This morning Sarah, Nina and I had to drag ourselves out of bed quite early, especially seeing as we’d been up so late last night. Along with several others, Sarah and Nina were going to the bone carving place, to make a necklace, whilst I had different plans. I was going to make a knife!
The issue with knife making is that it takes a whole day and the Stray bus leaves at 12.30pm so I would not be able to get on the bus with the others. This is why I had booked an Intercity bus ticket – if I hadn’t done that but had instead waited for the next Stray bus to arrive, I would not leave Barrytown until Monday. This would mean being on a new bus with new people; not that this would be a major problem, but having seen what Barrytown has to offer, there would be a good chance that in that 36 hour period I might actually go mad, so getting the Intercity and catching up with my bus sounded a lot better to me!
This also meant that I was very lucky and did not have to pack my bag at this point in time, whilst the others did, as they would be going bone carving and then getting straight on the bus to leave! I got myself together, said hello to a few people as they left and went outside to wait for my lift, which arrived at 9.15.
The lady who collected me was called Robyn and she took me to the farm where she and her husband Steven live and work, making knives. On arrival I was greeted by a couple of slightly mad looking little dogs and two parrots. There were a few others there, including a couple from Christchurch, Matt from Brighton, Sam from Germany and a couple from Wellington. We were all given a lovely shirt to put on over our clothes (which reminded me of the attractive farm clothes we’d worn on the Myella farm stay!) along with protective goggles and gloves.
Steven introduced us to the events of the day and showed us the materials we would be using and an example of the intended end result. We had a block of steel, a little block of brass, some thin brass sticks and a piece of wood. Hmmmm. It was then I realised that I had done nothing like this at school and had no idea whether I would be a natural at this; I was guessing not.
I think my slight uncertainty must have shown, as Steven started the ball rolling with me and got me to participate in the first demonstration of forging the steel. I had to slide the piece of metal into the massive and oh-so-incredibly-hot fire, watching it carefully as it changed colour with the heat. When it was a good orange colour, I pulled it out and put it on the anvil, then set about beating it with a big hammer, as directed by Steven. I was surprised that I only had to do this three more times before Steven told me it was ready for the next step. Apparently putting the steel into the heat and bashing it makes it change in composition, moving from a pliable, soft steel, to a carbonised, solid steel.
Next I had to use a hacksaw to chop off the bit I wasn’t going to be using and then use the electric grinder to clean it up a bit in the middle, before attaching the brass plates with some incredibly strong glue. After that, I drilled holes through the brass plates and steel, then put glue through the holes, slid in the brass pins, clipped the ends and went back to the anvil to hit the pins with the hammer in order to create rivets.
It was really good because between them, Steven and Robyn were helping everyone and getting them to do each stage of the process – it’s the kind of thing where people are doing things one at a time, so whilst I would be waiting for Robyn to show me the next bit, I would chat to the others. We’d be able to look at what each of us had done and show people the next stage if they hadn’t done it yet.
Robyn took me over to the jigsaw and we drew out a handle on the big piece of Rimu wood which I then cut out with the power-tool! I glued the two pieces of Rimu to the metal and marked out three holes to put pins through (I spent a while trying to decide if they were equidistant from one another and then decided that it was ok if they were a mm or two out!), before drilling through the steel/Rimu sandwich. The knife didn’t really look much like a knife at this stage, just bits of metal and a lump of wood, but I had every faith that it would start coming together!
I found the next stage quite difficult, as I hadn’t really done anything like it before. I had to sand down the handle using the electric sander, to make it fit against the metal, whilst giving it a bit of shape and getting rid of the rough bits. We also had to sand off the excess bits of brass pin from the sides. I think the problem for me is that my perfectionist tendencies came out and I was getting too picky about what I was doing – then Steven came over and told me that what I had done was fine, so I stopped panicking! The dust from the sanding was everywhere and Robyn kept on sweeping up, but you could feel it in the air, on your clothes and skin – I was wondering if it might make me look like I had a tan again (stupid NZ weather has made me go back to being pasty once again – boo!).
Just as our knives were actually beginning to look like knives (albeit dirty, blunt ones), the last task before lunch was to fill in the gaps with some special filler, this involved getting brown gunk all over us and, more importantly, all over the knife we’d just made. By the time we had done this, they didn’t look like knives anymore, just a big gunky mess!
Robyn took us into the kitchen and showed us the lunch stuff – DIY toasted sandwiches! Awesome! Matt and I worked as a team to create some interesting combinations and once they were cooked, we sat outside in the garden with the others and enjoyed them whilst looking out at the amazing views of the sea. They have a massive swing which awards an even better view of the sea, it requires man-power to winch people up so that they get a high enough swing, so after a few goes at hoisting people up, we were all set to collapse! A cup of tea later and it was time to get back to work.
Whilst we’d been having lunch, Steven had been doing some work on our knives, as there was one part of the process he had to do, rather than us doing it ourselves, plus he had gotten rid of the excess gunk and tidied up the handles a bit for us, which made them smoother to hold and they really looked like knives again.
