Fort at #4

Friday was my first day of interpreting at The Fort at No 4. Volunteering can be just about anything helpful to The Fort, interpreting means attempting to bring The Fort back to life.

The first thing is that you are supposed to be wearing garb. I don’t have good garb. I’m embarrassed, but it is good enough for now. Better garb will be coming soon. I’ll soon have period correct shirts, vests, and pants. If I can find my moccasins, I will be all set.

It took a while to get into the process. I finally remembered something Mr. Pete, from YouTube said, “I’m not a machinist with 20 years of experience, I’m a machinist with 20 years of doing the same thing.”

I do not have to give a different presentation to each group that comes through. I can use the same one over again, changed to match the needs of this group.

We had multiple classrooms of 4th graders come through. My final presentation went something like:

Hellos

Making sure everybody is there, that everybody is paying attention, and that the responsible adult is in the room with us.

Engage

I start by asking them where they are, what the room they are in is used for. This led to some interesting suggestions, one student suggested that this is where somebody would sell the things the blacksmith was making.

Somewhere in there, I get them to look up in the rafters. We have two children’s coffins there.

Bring them into the past

The coffins are a good starting point for discussions. We talk about why there are children’s coffins. How many children died during the 1750s. We discuss how cuts, scrapes, illnesses can all lead to death. We end with how soap and water do a great deal to keep people healthy.

This is where I emphasize that coffins are one of the few things that we would actually be making, we just need so many of them. What we mostly do is repair things.

What do we repair?

We talk about how today, when we break something, we throw it away and replace it. How it only takes a day or so to get a replacement.

From there, we discussed things breaking in the 1750s. How if we were to throw it away and replace it, we would need to get it from Boston. One of the things that we figure out is how long it takes to get to Boston and back. Once that is in hand, we elaborate on the cost and the lost opportunity costs of going to Boston.

Once there, I pick a broken yarn counter and bring their attention to it. We try to guess what it might be. Finally, I tell them it is a “yard stick”, how it works and why it is used.

They then identify that it is missing spindles, which need to be replaced.

The Shave Horse

This is the point where we start doing some hands on. I’ll have one or two students come to the shave horse, teach them how to use the shave horse and a draw knife.

From there, once they are getting a nice shaving, I tell them “make it round.”

This almost always gets a response. They get started, then I tell them that we have to go faster because we need 6 done in the next hour.

This gets laughter as they suddenly understand that this is real work.

We stop, I put the draw knife away, send the student back to the group.

At this point, I hold up a fancy spindle and tell them that now that we have a round piece of wood, we require it to look like this.

The Lathe

Through questioning, they figure out that we need to use something else. Something that allows us to shape round things.

This is the introduction to the treadle lathe. We discussed a little about how it works. Then I have the responsible adult pick a victim to come be my apprentice. The apprentice is responsible for providing power to the lathe.

I let them figure out how it works, then get them positioned. They attempt to get the flywheel to go around. We had no successes this time, some came close, but we didn’t have a single apprentice get the wheel to make a full revolution.

At this point, I demonstrate getting the lathe to spin and show how that can be used to spin the work and get shavings.

Conclusion

It is more work than I expected. I made many shavings today, but didn’t actually accomplish anything. I’ll be back up there on Wednesday of next week and also Friday.

This is worth it. I hope you can find a place like The Fort at No 4 and find the time to help. Bringing history to life is an amazing rush, even if it is hard work.

The Fort at No 4 held the annual Rendezvous last weekend. Ally had a blast. She came back with new moccasins that she is raving about.

As an interpreter for the Fort, she baked bread in the beehive oven, then sold it to the encampment, this is very much in period.

That went over so well, she had bread baking classes the next two days.

This isn’t great music, it has some great images to go with it.

Today is the start of a near week-long event at The Fort at No 4. I believe it is called, “The Rendezvous.” It is an 18th century reenactment event.

Ally will be there the entire time, she fired the bake oven last night to get it ready to use today.

This is one of those things that is/was a lost art.

A bake oven is a brick enclosure that is part of the hearth and chimney. To use it, you heat it with a wood fire until it is “hot enough”, then you let the fire die down or transfer the fire to the hearth.

At that point, you can put your bread or pies or whatever else you are baking in the bake oven. The residual heat from the bricks then bakes everything.

