Finished Celt!

The Celt is finally finished. The handle was a little greener than I thought and as it dried it started to split so I wrapped it with wet rawhide. The rawhide shrinks as it dries and holds pretty tight. I'm happy with how it came out and it chops really well. I expect it to be a formidable foe for a couple saplings this spring.

Arrow making and hide tanning

Here are some pictures of an arrow I made and the hide I'm working on. The shaft of the arrow is Nannyberry. I found it standing dead- all seasoned and ready to go. The point for the arrow I knapped out of local silt stone. The fletching is from turkey feathers and I wrapped it all with artificial sinew. It is a bit clunky but I think it will work as a quick survival arrow. The hide is almost finished but it is stiff in a few spots so I'll need to keep working on it. We "tanned" it with a bark solution using oak, walnut and hickory bark. These trees have an especially high amount of tannic acid in the bark which we use to balance the pH and it also turns the hide a pretty brown color. Once my hide is soft we will smoke it which will turn it even darker.

Celt

The Spring Semester has officially begun although it doesn't quite feel like spring yet. We have been working on buckskin and discussing spring survival strategies. I've also been working on my bow and a stone ax called a "Celt". The hole in the handle is tapered so that the top and bottom of the stone wedges in. The sides of the stone don't touch the handle because if it did then it would split the wood. All that is left now is to thin and sand down the handle.