NB Birchills Oak and Gun Metal Premium Twist Pen
A donation from the sale of this pen will be gifted to The Black Country Living Museum, the Custodians of NB Birchills
EUROPEAN OAK - Quercus robur
Usually straight-grained, the heartwood of European Oak varies in colour from light tan to brown. Quarter-sawn pieces show attractive flame figuring. The wood is fairly hard, heavy and dense, clean but with the occasional knot. European Oak is a beautiful timber and with an oil finish, the grain will turn a deep golden brown.
This particular piece of oak (probably English rather than European) is just a little bit special though. It comes from the rear cabin side gunwales and roof hatch of Narrowboat Birchills. I was given a few off cuts by the superb craftsmen who were carrying out a little light refurbishment to this historic boat, in fact the guys had cut the whole back cabin off!
Birchills is an historic, ‘Joey’ boat with a small day cabin, built in 1953 by Ernest Thomas of Walsall, ‘Birchills’ it is one of the last wooden day boats made and was used to carry coal to Wolverhampton Power Station. This boat is double-ended and the mast and rudder could be changed from one end to the other. This enabled its use in narrow canals or basins where there was no room to turn the boat around.
The rotten parts of these rebuilt boats are usually used to stoke the fires that steam the new planks for bending to the hulls shape so half a day later this flaky gunwale would have been burned. I wasn't sure how deep the rot would have gone and how deep I would have to delve into this piece to find stable wood. The pens I make from historic boat materials have been thoroughly tested by me to make sure that they will give pleasurable daily use.
That old flaky gunwale went on to make a few very nice pens and I was lucky enough to be given some more wood by Ade at A P Boat Building in Alvecote. This time a piece that appears to be from the old red cabin hatch surround.
Pen #622 was turned on 12th August 2016 at Blisworth.
“Didn’t we have a loverrly time the day we went to Blisworth…”
Ok so it’s not Bangor as in the 1979 Fiddler’s Dram lyrics, but I can’t help singing (however badly) this opening line to joyful song on our cruise south to trade at Blisworth Canal Festival. In my opinion, and that of many of this year’s 40,000 plus happy attendees, Blisworth is the quintessential British summer fair.
Great things to do… great things to see… and great things to buy… should really be the Blisworth Canal Partnership’s strapline when advertising Blisworth Canal Festival 2016. And the dusting of icing on this perfect victoria sandwich is that it’s all free, no entry charges and no parking charges!
For those who have never visited (shame on you!) the festival is split into three distinctly different areas. Firstly the festival field with the best of British entertainment including everything from dog shows, ferret racing and rifle ranges to face-painting, candyfloss and bouncy castles. Secondly, the village itself opens it’s arms and gardens for an intimate and leisurely sojourn past steam engines and cream teas on church pews to the very special gardens of Blisworth House (C1702) which was the perfect location for local crafts and a rare breed farmyard animals.
Of course last but not least is the canal itself with waterside bands and beer tents, boat trips and the piece de resistance (well I am slightly biassed) the colourful and eclectic floating market. For Debbie and I on the Pen Maker’s Boat it was an absolute bumper of a weekend, definitely our busiest to date. Sadly we were too busy to get around to see much of the frivolity during the festival opening hours but us boaters certainly know how to make up for it at the beer tent in the evenings.
See ya next year Blisworth!
You can follow my pen making here on this blog and our travels on another blog here
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