Our next part involved grinding down the blade, to make the right shape in order to be able to have a sharpened edge later. We had to run our knives over three different grades of sandpaper, using the electric sanders, Steven checking them after each grade and pointing out any bits that needed going over again. Eventually we all had smooth, even blades and were ready for the next task –polishing. Before we could polish, we had to wrap the handle in masking tape, to protect the wood from the polish otherwise it would stain it. Rather than standing about in the back, Robyn took us to their garden, where we had sat at lunchtime and we polished the brass and blade (which was not yet sharp) whilst chatting and enjoying watching the waves crash onto the beach on the horizon. Robyn said that polishing the brass was her favourite part of knife making, so she asked if she could have a go on mine, so of course I jumped at the chance as my arm was getting a little tired! She did a very good job indeed!
Polishing over, we went back to the front of the house, removed the masking tape and Steven showed us how to stain the wood, so as to protect it and make it a nice colour. He told us that the wood was actually recycled – Rimu is a native tree and was once used to excess, which means it is now protected. The wood we were using had come from a hospital, where it had been used as wooden wall panels and so was in fact almost a hundred years old. How interesting! That done, there was one last thing to do – Steven put an edge on our blades for us; he told us they were ‘religiously sharp’, as in if someone were to touch it, they would say ‘Jesus, that’s sharp!’.
So, our knives were finished – almost. The last thing was to celebrate our knife-related success with a glass of ‘Barrypagne’ – home brewed champagne! We took our knives into the kitchen and put them in a line on the side and Robyn gave us all a glass of moonshine (poured from a Sodastream bottle!) whilst Steven inspected each knife closely and gave it a final rub with Kiwi boot polish. Then we toasted the knives and Robyn & Steven and chatted in the kitchen, listening to Steven’s tales of knife making over the years. Just before everyone left, we got together under the forge and had a group photo with our beautiful knives. I said farewell to everyone and jumped into Robyn’s car for the short ride back to the hostel.
When I arrived at the hostel, I was shocked to see six cars parked outside – wow; people had come to Barrytown! I went into the bar and found Johnno who clarified the car situation – there had been a brass band concert in the town hall opposite (apparently the orange corrugated shed was actually the town hall?!?), this had now finished and people were just finishing off their tea and cake. He had hoped some of them would pop into the pub, but they didn’t.
I went back to my room and realised on the walk to it, that the place seemed very quiet indeed. With the bus having left, it was just me there and I knew that it would not be a very good night. First of all, I knew I needed a shower – the knife making had involved the creation of so much dust (wood, steel and brass) that I could feel it all over me and I figured that I should get clean as fast as possible. Seeing as there was literally not a soul around, I just had a quiet chill out in my room, with some music playing. I then figured I should do some washing as my clothes were also covered in the dust, then maybe I would pop into the pub for a drink whilst the washing was on, as it would be warm and I could talk to the bar staff. When I left the room to go to the laundry, I noticed that it was dark, so took my torch and headed out into the night.
It was so spooky, it was untrue, as it was so quiet, so dark and none of the lights would come on, other than in the laundry and kitchen. I put the washing on and then as chance would have it, the bar maid happened to go past and noticed me in there. She asked if I was ok and I said it was a bit cold and dark; she realised they’d switched off all the main lights which was why nothing would come on, so she went and flicked them on as she agreed that it was scary in the dark! She then told me that they’d shut the pub as there was no one around, so that meant I was going to be by myself after all. She grabbed me a little heater for my room and I sat in there with the music on and door locked, reading for a while.
When I felt it was about the right time for the washing to be done, I plucked up the courage to go back out into the cold and dark, then headed back to the laundry and grabbed it out of the washer and threw it into the dryer. I ran back to my room and locked myself back in! I carried on reading and wished I had a means of communicating with the outside world – I really felt like I was in the middle of nowhere with no phone signal, no internet. It was like being in a horror movie. I did concede that at least I had a massive great big knife! I dashed back over to the laundry to collect my clothes and was made to jump out of my skin when a random two people walked into the laundry – they’d just arrived in their camper van and were wondering if they could use the facilities; I explained that there was no one around, but pointed out where the staff would be.
Back in my room, I locked the door and got into bed with the light on and heater blasting out heat. I didn’t really care that it was not even 7.30pm; it was cold and scary! I carried on listening to music (I needed to listen to something to hide the fact that it was bleakly silent outside!), then the rain started hammering down on the corrugated metal roof and I could hear the wind howling and whistling through the trees outside – I really was in a horror movie; cue turn music volume up. A little while later I nearly fell off the bed with fright as there was a knock on the door! I went over and it was the bar maid from earlier asking if she could pinch the heater back! I opened the door and gave it to her – she apologised for scaring me! I hopped back into bed, read for a bit longer and then decided to try and get some sleep, but figured it would probably be best to leave the light on!
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