Primitive basketry 3: Spruce bark containers & axe sheaths 🧺

Making things out of tree bark has been on my to-do list for a long time, but I had to wait for an opportunity to harvest bark without damaging living trees. I stumbled upon a batch of spruce timbers from trees that were felled due to a spruce beetle infestation. This animal bears the latin name "Ips typographus" (in German: "Buchdrucker" - "book printer"), because it digs tunnels under the bark that look a bit like printed patterns. Unfortunately, these tunnels also weaken the bark (and hurt the tree, of course), so I will keep looking for sources of bark free from beetle damages.
Still, I was able to harvest enough material to make a couple of useful items. I began with sheaths for my stone axes, so their fragile edges don't get damages during transport. Using the same method, I then made some simple containers. For the sewing cord, I used strips of bark on some pieces and spruce roots on others.
00:00 Harvesting spruce bark
02:27 Making a sheath for my small stone axe
04:39 Making a spruce bark container
06:19 Harvesting spruce roots
07:00 Making another stone axe sheath, using spruce roots for sewing
Spruce bark is pliable when fresh and hardens as it dries out. It can be made flexible again by soaking it in water for a while.
In the followup video, I will be making some more elaborate woven basket out of bark strips.
#primitiveskills #basketry

[@Wadelmaz]

I have ADHD and usually have to watch videos on YT with 2x speed. This was sooo relaxing and interesting to watch, I didn't feel the need. Thank you ♥!

[@jgray852]

Cant believe I have never seen your channel before now! You have a new subscriber, I'm away to go and binge all your videos!

[@ognick_]

Great job! I found out about you from the PT subreddit. I didn't regret that I subscribed to your channel. Good luck with your next projects!

[@MoinCrafter1041]

Nice

[@neesbushcraft]

Excellent work! 👊

[@butterflygroundhog]

I have found spruce bark to be one of the best leather alternative so far. You can boil the bark and make it super pliable and, although it has only good tensile properties in one direction, lamination and proper weaving will usually produce amazing results!

[@MakeItPrimitive]

I agree, this stuff is very satisfying to work with! Did you get your boiled bark to stay pliable after drying? I tried this, but after drying it was just as hard as normally soaked and then dried bark.

[@butterflygroundhog]

@@MakeItPrimitive sadly not as much as I expected; the bark seems to like to harden back after a while. In some sense, this is advantageous because you can shape them the way you want and then set them in place like hard leather, but it surely has its drawbacks. Also, some tricks I can give is to apply fibrous pitch to the sewing holes, especially around bending areas and to scrape the bark off the (I presume) cambium. This greatly improve the splitting and fraying resistance.

[@primitive.and.ancient]

Great job my friend, you have a lot of skills.

[@CampfireKodiak]

Nice work! I just found your channel and subscribed!

[@MakeItPrimitive]

Thanks & welcome!

[@julien_mglhs]

Oh hey, you're back! Glad to see you! How's working with spruce? From watching the video it looks like it's delicate and could snap ik two easily (kinda like actual cork) but also strong enough to work! Could you enlighten me?

[@MakeItPrimitive]

I was never gone ;-) The video just took a bit longer because I finally made the switch from iMovie to Premiere. Fresh spruce bark from small to medium sized logs feels a lot like thick leather. It is surprisingly flexible and very nice to work with. It becomes hard and brittle when it dries out, but can be made pliable again by soaking it in water for a while. From my experience, bark from larger tree trunks is thicker and thus also has a thicker outer layer, which will crack when it is bent. But this also means you can peel it off. I'm currently experimenting with such strips, they will probably feature in my next video.

[@bodo9387]

Brilliant, what species of spruce are the roots from? Are any species of spruce used?

[@MakeItPrimitive]

I haven't found a spruce yet that wasn't suitable. If you encounter one, let me know!

[@robertmason9737]

Can you also use spruce bark to make leather like shoes?

[@MakeItPrimitive]

Spruce bark is only soft and pliable when it's wet. Once it dries, it becomes hard and likes to split. However, people have been using birch bark to make shoes.