And here is the lost art, you have to prefire the oven. If you attempt to bake the same day you fire, the oven isn’t going to work as well as it should. The reasons is simple and make perfect sense, once you know.

In the 1700s, those bake ovens were used daily or nearly so. They were always dry, they were always a bit warm.

Today, those ovens only get fired when we have a multi day event with people staying in the cabins. Between times, not only do the bricks cool to ambient temperature, they also absorb water. Lots of it.

That first firing is mostly to drive the water out and to bring the entire mass of bricks to a reasonable temperature.

Lighting

When we arrived yesterday, the cabin was dark, by modern standards. Moving in and out of the cabin, talking to people, your eyes don’t fully adjust.

After the last goodbyes, Ally and I sat down to eat dinner.

We lit two taper candles.

That was enough. The light from the windows was fading, but casting long shadows in the cabin.

I don’t know if I could have read a printed page, but it was close.

But here is perspective for you. When we are watching TV at night, we have two 60 watt equivalent lights running. When we are using the kitchen, even in daylight, we will have 5 60 watt equivalent lights running.

Each light puts out around 800 lumens. A standard candle produces 13 lumens. The “moonlight” mode on my EDC flashlight is 15 lumens.

Because we were burning beeswax candles, we were getting around 30 lumens from those two candles.

And it made a huge difference. It felt like the cabin was alive and ready.

My biggest issue with being at the Fort after dark is how quiet it is.

I’m sitting at my desk. I can hear the keys clatter, I can hear the disk drives moving in my computer, the fans spinning in my computer, the sound of CPU fans in the next room, the hum of something.

When I used to babysit the Cray X/MP, I took to wearing ear pro when I was going to be in the machine room for any length of time. I was in the machine room when we had a power outage. The sound of silence in the room hurt.

Sometimes it feels like that at The Fort.

I’m currently working on a new website for them. It will be much more than just a website, but it is consuming much of my time. I still have to make a 4 TPI acme nut, lead screw, cap, and handle. I’m hoping to work on that this weekend.

I need to grind a right-hand external 4TPI acme cutter for the lead screw. This will be fun!

This weekend is opening weekend at the Fort at No 4. This is the first time The Fort has been open to the general public this year.

I believe this is the first opening weekend I’ve attended. It was fun, it was outstanding, it was hard work.

The first time I arrived, it felt like I was arriving at “House of Cash” from “Hurt”. “Closed to the Public”.

It felt like it was in disrepair, dying from neglect and lack of public love.

That’s not what it feels like today.

Ally had to stay home, she has been under the weather and is recovering. She has a hard deadline of two weeks to have her dress ready. Something special is happening for her.

My lady and I went up instead. When we pulled into the parking lot, the lot was more than half filled. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it that full before, outside major events.

We had two of our blacksmiths working the forge. Richard Write and Sam. Richard has forgotten more about smithing than I expect to ever know. Sam is an expert in blade smithing. We discussed how to make a reproduction tool that would be period.

It is a bit of work, but I can make it happen.

We had visitors arrive. I learned that 4th and 5th graders have a sorry grasp on the history of this countries founding.

Still, it was good.

From there I headed over to the workshop, I had given two of my mallets to the Fort for use in the workshop.

Having had the winter to do research, I got to work with wood planes. It was adjusted perfectly. Watching the rough-cut lumber turning into finished product was a type of zen. The sound of a well tuned plane is something I don’t get in my modern shop.

I didn’t need to plane this wood down. It would have been fine like it was, I wanted to learn.

The Fort likes to have programs. These are times when an interpreter does something that visitors can watch, or sometimes, participate in.

Normally, I do plaining at the back side of the big table, this time I moved to the front and setup there, so people could see what was happening. Sure enough, there were soon visitors there.

My favorite type of visitor is a family with 3rd to 8th graders. Children that are still interested in the world and what came before, but not grumping about being off their phones.

We had at least two families like that.

The twins came in and were interested in the augers. They got to touch and teach me how it worked, then we looked around the shop to locate examples of holes with pegs. Mostly we found holes for legs and several chairs that holes in them for runners and whatever the back spindles are called.

