Wood Craft| How to carve a whistle

Description

In this video i demonstrate how to carve your own whistle from sycamore wood. these whistles are very loud and can be crafted very quickly in an emergency f needs be! a fantastic little woodcraft project and an ideal one do do with kids

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Tags: Bushcraft,Bushcraft Skills,Wilderness Skills,Outdooors,Hiking,Camping,Survival,Survival Skills,woodcraft,wood craft,carving,whittling

Video Transcription

hello everybody and welcome to another video in this video I'm going to be showing you how to make one of these a small Sycamore whistle some people using these as well putting stuff out like these is merging some whistles I suppose you could use it as an emergency whistle if you really had to and it's very very quick and simple to make what I love about this is it gives you a great understanding of the material that you're using and it gives you some really good relevant life practice on a few different cuts using a smaller blade you can use a bigger blade for it but I prefer to use a smaller blade and they really are loud if you get it right so the first thing we've got to do is source the correct kind of wood for this project so let's go have a look and the wood that we're going to be using for this particular project comes from the sycamore tree which is very easy identifiable by these large five pointed leaves which are roughly palm-sized quite often a little bit smaller their younger leaves but this is what we're gonna be using some good hard wood and it's ideal for this project the shoot that I've chosen is roughly a first or second year shoot you don't need to be too old and you don't want it to be too young the reason for that will become clear shortly so what I've got to do is I've got to select a fairly straight piece of this wood which is roughly the width of four fingers might go a little bit wider with it actually because I've got quite a decent section there which is about six fingers so we'll start with that so to cut my section using my knife I'm just going to score it all the way around you could use a saw a small Swiss Army knife saw is ideal for this and then do that at the other side it needs be once that scored take a small what a mallet just snip through it doesn't have to be a wooden mallet it can be just any old heavy enough stick whooped and your piece of stick that you want goes flying so this is what we're after it's roughly as eight fingers not six fingers the majority of the work for this I'm going to be doing with my small benefit feel knife which season need a bit of a clean it's been used all day but a nice fine blade is ideal for so just clear those edges up slightly so it split a little bit where I've cut it with the knife once at the stage where those edges are clean one eye one side is it doesn't really matter too much if it's a little bit untidy but the other side does need to be quite clean I'm gonna start roughing out the shape of my whistle so this wood is kind of slightly oval shape so I'm gonna work on the slightly flatter top side of it I think yeah well work on the slightly wider top side of it just to make things a little easier I'm gonna measure two fingers in so about here and I'm gonna press right down to put a bit of a stop cut in there then just push in onto that knife with my thumb I'm gonna put in quite a sharp angled cut that must be very very cleaning particularly around this slightly greener section here it's hopefully we can focus on this slightly greener section here must be clean because that's what's gonna cut the air to make that high-pitched whistle sound once we've done that I'm going to carve in a slight mouthpiece piece on the other side which isn't 100% necessary what does make a little nice to you so again it's that thumb cut she's a really useful cook with a small fine fine knife like this which leaves us with this kind of shape once that's done part of me and I can go away in a moment I nearly forgot a part then I'm gonna measure about three fingers away from that mouthpiece so roughly here and score all the way around deep enough to go through the sapwood layer and into the water now as that bits done take our sturdy bit of wood and we're gonna beat this to bruise that greener layer that SAP wood layer that you don't want to batter this because you do risk damaging the the bark itself and we want to keep that as together as possible what I'm trying to do is bruise the inside of it where all that SAP wood is the reason for which will become apparent in a moment so I'm just gonna hold it firm against the work surface here and beat it all the way around

now if you've not got a decent piece of wood for this to hand you can always use the back of a sturdy fixed blade knife such as this one get it a nice safe grip and just beat it I haven't I don't want to have my palm against that blade so really brace it preferably you do want to be using a bit of wood and what we're looking for just about see it appearing now is that SAP started to appear in those cuts that means it's good and bruised

what's that bits done what I'm going to do is I'm going to grip it identify one hand over the top one hand or the bottom I'm gonna twist until it pops once it's popped with my thumbs I can just start to push that bark off in one piece very very gently very very carefully being super careful not to split this piece of bark this now needs to go to one side somewhere nice and safe it's not going on or lost and I can start putting in the resonance chamber using this knife fine knife so again I'm just using that thumb cup to take fine cuts up to that stop cut and just keep making that stop got deeper you want to keep it is vertical as possible and as clean as possible clean cuts are essential for this project now crucial point here once that cut residence chamber is deep enough I want to start cutting horizontal lines yeah and what I'm aiming for is a flat surface this will be the bit of the earth flow commerce tree I'm just using the grain of the wood dirt tell me when it's level so I can see you could just read is my post on this fine work possibly just about make it out there is very pale to light we've got these tree rings here and when the parallel are not meeting at the middle it'll tell me that my cut is level and again this needs to be super clean this cut so sharp knife is essential good sharp knife I find it easy with slightly finer blades so that we've got this once at that point I can continue working on that resonance chamber which really has to be quite deep so again all the way just using that thumb cut trying to keep that level and absolutely as clean as possible don't try and snap off those little flakes which will inevitably appear just snip them off when you've got a few and that'll keep it cleaner and we want to get this chamber really quite deep the larger the chamber the deeper the sounds you'll get so I'm gonna bring this quite far back quite a bit far in there really really pay attention to just keeping it flat and level and once we get start to get through that pit just pity bit here this is just this section here you need to start being very careful and occasionally I'm just going to come back to that vertical sort of slope there and neaten it up off to a bit of an angle on that side some scrap straightening up you just take any finer cuts just there there we go so you can see this chamber is getting really quite deep that's exactly what we're after

that's about deep enough so I'm just do that pits gonna need more what's up she's in a bit of scraping motion on my knife tiny bit not too blunt it just to prevent snapping see now that when she is slightly off to one side we'll keep that as horizontal perfectly as possible think now about ready just a touch more that side there we go so this is what the completed resonance chamber should look like the next stage things is back to our piece of bark which we're now gonna super gently slide back on in line use the sacred wood get lined up first and tada okay so folks there we go one functioning wool only wants to focus on me one functioning whistle made from Sycamore in under ten minutes so let's test it out please work hope it does wow it is very very loud very high-pitched very loud so you go guys one whistle really pleased with how that one came out that's a really good sound in that one as always thank you for watching please like share subscribe comment I hope you got something out of this video I'd love to see some pictures of you guys making these if you do have any picture anything like that chuck them up on my Forester Bush bushcraft Facebook page the link for which can be found below this video doubt there be safe and do some carving thanks for watching guys

About the Author

Forrester Bushcraft

Forrester Bushcraft

Welcome to the Forrester Bushcraft youtube page. This channel is dedicated to teaching all manner of wilderness lore, whether it be primitive skills, traditional methods or modern adaptations. Here you will find all manner of information pertaining to the great outdoors. Based in the United Kingdom I explore all of the terrains and landscapes available to me. Here you will find full HD videos filmed and edited by my self showing bushcraft skills, plant ID wildlife experiences Journeys & adventures, and last but not least the odd bit of philosophy.

My aim with this channel is to help people get outdoors and experience the great wild world that we live in showing mutual understanding and respect for all of nature.

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