With my recent haul of wood scraps to carve I started looking for another small project to work on. While looking around I came across a Ray Mears video showing how to make a sort of shuttle or bobbin to use in net making. In other words, this is a project with an immediate follow-up, a perfect choice.

I recently fixed a chipped edge on a hatchet recently and was still itching to put it to use. I grabbed the leftover limb from the letter opener I carved and went to town. The first split left two pretty unequal halves, so I split the larger again. The piece I ened up using was the smaller of the first two halved.

Step one was to clean up the split edge and try to get a relatively flat surface to work with. The tool I was carving had two sections, a straight section with two “horns” at the end, and a section with a needle carved out of the center that came to a point.

There were several knots in the limb to work around. I found the longest knot free section to use as the more intricate side of the tool with the carved out need. The base of this need would be just ahead of a knot, and the “handle” would extend on the other side to the next knot.

This project was definitely a step up from my usual projects as it incorporated a free floating inset piece. Working on something so delicate definitely encouraged me to go slow.

After getting the net spool together I used another small scrap to make guide. The guide will ensure equal spacing when it comes time to test this out and make a net. It is essentially a plank of wood with a somewhat airfoil shape.

Next up is testing these out.