They picked a plain, they got to see how it would work, then the boy got to use the plain. In other words, he was working to smooth the piece of lumber I needed to be smoothed. If we trick them into doing the work, is it really child labor?

Molding plains, shave horses, draw knives, yarn counter and others. They were bouncing and happy when the left. I’m hoping they will remember this day long into the future.

That’s it. I’m tired and sore. But it is good.

For those of you that are within the distance, I am really looking forward to seeing you at The Fort.

These things round between $40 and $90. They weigh about a pound. This is in Rock Maple. I have one in some exotic wood I purchased years ago.

Yesterday I started my third. Why three?

Well, it is much more likely that I will have more than three.

This simple wood turning is a great way to turn small logs into wood chips. In doing so, I’m learning how to do wood turning.

I’ve watched a half dozen videos on how to use a skew to rapidly turn a rough piece round. Most of what I’ve accomplished is catches and ouches.

A catch is when the chisel catches in the wood and the chisel has a great deal of force applied, rapidly. If you are holding the chisel correctly, with a light controlling grip, nothing bad happens. It is scary, loud, and your chisel will move.

If you have a death grip on the chisel, it is much worse. In that case, you can throw the wood out of the lathe, you can have a piece of wood ripped out of the work, and you can feel the jolt to the bottom of your soul.

The tool I would like to learn is the skew chisel. This is a straight chisel, no curve, 1/2″ to 1.5″ wide and about 1/4″ thick. It is sharpened on both sides to an edge.

I’ve watched a few videos on how to do this right. And I’ve been failing.

Yesterday I made some real progress. The first thing I learned is that the speed at which you advance the chisel is dependent on the surface speed of the work.

My lathe is a light weight, only a hundred or hundred fifty pounds. If the work is out of balance, it will vibrate the entire lathe. You fix this by slowing the lathe down.

The slower it turns, the lower the surface speed. This means that when doing a pealing cut, you have to slowly work inward because you have an interrupted cut. If you advance too quickly, when the high spot comes around at speed, you will be cutting too deeply, which is a type of catch.

It just takes time to get most of the high spots worked down enough that you can turn up the speed. I’m still running it to slowly.

So I’m slowly turning this rough-cut log into something of value to me, and learning skills as well. I’m doing ok with the peeling cut — now. I’m also doing better on the shearing cut.

The thing about the shearing cut is that it leaves a nearly finished surface. It only takes a very light touch up with the sand paper to take it to a finished product.

Now to take this skill to the treadle lathe at The Fort.

The Fort is getting ready for the 2025 season. Allyson is up there for the woman’s weekend. She is incredibly excited.

Why?

Because this will be the first event she has gone to in years when she isn’t presenting/teaching. Her goal? To learn how to make a pie crust.

Like many events, there is an unload time. You are allowed to drive on site to unload your gear, and then you are to get your vehicle off site as soon as you can.

It felt like coming home. We stopped to talk to boss lady, then drove around to the Fort to unload. Bill saw us drive up and waved us inside.

It felt good to be recognized, to be welcomed.

There was “man bonding”, Bill was on his way to fix something, he had a crowbar in hand and made a pretend swing at the windshield. It felt welcoming. As I said, a coming home.

Allyson and I got out of the truck. She started unloading for her stay, I went to help Bill.

We worked as a team. I got to drive the idiot stick for a bit. We were able to move a large, heavy, ramp out of the way, clear up the damage a woodchuck had done, and get an aluminum ramp in place for the weekend.

It was good. It made me happy. The Fort is a home away from home.

The one thing that struck me as humorous was that we were going to use some 2x4s. They needed to be cut to size. Bill was in the jointery first. When I got there, I was expecting him to be using one of the handsaws.

Nope, he had a circular saw, making quick work of the task.

NPCs get new talking points

In the past 20 years of watching congress critters make huge amounts of money with some of the luckiest stock moves, it is refreshing to have some of them talking about limiting insider trading.

And all the normal NPCs are all yapping about wanting to pass a bill to stop themselves from trading individual stocks.

The bill, as pitched by the NPCs, is unlikely to actually accomplish anything, still it makes me smile to see them doing this because they are virtue signaling.

I grew up a prepper. Most of the people I knew were preppers. The difference was that it was normal.

