Finding a blow-down, where a live tree has fallen down, can be a lucky opportunity in a survival situation. The pine tree that fell just before our survival class began, provided pine needles for tea, pine inner bark for food, boughs to cushion and warm the floor of our shelter and baskets for heating liquid during our trek.
This photo shows how the pine branch was peeled and the folded basket.
The following diagrams show how to cut and peel the bark without tearing or puncturing it.
In this drawing of a log, the arrows point to where you make two girdle cuts around the log and one lengthwise connect cut. This is the perimeter of your basket and will be either a rectangle or a square, depending upon the size of your log and the amount of bark you peel.
The next step is to use a tapered green stick called a spud, to gently pry the bark loose:
The drawing shows the spud tip lying flat in relation to the bark, so you don’t crease, split or puncture the bark. You want to pry slowly, an inch at a time, staying at least one inch away from each end (unlike the drawing), to avoid splitting.
This is what the tip of the spud looks like:
My spud stick is about 2 feet long. It helps with leverage and keeps the tip at the correct angle to the bark. This is a slow process. You’re working in a circular pattern.
Sometimes you reach an area where the tree had been damaged and the bark resists peeling. In this case, you can start from “C” in the above drawing, effectively peeling bark from both ends.
Barry Keegan drew this pattern for how to fold the corners. The trick here is to manipulate the bark into shape without splitting or tearing it.
Top view of basket and corner folds:
Those clips on the end are chunks of green branch, which I split to hold the folded bark in place until it dries.
The finished basket:
This basket should be ready to hold water and if I heat the right rocks, to boil water.
I love this website. I do baskets but not much. I have trouble doing this. Could you show me more of them to make and show me in better patterns to make one ?
Thanks.
Comment by Quinn Matthews — April 4, 2008 @ 2:39 am
Thanks for your feedback, Quinn.
Are you having difficulty peeling the bark, making the corners or with some other part of the process?
I split and tore several pieces of bark, before I developed a feel for the right amount of pressure and speed to remove a piece large enough for a cup-sized basket.
Manipulating the bark to form a corner is also a matter of feel. It’s frustrating to tear a carefully removed piece of bark, so it’s worth your while to practice folding the corners on scrap bark. I used Barry Keegan’s drawing on paper to practice folding the paper and then practiced on scrap bark.
Also, have your clamps handy, so once you have the fold, you can easily hold the corner in place until the bark dries.
If you are working on and off, keep your materials outdoors, where the air is moist.
Comment by jj_murphy — April 4, 2008 @ 7:29 am
Nice post! I’ve seen similar baskets made from elm bark, and I’m going to attempt some bark “berry buckets” from tulip poplar as soon as the sap is in full flow here in VA (the bark will be easier to remove by mid-June). I’ve made a couple of “splint” type baskets from strips of red maple bark I gathered from a limb knocked down during a summer thunderstorm; red maple bark is really easy to work with and nice looking, to boot. Keep up the good work!
Comment by Will Kiger — April 11, 2008 @ 2:27 pm
I really appreciate your feedback. I still have my first basket, made from woven grape vine. I used it once or twice last summer for mushroom collecting, but it is really more a reminder of how much there is to learn.
Thanks for sharing your experiences. I look forward to hearing about the results of your tulip tree bark basket.
Comment by jj_murphy — April 11, 2008 @ 4:44 pm