they burned it instead of chopping . Would it be easier to season the wood ?
My heart almost sunk when I thought you were going to cut down that beautiful tree in its prime, glad to see you went with a already harvested piece of timber. Great video John.
ha impiegato una vita a crescere e voi per fare un video,lo avete tagliato.Complimenti.
Jon, it sounds like you needed a horse logging team to get out your cottonwood. That was a couple of awesome tree's, both your cottonwood and the tulip tree. Amazing straight timber you have. We have such wind in our area not much of it is that straight. This was so enjoyable, thanks so much for sharing.
I have a Belgian cross that I have pulled out some small logs with and I am not sure where they are located at but I thought why don't they contact some Amish folks and ask them to haul it out for the.
seeing you guys chopping like this on the fell log reminds me of age of empire building process... Really funny!
This comment should be #1
I like that you can store it underwater til needed. And wow ! Respect pioneers.
LOL at the absence of eye protection. The slow-mo chunks flying by peoples faces really sets it off.
No safety glasses in the 1750's
@@jakejanssen4319 right. Ahaha where men here
Nothin' like a good ol chunk of red hot ash flying into your eyes. My favorite.
Eye protection!? The lord gave your eyes lids for a reason! Just blink when ya swing!!! Lol
They're re-enactors. Do you think someone back in the 1700's would have whipped out a pair of safety glasses? You didn't think this through very well before you posted it.
A few years back I worked on an experimental archaeology project at Butser Ancient Farm in the UK. We were intending to make a dugout canoe much like this one using only the tools and techniques that would have been available in the Bronze Age. It's interesting to watch this because we had exactly the same problem! The plan was to use burning in order to remove most of the material, and then bronze tools to take out the charcoal and finish the canoe. Unfortunately that didn't work out, even though we kept at it pretty much everyday for 3 weeks the Scots Pine we were using was just too wet to make any headway other than a couple of millimetres. We eventually had to resort to modern tools and a chainsaw to meet our deadline. Looking forward to seeing if you guys managed to find a way to get burning to work.
I was fortunate to salvage my Great grandfathers hand hewn brine tank that he made of a huge cottonwood around the 1870's for salt curing meat. Its roughly 9 1/2' long and around 30" in diameter. Its been in my garage since I saved it from destruction in '94. The lid and leather hinges were destroyed.
We also salvaged and rebuilt his huge limestone oven from 1870-1880 that my dad remembers his Grandmother baking up to 16 loaves of bread at a time for their family of 15 children.
Happy chopping and burning !!
You guys would have an easier time if you swung it axe properly
Wow! It must've taken them days.
Ya that was painful to watch
Dude in the white looked like a toddler
At around 1:50 you see Jon grin ear to ear when he says pitfalls after talking about the cottonwood falling into a pit and I just know he's holding back on making a pun. What a wholesome and delightful man.
One of the technical ways I was shown was to burn the inside with hot rocks and a fire to help get deep as the rocks would hold more heat longer. This would allow you to get the depth and that adding wood to the fire but controlling the burn rate helps keep a better depth rate as you need longer steady burns for better charring of the wood.
Burning effectiveness = 0.001%
I would say -50%, burning wood actually makes it stronger. Heat from fire fuses wood grains together.
@@savvageorge also caramelized the sugars which act as a sealant.
Prob work better if they left it to dry in the sun for a couple days.
@@peterl6095 a few days wouldn’t do anything to the moisture content. That log would take years to dry
Wet logs dont burn
1:47 "There are a lot of pitfalls." I see what you did there.
Laughed at that
I don’t get it
But I heard him say it as I read this lol
And again at 4:32, but who's counting.
The tree fell into a pit... "pitfall"
I saw and floated in lots of dugouts in Venezuela. I always thought the process would be tedious and time consuming to hollow these out. Gives a lot of appreciation for the strength and perseverance of those people 200 to 300 years ago!
Its very interesting to see how much actual WORK goes into something like this.
What "work" are you talking about? When they used a big Stihl chainsaw the cut the tree down? Or a tractor to pull the log out of the woods? Or was it the bandsaw they used to cut it in half? What a joke! LOL
@@drott150 let's see you post a video doing all that, then you can yell others what a joke they are.