My parents were born at the tail of the great depression. They lived through WWII as children and suffered the rationing that took place in the US.

My grandparents planted and tended a garden every summer. It was just the norm.

We once lived a good 2 hours from any supermarket. There was a local grocery, but everything there was pricey. It was the sort of place you went if you ran out of eggs.

Once a month, my mother would drive onto base in DC and shop at the commissary. She would have three or four carts of food. She purchased a month’s worth of milk. When we got home, everything was put away in freezers. We had “fresh” milk for about 3 days per month, thereafter, it was from frozen.

When we could, mom had a garden. She was never happier than when she had an entire acre of garden.

People think about “getting started” with prepping.

I believe this is the wrong mindset. The correct mindset is to start thinking about what knowledge and skills do you need?

Skills and knowledge are entirely different things. You might know how to wire an electrical outlet, but do you have you done it? Do you know how to use the tools? Do you have the right tools? Can you do it without harming yourself or others?

Because of my parents, I started with a “being prepared” mindset. There was always enough food in the pantry, freezer, and refrigerator. It was just the way I grew up.

I remember the first major snowstorm in Maryland after my daughter was born. Wife number one wasn’t satisfied with what we had in the refrigerator. Our child would starve if I didn’t get some milk, right now.

I put on my calf high moccasins, my wide brimmed hat, my winter coat and walked to the 7/11 to get milk.

On the way there, I pushed a female cop’s car out of the snow bank three times.

My wife was in a panic. I was not. I had powdered milk, a supply of gravity feed fresh water, and a camp stove. There was nothing to worry about.

I was wrong. I had knowledge, but not enough skills.

I’ve spent the last forty years learning more skills. What skills I didn’t learn for myself, I found people I love and trust to have those skills.

When I lived in Maryland, it felt like there was a strong chance of a war engulfing the East Coast. Not American vs. American, but of actual foreign soldiers on our soil. I had the money, I spent that money on firearms for battle. I wasn’t thinking of hunting. I wasn’t thinking of food and shelter.

I was ignorant. But it was a step in the correct direction.

Today I have more skills, I have a better idea of what I don’t know. I still don’t know what I don’t know, but I can see that I have gaps.

One of the people making comments suggested that I have a flintlock style firearm. Amazingly enough, that is coming to my home shortly.

The Fort At #4 represents the time around of the French and Indian war. I am working with some reenactors to find a smoothbore that is period correct and a rifle. I want a Kentucky long rifle. I’ve loved the look of that rifle since watching Daniel Boone on TV.

I not only know how to make black powder, I’ve done it. I have extensive notes on how I did it. I have the tools to manufacture it, about 2 pounds at a time.

We are practicing making salt-peter but haven’t succeeded yet. I’ve made proper charcoal. And I have some sulfur. KNO3 is also around here.

I want to make my own primers, but it is not worth the risk.

I’ve made my own slow fuse and my own fast fuse. I’ve made fireworks. All cools stuff.

If I’m talking to somebody knew to prepping, I always start with the rule of threes.

1. You can live 3 minutes without air
2. You can live 3 hours without shelter
3. You can live 3 days without water
4. You can live 3 weeks without food
5. You can live 3 months without hope

Without air is first-aid, hygiene, medical. If you are bleeding out, you aren’t going to make it the 3 hours to die without shelter. If you aren’t breathing, nothing else will matter in a few minutes.

Without shelter includes fire making, proper clothing, proper shelter from the elements, and the skills to build a home.

While 3 hours sounds extreme, consider falling into a freezing river in winter. How long will you survive? How long will you survive in the desert without proper protection from the sun?

For whatever reason, most people put food before water. Water is life.

Back in the ’80s, the army was looking at the best way to hydrate their soldiers. One method was to only allow the men to drink at rest stops, and only as much as they wanted. Another was to make them drink a certain amount at rest stops. Another was drinking on the move and making sure they drank “enough”.

The test was simple, take a group of soldiers, make them hike a distance, then test them in a combat situation.

Method one had the men combat ineffective at the end of the march. They were combat ineffective for a couple of days after.

Method two had the men combat effective after a few hours of rest at the end of the march. They were combat ineffective for the next few days.

The third method? The troops arrived and immediately went into combat, they were effective. They were able to repeat the test the next day without issue.

