Since living here in this wooded bird sanctuary, I’ve found a small handful of these twisted branches. They occur when a vine has been wrapped around a branch for several years, which also typically results in the death of the branch or tree. I always kept these when I found them because they just looked too cool to burn, but most of them I don’t know where they wound up.
I found this branch on the ground while mowing the front of of yard by the road - same day when I found that turtle…and while I probably won’t have time to finish turning this into a branch flute for a while, I was anxious to try splitting it to see how difficult the wood inside is going to be to work with.
I started with my Okapi, it’s just a regular worker’s knife and I use it all the time. I wedged it into the center of the branch and tried rocking it back and forth while pulling it into the wood. After getting in by about 25mm, it got too difficult to control with the rocking motion, so I tried slightly twisting it to keep the blade oriented towards the center of the branch, while tapping the blade with a small jeweler’s hammer. Either way, the knotted areas were weaker and at the first one it just broke off.
I coated the two surfaces with wood glue and put them back together with a binding wrap of twine, allowing them to dry together for several days.
When three days had passed, I cut the binding off and verified that the pieces were joined well enough to continue. At this point I’m not sure what problems this might cause, but I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to adapt to overcome them, whatever they may end up being.
I was in a hurry because I did this next step over my lunch break, so I forgot to bring my phone and have no pictures of the process, but I used a large band saw to cut the branch in half along its length. There are some pretty thin areas, so I’m not sure how this will work out - but first I’ll have to get my hands on a curved blade to carve it out.
I’ve never done this before, but I’m guessing I’ll need something like this to do the job:
It will probably be a while before I take the plunge and buy the knife I need to make this, so I think this is a good place to end Part 1.
Next time I will be hollowing out the inside.
Thanks for checking out some more of my work! As always, I hope you enjoyed witnessing as much as I enjoyed creating!
© Photos and words by 
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