@@drott150 They literally answers your concerns in the beginning of the video; Jon tried to do it the real traditional way at first and it was a failure so they had to make some modern compromises. At no point did he claim they were going to do it the completly historically correct way the whole process through. So whats the big deal?
My dad and grandfather built a small 20ft boat together in the 50's, dad gave it to a family friend about 15 years ago, he still uses it every weekend. Still got the book that showed them how to do it too.
My back hurts after watching this
@@SonsOfLorgar Heretical bastard!!!
I feel sorry for those big guys
Ocean no one forced food in their mouths. Its a cruel way to think but its just the truth.
Ocean they didn’t have to do it lol they were doing it for fun
Same. They're so bent over lmao
I love this channel. Despite all the swinging axes, the music and the visuals were amazingly soothing. This is something I would love to have the time and resources to attempt.
Absolutely.
Very cool video and project. I'm looking forward to seeing this dug out canoe made. Awesome.
The way western countries used to live was awesome.
Building canoes.
Discovering recipes when there was no cookbooks.
Frontiering woods.
All the different varieties of exploration makes all of history and lifestyle amazing!
Love this channel!
John says “it’ll go faster” while taking the most breaks.
Idk what it was but there was something super wholesome about the acoustic guitar playing and you and your budies just axeing away working together!
Fabulous!!! Thank you for such excellent and educational videos. I love watching the process. Great camera and sound work. Your early videos are good but like all crafts, skill increases with doing. Good job!!! Gives us moderns a glimpse into our ancestors lives, a different frame of reference. Thank you so much!!!
I built one with a bunch of school kids 30 years ago. I really didn’t know anything. I did a little library research. But there wasn’t much info. We just started. We cut a big pine tree. After a bunch of big fires it took shape.
It took a whole school year and many kid hours.
Near the end of the school year, we got 6 cradles under it and 12 kids. They lifted it into the lake and it floated like a duck. It was a hellacious amount of work.
It just went really slowly!
So much fire and not a single piece of meat hanging over it. *smh*
Does seem a shame, doesn't it? 😁
As much as that's a neat idea--wasting resources is certainly not the way our ancestors did things--I wonder how the grease from the fire would affect the wood burn? Speed it up or just create spotty burning?
@@paintedwings74 You catch the grease to use for various purposes later.
Back in the day burning day or night you know feed the fire. If there's nothing hanging , what are you standing here for.
VCBG - Vegan Canoe Builders Guild
i agree with robert j. you guys are getting better as a team. moving along, great video. real good video. thanks for the entertainment.
When I was a small child in Malawi a large tree fell onto our garden wall, after that some Malawians came and spent, maybe a week carving it into a canoe with a similar technique. Different style though. I think it was about a 7 man job.
The highest calling for a tree is to be left the hell alone lol
It's gonna fall over and rot into the ground eventually anyway.
Trees had to be cut down to grow your fields of soy.
This looks like something you spend a half hour a day on, for a year or more. You start looking like that big guy and end up looking like John and have a canoe.
"It needs to be tall, it needs to be straight, and it needs to be untwisted, and it needs to be big."
Sounds like something you would find in a Tinder bio.
Thanks for the video, Jon. Interesting work. I couldn't help thinking that you could have split or ripped out several planks with a two-man pit saw in about the time it took you to get that trench chopped. Maybe for your next boat you can saw up that log you left in the woods. :)
I can't say all that chopping with little result looks much fun. Good on ya for sticking with it.
Very cool. As someone who has done a lot of wood work with axes, I could tell you guys don't normally do this kind of thing right away. Overall, not horrible, but you definitely need some practice. You were working your axes too hard with minimal gains. Work on your stroke and your rhythm, you'll get it. Again, it wasn't bad, and it was still very cool. This was an awesome video!