There is a reason that the military has hydration rules that push water into the men. There is a reason that hydration packs are worn by sailors.

Three weeks without food is pushing it. People become less capable after only a few days without food.

Our family added, “Three months without hope.” Hope is having some form of joy with you. Pictures of loved ones. A deck of cards. Anything to help take your mind off what you are going through.

One of the biggest takeaways I can give you, if you are starting to prep, “Don’t plan on survival, plan on living. Life was strong before our modern society, and life was good.”

I close with a definition of a zombie. A zombie is that city dweller, from a deep blue city, that hasn’t eaten in a week, is drinking unfiltered water wherever they find it, and they are stripping the countryside clean of all food and goods.

We saw zombies burning down cities because a criminal died of heart disease while in police custody. When you think of zombies, think of those drones, living in a city with less than 24 hours of food.

Doing work at the Fort is wonderful. It is also an exercise in interpreting what you are seeing vs what you expect to see.

When you look at the different items in the Fort, it is often surprising to find that they are “modern” items. We laugh when people pick up the wooden cup because stamped on the bottom is “Pier One”.

It is good enough at a distance.

We use the tools at the Fort. We use the spinning wheels from the 1700s, we use the warping board from the same time. We use all these things. And occasionally, it isn’t really that old.

One of the ladies that volunteers is an excellent spinner. She has left her person spinning wheel at the Fort. On my first walk through, I was examining the wheels to see if they needed fixing.

Hers took me aback. It had metal bearing surfaces. Then I took a step back and realized that the entire wheel is no more than 20 years old.

Somebody brought me a sickle to sharpen. On of the volunteers was using it to cut some longer vegetation. This is the type of task that worries me. If this thing is 300 years old, I can ruin it by touching a stone to it. I was asked to proceed.

A few minutes of working on the blade with the stone showed that it was a modern blade. It was both a relief and a disappointment.

The Froe

One of the workhorses of an older shop is the Froe. It is a 12″ blade with the sharpened edge away from you. You hold it by the handle to position the froe against the end grain of a log. You then rap the back of the blade with a wooden mallet.

With a bit of work, you can split a long, straight piece off the log that can be turned into something else. Such as barrel staves.

I’ve known of them for years. I only got a chance to handle one a few months ago. I was surprised at how thick the blade was. I was expecting a knife thickness. Instead it was 3/8+ inches thick.

When I set the blade against the log, to split of a slap, hit it hard with the wood mallet, the damn blade bounced back at me.

The blade was so dull that it didn’t even pretend to enter the wood.

45 minutes later, it was sharp enough to use. And I was worried that I was modifying a piece of history.

Then two weeks ago, I received permission to take the froe home to properly sharpen it. Instead of taking it home, the blacksmith Sam sharpened it with a file.

As we worked on the blade, it became obvious that it wasn’t from the 1700s. It had a wield repair, the fold wasn’t forge wielded. It was a reproduction that really wasn’t a working tool. Close, but not really.

Sam has been tasked to make a reproduction froe that I can use at the Fort without worrying about breaking something 100s of years old.

He made a beautiful blade. It looks like a froe blade, it is not.

A froe is used by reefing on the handle to twist the blade in the wood. By twisting the blade, you can guide the split.

That is why it is so thick. That is why the handle is so long.

Sam made this blade from some scrap he had around. It is 3/32’s thick. This is not thick enough. The eye is not long enough. This does not qualify as a reproduction.

What it is, is a safety splitter for Ally. When you are starting a fire, you need kindling. She uses a splitting stand.

You put your stick of split firewood in the mouth of this thing, resting on the fixed blade. Then you wack the back side with another piece of wood, driving the wood onto the blade and splitting it.

This is much safer than holding the stick with one hand while swinging a blade at it with the other. Even people that are good at this will sometimes make mistakes. Mistakes that can be life-threatening.

This splitting gizmo is a very modern tool. It will pass, but it never existed in the 1700s.

The froe that Sam made will work perfectly at the task of splitting kindling from a firewood stick. With one hand, balance the stick on an end, hold it there. Use the other hand to position the froe blade where you want it. Your offhand is on the handle of the froe. The blade is on the stick of firewood. You can let go of the stick.

Pick up your wooden mallet and drive the froe into the stick of firewood, splitting it.

