JMB Spring Term Day 7

Date: April 26, 2009
Location: JMB, Masardis, Maine, USA

Summary:
Wind. I was forced awake to reinforce my shelter because the tarp was actually blowing off. This morning was time for building atlatls. I made an atlatl and one dart. It worked better than I would have expected. In the afternoon we built saw frames.

Accomplishments and Observations:
1) Built an atlatl and one dart
2) Built a saw frame
3) Practiced with atlatl

Initial Reflections:
The atlatl was great and worked well. I would like to work with them further. The saw frame was quite challenging. Carving surfaces to be flat is, in particular, quite difficult. The end result of the saw frame functioned and was acceptable.

Current Reflections:
The atlatl really did work well in terms of time invested. A few shaped pieces of wood and a (very basic) stone point gave me a baseline projectile. One would certainly want a lot of experience with atlatls before getting too confident with accuracy. Even well made atlatls take time to build accuracy and I would not call my first atlatl "well made"! The limited range also means you would want to have a good handle on stalking. These aren't complaints, I think atlatls are fascinating tools.
The saw frame was a surprisingly difficult carving project. As I mentioned in my "initial reflections" carving something to be proper flat is hard. It is not a difficult task with a plane but knife carving that surface requires great control. The other difficulty was dealing with the tension in a saw frame. The whole set up must be bound in such a way that the tension keeps the saw blade taut. It was an interesting task and a great way to lower pack weight and/or build in redundancy.