You have a nice comment, this is what constructive criticism sounds like
I've commented before about the lack of are skills...SMH😂😂😂
Yeah, I was trying not to sound condescending. Using an axe for work like this is difficult to become good at, and can take years to get perfected. Mainly they were letting the wood control their bikes to much, and not maintaining consistent angles through the stroke. The axe sort of rolls when they strike, wasting a good portion of the energy they expended doing it. Easier to describe the issue than to fix it. They just need practice. I'm truth, it wasn't even all that bad.
An adze is much better for this kind of work.
Agreed, some of their chopping techniques were not just sloppy but effin dangerous.
Thank you Sir for keeping the old ways of building alive.
I would suggest using the axe across the grain, then use the adze to remove the chip. Might find it a bit easier. Roy Underhill uses a similar method to flatten a log with axe and broadaxe.
Yeah I saw that method used on a channel called Mr. Chickadee.
Great video. Love to see people build their own toys.
They actually have a time at Jamestown settlement where they actually make one over the course of sometime an people can stand and watch them work at it. The men who did this back then were no joke there were no short cuts back then it was all just work.
Thank you so very much I have found this very useful who knows when a person's will actually have to use these skills in the case of an emergency all bushcraft and last day preppers will love this. thanks again.
Well, you can bet our forefathers knew better than to hack away at the center of that log while bending over at the waist as you fellows were. There weren't too many chiropractors around then and if one developed a bad back, life from then on would be miserable! I've no doubt they'd be telling you to get that log put up a lot higher before you started in on it. if you want to accurately represent the old ways, figure out what they did to make the chores EASIER. These people were not simpletons and life was far more than a bunch of explorers and settlers just slogging uphill through every miserable job. They knew their craft and they knew all the shortcuts. Still, it's good to see you fellows out there doing these kinds of things.
I have the 9 1/2' hand hewn cottonwood brine tank I salvaged from my Great grandfathers home place, about 30" in diameter, that he salt cured meat in. He made the tank around 1870. Add salt until a hard boiled egg would float to get the proper salt content...is what my father said.
We were able to also salvage and rebuild his huge limestone outdoor oven from the same time frame. My father, born in 1909, remembers his grandmother baking as many as 16 loaves of bread at a time in the oven. We rebuilt it at my brothers house and use it for family baking/family get togethers.
Happy chopping and burning....
Why the chainsaw was invented
The chainsaw was actually invented in Victorian times for surgery. Seriously. The chain was a lot finer though.
No, this was why the birchbark canoe was invented.
they used a chainsaw to fell the tree.
True but this is historical channel and also I dont think he cut down the tree he show us before but he used another one that they had in the sawmill. The last time when he cut down tree there were many negative comments.
Those trees are lovely, such a bliss.
They had cameras back then and the camera even captured color this is truly amazing
we did it having the guys standing on the log swinging the axes with the grain of the tree.
I think it sped up the chopping process, and bring stiff brooms.
I love this series, your canoe looks awesome in the end
I wonder if, in the old days, they planned for this sort of thing to cut the log and allow time for it to dry out? Then hollow it out and shape it.
If the log is *too* dry, when you try to burn out the middle, the whole thing might go up in flames.
If the log dries out it will crack, check, and leak. As demonstrated in the first video, the canoes are stored underwater to preserve their integrity.
if they allowed it to dry out they would not be able to steam-bend it into shape - see a video of how to REALLY make a dugout canoe. When you see it done by guys who know what they are doing, it's pure art.
Watching you guys build a canoe makes me want to get off my lazy but build one.
Really can't wait for part 2! This was absolutely fantastic! Really interesting ❤️
You really like lord of the rings lol.
M'kay, let's put this log out on a tray. Nice.
i would have the big guy on my crew any day,he's working that ax like a boss
Thank you for this informative video! It really fascinates me to see this done and with Detail too!
Erik Vosteen literally says 'pitfall' about the prior canoe building effort's.. pitfall. (2:00)
10/10 avoid this man in punning contests but definitely catch him on poetry jam night.
This guy's channel is so good.
You forgot the part where you cut down the tree “by hand”, and made that nice smooth split cut “by hand”
Rich people are too lazy to do anything by hand.
And lazy people are too lazy to anything by hand unless its a goverment handout
@@420f37 I thought these people were reenactors. Going for that historical realism.
