Middle Earth Ranger Forum

After messing with elder canes for a pocket bellows, I started thinking about what else hollow wooden tubing could be used for. I tried making a whistle...that didn't work even a little bit, but while carving fipples for it, I realized that a wooden tube could be quite cool.

I reamed the pith out of a well-dried cane of elder and then used a drill bit to widen the bore to 3/8". I took some 3/8" poplar dowel and cut a small disc off of it, which I glued into the bottom of the tube. I then cut the top off the tube and inserted a longer piece of dowel that stood proud of the tube itself, to make a stopper. I drilled a small hole through the stopper, which I carefully widened to make a lanyard. The stopper is a very good friction fit.

I intended this as a sewing kit, but while fine for needle storage there's not much of a good way to store thread in such a narrow vessel. In retrospect, though, shorter versions of this could make excellent spice bottles--lighter and less delicate than glass, while still being reasonably waterproof once waxed.

Here it is all finished!

That looks amazing and your pyrography is really cool

maybe as a sewing kit, just wind thread around the outside of it?

That’s brilliant! Definitely made me think of a needle case first too, but yeah, there are probably a number of other applications!

I love the decorative carving.

Elleth wrote:I love the decorative carving.

Thanks! I've been thinking about decorating my shepherd's crook at some point, and this was good practice.

Looks really awesome.

Rob

Iodo wrote:That looks amazing and your pyrography is really cool

maybe as a sewing kit, just wind thread around the outside of it?

That was what I was going to suggest, Iodo. I carry a very similar needle case in my kit, with a long length of cord wrapped around it. The downside I've found is that the thread can get damaged, and if it's waxed it collects a lot of junk. This problem I've solved by keeping it in my small tool roll.

Brian

BrianGrubbs wrote:The downside I've found is that the thread can get damaged, and if it's waxed it collects a lot of junk. This problem I've solved by keeping it in my small tool roll.

Clever

Very nice! To echo Elleth, the carvings are really neat. My mind also went right to spice storage and it would be cool to see how well that could hold spices.