#342

NOW SOLD

NB Birchills Oak and Chrome Plated Ballpoint Twist Pen

(25% of the selling price 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 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.

After having left the Audlem flight behind us and cruised through the Shropshire countryside to stock up with supplies at the shops in Market Drayton we had to get a bit of a hustle on as we needed to get to the end of the Shropshire Union canal and up the Wolverhampton flight of 21 locks, across Birmingham and down the other side of the hill. A week later, quite a few miles and absolutely loads of locks later we arrived at the bottom of the Lapworth flight of 18. At the bottom it's a jiggle through the Lapworth Link (a short stretch of canal that links together the Grand Union and Stratford on Avon canals which pass close to each other here) and a right turn through a leafy area that is full of canal character, including the British Waterways workshops and maintenance yard; the Lapworth Lock Flight and the distinctive lock cottages of the Stratford on Avon canal, which have unusual barrel-shaped roofs.

Pen #342 was turned on the 10th July 2015 near Rowington, ironically just past Turners Green. Not a bad spot for a few days.