@@MrMudNugget They aren't
Kameron M the guy even said it was milled
Keep this visual in your head. And then go and read the river of doubt and imagine how many of these Teddy Roosevelt’s crew had to make along the journey.
Id rather watch and dream of doing stuff like this than dealing with 2020 any longer. Soul crushing year. Yes?
Amazing! I start my Paramotor life next week. Can' wait. An inspiration to work toward.
6:02 Love the video. Just wanted to poke fun at the axe man's swin in the middle here.
People in other areas of the world still make dugout canoes as a matter of need. Many places in subSahel Africa for instance. MANY years ago I had the opportunity (necessity) to cross a river in a pirogue. My travel buddy and I were in one dugout and our respective motorbikes were each in two other ones. It was a disconcerting crossing as I kept thinking that our bikes might wind up on the bottom of the river. A small boy was sat on each bike and they balanced themselves and the bikes by having their feet on the gunnel on either side of the bike. A very memorable river crossing.
Townsend Dugout Canoe Company is off to a slow start.
lol
I didn't realize how much work this was until you started taking hand-axes to core it out. Haha wow!
6:02 - Dude in pirate hat - how NOT to swing an axe..
LOL 😂
What was he doing wrong? Just curios so I don’t do the same thing
Explaining how to use an axe without visual is tricky. Honestly you'd be better off finding a video. Main thing, gotta get your gut in the swing. Whole body
@@uncledanni9352 he was swinging only with the force of his arms. Really your arms should only be exerting force to keep accuracy and return the axe above your shoulder after the swing, all down force should be gravity, back, and legs.
Skyler Thompson oh I see it now. He looks so weird now that I’ve noticed it
0:58 He sounded disappointed that he had to use a chainsaw, I would have felt the same.
It would be nice if, whenever a measure is mentioned in imperial system, you put the conversion on screen in metric system.
Thanks for the videos!
My spine kept sending me memo's every other second "Don't you dare think about trying this, don't you dare think abou trying this" LOL. GL and Happy New Year
"You need a firemaking level of 93 to do this,"
Unprofessional Professor runescape ftw
Just a little over halfway to 99!
Ha! I need to log back in to that game
@@brianwest4283 I tried, but couldn't remember the password to the account I had almost maxed out. The one I haven't touched in years? Remembered that like it was yesterday.
About every 6 months UA-cam just decides that it wants to recommend me this guy over and over until I click...
Relax guys, they ate the freakin Cottonwood. It didn't go to waste
Still better than Hard Tack.
With a crap ton of nutmeg.
Building a canoe sure as hell takes lot's and lot's of dedication for sure
We just got blessed with a 14 foot long piece of cherry that is about two feet wide. My son wants to make something out of it instead of me using it in the smoker. If I give in an say yes to him having it do you have any suggestions. He's 11 1/2 and homeschool and studying carpentry this year. If you have any suggestions I appreciate it.
If it's going to be a carpentry project, will you have it milled or will he be shaping the log directly?
ChrisC our Amish friend had been showing him how to use chisels and other techniques that doesn't require electricity just in case. He wants to build this like game that requires a marble. It's like a roller coaster in a way. He talked about doing wood work in the winter months when he is not cutting grass with his dad. And two my son said it could be a way to make money for him.
If I may, you should check out a channel called Wood by Wright. He has uses nothing but hand tools and even has a video on splitting and milling logs into boards by hand.
Matt Ezell thank you. I will keep that in mind and add the videos in to my son's homeschool curriculum.
@@lacyhay6502, the engineering and materials-science involved in preparing wood by hand--even just the splitting--is pretty amazing stuff. Worthwhile to watch the oldsters in Norway splitting out a log with nothing but wedges and mallets!
I LOVE episodes like this!
i think the trees would disagree with you about their "highest calling"
they'd probably vere towards long life and millions of seeds i suspect..
@paulflute - True that! I think plants would be thinking the highest calling humans have, would be to decompose fast and provide some semblance of nutrients to the next tree!
I really don’t think it would be humanly possible for you to be any more adorable. Your genuine passion is so charming.
Has any of these guys ever swung an axe before...?
I’d say no lol