About Our Woods is a page all about our woods and activities in or around our woods.

My partner and myself originally bought Light Wood as a small investment and to hide away from the rat race, but within the first year that we owned our Small Wood we have grown to love watching the wild life and the changing seasons in our woods.

We both have a lot to learn about our woods and how best to encourage and protect the wildlife.

We also enjoy camping in our own very private campsite with friends and family just chilling out and walking our dog.

We are also carrying out woodland management as recommended by our local "Forestry Commission Woodland Officer".

Part of our management plan is clearing our rides and thinning of our trees because of this management we will have a lot of cut timber left over.

So rather than leave piles of timber everywhere myself (Richard) and Dominic from the woods next-door have decided to make our own Charcoal Kiln as we have been unable to buy one second-hand.

After experimenting with small home-made kilns made from old oil drums we perfected the art of charcoal making but now we needed a much larger kiln.

After talking to our local engineering company it was decided to make our kiln out of sheets of 1200x2400x2mm steel and rolled 50x50mm angle iron and because we intended to build our new kiln on site with limited tools and  equipment we decided make the kiln as far as possible a size that used complete sheets of steel so that there was less need to cut steel on site. 

Tools needed for the job in hand a second-hand arc-welder bought from Ebay and a old generator bought as a non-runner off a mate.        

Arc Welder	Generator

The first stage in making our kiln was to manufacture two steel hoops from 50x50mm angle iron our local engineering company rolled a radius in to the angle iron for us and we cut and welded the steel to size.

Manufacture of steel hoop	Finished steel hoop

The second stage is to weld the sheet steel around the hoops.

Dominic welding the sheet on	The kiln is now taking shape

The third stage is to manufacture the lid which is made by cutting two steel sheets in half and arranging them on the top  of the kiln to form a lid then weld the four pieces  together  when welded cut to fit the top of kiln.

The four pieces welded together	Cutting the lid to fit the top of kiln

Checking that the lid fits ok	The lid finished with handles fitted

The fourth and final stage of building  our kiln is to manufacture the air inlet tubes and four chimneys. 

Manufacture of chimney collar & outlet	Outlet & chimney fitted to kiln

Our kiln burning	Our kiln burning

For information and history about charcoal please look in the interests link at the bottom of the page.

Woodland Crafts

John who owns the woods next to ours has just finished building a Pole Lathe made out of his own wood (Ash) split and shaved in the traditional way using a Shave Horse, Draw Knife and Froe.

John's first pole	John's first pole

John very kindly said that he would show me how to split ash using a Froe and shape it using a Shave Horse and Draw Knife

So we made a rustic bench for my father 

Myself learning to use the Shave Horse	My finished Rustic Bench