The fujara is a long 3-holed fipple flute played in standing position with the flute held close to the body. It’s played using the natural harmonics system, which means the different tones are played by controlling the strength of inblown air. Using only three holes, the diatonic major scale can be reached playing two and a half octaves. Due to the natural harmonics the tuning will always be a compromise, but Belgian flutemaker and musician Winne Clement puts a great deal of effort in tuning and balancing the tones, in such a way that playing together with Western tuned instruments is possible.

All his flutes are made of harvested branches of local inland wood such as ash, elder, maple, hazle, etc. The wood is carefully chosen and cut in winter time – with respect for the environment, not damaging the donating trees – and put to dry for a long period of time. When making the flute the wood is never split in half to hollow it out, but hand-drilled with special old forged drills, leaving the main structure of the wood intact, benefiting the sound, and following the natural curves of the wood. No Tech Magazine visits Winne Clement in his studio in Ghent, where he explains us his tools and methods.

Ancient Drilling Tools

Clement’s fujara flutes are literally born in the forest. “Every year in winter, I walk through the woods in search of suitable branches. This has to happen in winter, because the sap content in branches is low. The wood will then dry faster and is less likely to crack. The making of a flute starts when I saw off a branch, because I already know what kind of flute I want to make from it. Most branches are curved, but they can be easily straightened once they are dry. The wood needs to be dried for about four years.”

The craftsman drills the branches using antique drilling tools. “Initially, I tried to bore the branches with modern tools but that didn’t work. Modern tools lack precision because they grind the wood. Old drills ladle out the wood. Branches always have a softer spot in the middle and a large ancient hand drill draws itself into it. It takes me about three hours to drill a branch. Most of my drills date from the second half of the nineteenth century. Farmers used them to drill water pipes, for example. I find them on eBay.”

“I know a Norwegian guy, already in his seventies, who is still making these large hand drills, aimed at traditional shipbuilders. But he’s a stubborn man who has been making the same type of drill for 50 years now. If you ask him for a slightly different type of drill, he turns around and walks away.”

Value for Money

It’s not just old drills — Clement’s studio holds a large collection of many other types of old tools. However, he’s not a nostalgic. Rather, it’s about value for money. “Antique tools are simply better than most modern tools which are readily available. Although it’s still possible to find modern tools of good quality, they are much more expensive compared to the antique tools you can find on eBay. I’m lucky to be living in a time when everyone clears the attic and sells grandfather’s stuff on the internet.”

“I don’t exclude modern technology categorically. If there are new techniques to dry wood, for example, I will try them out. They usually don’t work that good, but I want to find that out myself. I also use industrially sharpened knives for cutting the sound system — the sharper the knives, the more precise the result. But my most important modern tool is the internet. It gives me inspiration, knowledge, tools and a sales channel. I work in a traditional way using antique tools and methods, but I would never have made it without my laptop.”

Shepherds

The fujara has a unique sound with very rich sounding multiphonics, grain and timbre. Its origin lays in the middle of Slovakia, and it’s assumed that its roots would lay with the 3-holed flutes played by the tambourines in the 12th and 13th century in Europe. The fujara was played by the shepherds on their long journeys away from home. It’s said when played for the sheep it would calm them down and ease the herd.

More info: Fujara Flutes. The making of a 7 holed fipple Kaval flute is shown in the beautiful video below. The second video shows the maker playing the flute. Also check out our earlier article on hand powered drilling tools and machines, and earlier woodworking posts.

“An ingenious British designer has come up with the ultimate environmentally-friendly way to create stunning household furniture – by letting Mother Nature do all the hard work. Gavin Munro grows young trees into specially-designed plastic moulds, pruning and guiding the branches into shape before grafting them together to form ultra-tough joints. Using this method he’s already created several prototype pieces and has a field in Derbyshire where he’s currently tending a crop of 400 tables, chairs and lampshades which he hopes to harvest next year.”

“You start by training and pruning young tree branches as they grow over specially made formers. At certain points we then graft them together so that the object grows in to one solid piece – I’m interested in the way this is like a kind of organic 3D printing that uses air, soil and sunshine as its source material. After it’s grown into the shape we want, we continue to care and nurture the tree as it thickens and matures before harvesting it in the Winter and then letting it season and dry.”

“Each of the pieces have grown from one tree, planted specifically for that reason, its limbs guided in an exact shape and later grafted together to produce the unique pieces of furniture, which he hopes are the pioneers of a new method of sustainable, efficient and ecologically aware production.”

See & Read more:

• How to grow your own furniture: eco-friendly designer uses special moulds to guide branches into ready-made chairs, tables and lampshades.

• The innovators: growing solid wooden furniture without the joins.

• Pictures: Munro’s website Full Grown.

Via Unconsumption.

See them in action. Via The Shelter Blog.

“Hi everybody my name is Chris. I choose my woodworking projects based on whatever happens to inspire me”.

In this video, Chris builds a foot powered treadle lathe. Great project, great video.

Via Old Engineering.

Previously:

• Make your own treadle lathe (PDF plans)
• Robin Wood, bowlturner (video)
• The battle of the bowlturners (video)

“They are hard to build with, they require regular maintenance, they are expensive and they flex a lot. However, if you want a traditional looking wheel, avoiding metal altogether is a marvellous move, something that we’re lucky to still be able to do today.”

Cerchio Ghisallo has been producing wooden rims since 1946, and in this video father and son show how they do it. Inside Cerchio Ghisallo part 1, part 2, part 3.

More about wood rims: Building with Wooden Rims / Cycling before Lycra / Wheel Fanatyk / Is Wood the Goods? / Wood Sprints /Cerchio Ghisallo / Sacro Bosco Bicycle works / CB Italia.

Picture: d’Annata by Sartoria Cicli.

“Of course making wooden table ware for a living means making thousands of items every year, which seems rather a tall order when you consider the technology being used, but Rob insists that his pole lathe can turn out wooden ware as quickly as the mechanised equivalent. This theory has been put to the test and proven correct. As Robin explains in the
film, when he’s powered up, so is his lathe and he can get results quickly. When he stops the lathe turning he can adjust the wood instantaneously, whereas when you power down a mechanical lathe you have to wait for the machine to slow down and stop turning in it’s own time.”

“Any fool can make something more complex but it takes real genius to make things simple again“. A new video by Artisan Media. Robin Wood’s blog.

Via Toolemera. Previously: Make your own treadle lathe.

The lathe has been used as part of our traditional woodworking demonstrations and it never fails to draw a crowd. Of course, the reason the lathe exists is because I felt a need for it as a tool.

Some of the main considerations when designing the lathe were:

• Human powered — our solar energy system was pretty small at the time
• Size — it had to be less than 42″ tall to fit into our old truck
• Compact — since it would sit in our small shop all the time, a small footprint was essential
• Portable — as in not too cumbersome or heavy
• Functional — it had to perform the basic duties of a light-duty lathe
• Adaptable — I had in mind several untraditional uses for the tool, like sanding”

Find the manual here.

More do-it-yourself projects.

How to make everything ourselves: open modular hardware.