Woodcraft

by Elmer Harry Kreps

Before anything more can be done with the wood a form for bending the frames must be made. A convenient form is shown in figure two. For steaming the wood properly it is necessary to have a steaming box, which is merely a long case made of narrow boards, open at both ends. The stick is placed in this case and the steam from a boiling tea kettle turned in one end so that the hot steam travels the entire length. The wood should be steamed thus an hour and then it is ready for bending.

Figure two shows how the wood is bent and secured on the form. The toe must be formed very carefully, bending only a little at first, then releasing, then bending a little more, and so on until the wood can be easily and safely bent to complete shape and secured by nailing blocks to the form. The form should be made from two-inch planks, so that it will accommodate the two frames. The wood is allowed to dry thoroughly on the form before filling, and this will require at least two weeks.

After the frames are dry they may be taken from the form, the tail end of each fastened and the crossbars fitted into place. The ends may be secured with a wood screw until after the frames have been strung, but the screw should then be removed and the ends tied with rawhide, through gimlet holes, the part between being counter sunk so that the thongs will be protected from wear. This is shown in figure four.

The crossbars are pieces of flat, strong wood, about one and a fourth inches wide and nearly a half inch thick, with rounded edges. These should be placed about 16 or 17 inches apart, measuring from center to center, and so placed that when the frame is suspended on the hands midway between these two sticks the tail will outweigh the toe by just a few ounces. These cross-bars should be carefully mortised into the frame as shown in the small diagram in center of figure three.

In both sides of the frame from D to E, also from F to G, gimlet holes are bored through the bows from outside to inside at intervals of two inches, or a little more, the holes being in pairs obliquely placed, and countersunk between. Three holes are also bored through each crossbar, as shown.

The frames are now ready for filling. Regarding material for filling, for ordinary use, there is nothing equal to cowhide, a fairly heavy skin. The green hide should be placed under running water for a week or more, until the hair can be pulled out easily. The hair should then be pulled, or scraped off, but care must be used that the grain of the skin is not broken or scraped away. The hide should then be thoroughly stretched and dried in an airy but shady place. When dry it may be cut into strands. A whole hide will fill several pairs of shoes. The portion along the back is best and this should be used for filling the middle section. The lighter parts from the edges of the skin will answer for stringing the heels and toes. All strands should be cut length-wise of the skin, and full length. Their width will depend on the thickness of the skin, the weight of filling desired in the snowshoe, the general character of the snow in which they will be used, and the size of mesh in the web. If cut while dry, then soaked, stretched, and again allowed to dry, as they will be when strung into the frames, it will be found that the length of the strands will be increased greatly, while the thickness will be much decreased. It is well to cut several trial widths, so that the proper weight of strand may be determined. For a coarse webbed shoe the thongs, after being stretched and dried, should be about five-sixteenths of an inch wide for the middle portion of the shoe; for the ends an eighth inch is sufficiently heavy. These strands of hide should all be soaked and stretched thoroughly, allowed to dry while stretched, and then soaked again just before using, and strung into the frames while wet.

The ends are filled first and as I always commence with the toe I will describe my method of stringing that part first. A strand of the water-soaked rawhide is stretched tightly around the inside of the toe portion through the little gimlet holes, as shown in figure five, starting and finishing at one of the holes in the forward crossbar. This thong is called the lanyard, and its purpose is to hold the filling which is woven into the toe.

A small needle of very hard wood, or bone, is used for filling the ends. I have shown in the drawing how the filling runs. Starting in the lower left-hand corner it goes up to the part marked 1, passes around the lanyard, twists back around itself about an inch and then goes down to 2, there passing around the lanyard and again twisting around itself, then around the lanyard at 3, a single twist, and then across to 4, where it again turns around the lanyard, then twists down around the first strand to the starting point, under the lanyard at 5 and up to 6. From there the strand loops and twists the same as in the first round, except that at the lower corners it loops back around the first round, then twists around itself, then around the lanyard, and on the same as before. This looping back of every second round is continued until the filling extends across the entire forward part of the toe, when it is discontinued, and each round is made like the first. This looping back throws the filling alternately from side to side.