As long as you are driving it straight into the wood, this tool will work. And it looks great.

I do have to make a handle for it. Not difficult with the wood lathe.

Markings

When I or Sam make reproductions, we mark the reproductions with our marks. If they would not have had makers marks, we hide them. We’ve given our marks to the Fort. This means that they can look at one of our reproductions, 30 years from now, and know it was made as a reproduction.

A few weeks ago, I went up to the Fort at #4 to use their warping board. I have a warping board, I just do not know where it is. I could make a warping board, I didn’t want to spend the time to do so.

On the way up, I stopped to pick up some more yarn for the warp. I have some yarn for the weft and I intend to spin more and have my wife dye it.

They didn’t have what I needed in stock. While the clerk went down to the warehouse to get more, I was introduced to the fiber club. This was three or four older women who had been working in fiber arts for some period of time.

“YES!” I thought, I was going to have a chance to learn something about spinning or weaving, or fiber prep. There must be a wealth of knowledge there.

But first I had to teach them how I clean my fleeces before combing or carding.

Then they wanted to know why I combed my fleeces, they had tried, but it didn’t work for them.

So then I ended up teaching them how to comb the fibers.

And I taught them how to put the flocks properly on the comb so that they aligned correctly.

When the clerk finally arrived with the rest of my yarn, I had spent the entire time in teaching mode. I had learned more about teaching. I hadn’t learned anything new about fiber prep, spinning, knitting or weaving.

At The Fort

As we drove into the fort to offload, the blacksmith waved at us. I figured this was meant that I would get a chance to play at the forge. It has been years since I was in a position to do any blacksmithing.

As I drove out, there was nobody at the smithy. Darn.

Back to Ally, in the house. I start combing some wool, just to keep my hands doing something. Shortly, our blacksmith comes in.

It is a younger man. We get to talking, and it is cool to hear about his skills.

We started talking about types of steel. The neat thing is that I know which steels I want and what their characteristics are. He was telling me the composition of the different steels. Amazing. I gave him some references to metal sources that he might be able to use.

He is primarily a blade smith. I’ve seen too many so-called “knife makers” to think it has any real meaning. Hell, even my brother makes knives. So I took the “trust, but verify” path.

Later, I went over to the smithy with him to sharpen a froe and to get him started on making a reproduction to use in the jointing shop.

It was interesting because this froe blade had seen some “repairs”. By repairs, I mean that somebody had wielded strange metal to the tip and maybe along the entire cutting edge.

Sam was using a file to sharpen and kept asking me if I thought the metal was hardened. It is a sort of test. People who work with metal can feel how hard a metal is based on how it files. He was doing a very polite test.

Then I was invited to actually do something at the forge.

Before I began, he taught me how to create a good, hot, fire. This is something I’ve done. But a method he used, of reaching under the fire to lift it, causing the crust to crack, is something I didn’t know how to do. I’ve always cracked the crust with my poker.

He wasn’t teaching, he was just doing.

Next he put a piece of iron rod in there to let me work it. On my first heat he couldn’t handle my lack of skill. I thought I knew what I was doing, I did not.

In 30 seconds, he demonstrated four or five things I was doing wrong. I learned.

I was intending to make a J-hook. There was a call for lunch, so he finished it up quickly, with me watching and taking mental notes. It was a wonderful learning experience.

History

After lunch, I was peopled out, I had worked with some visitors, now it was time to escape the people. I headed to the truck. Except, my keys are back in my jacket. Not with me in my 1700s garb. I go to see Sam at the shop.

After a bit, some visitors came to see what he was working on. The then proceeds to give a 30-minute lecture on trade knives of the 1750s. How they were made, what the differences are, why they were made the way they were, and who would be using them, and why.

He had manipulatives (knifes without handles) to show the visitors. He explained each type clearly.

I’ve been collecting knives since the 1980s. I learned more about knives in general, in that 30 minutes, than I have in the past 40 years.

It is wonderful to have somebody to learn from.

I’ll write more about my experience at the Fort later, but I leave you with a video of some bread making I did, put together by my friend Garrett. He’s filmed me at ren faires before, but I made a specific invite for him to come this weekend and see me doing something new. He and his mother came, and they had a great time!