This project is a little different from the previous posts. We attended a short craft lesson on making shrink pots. We were taught how to use a small freshly cut birch log to make hollow pot out of. The same process can be adapted to make pots of all sizes.
First a small pilot hole is drilled about as long as we want the pot to be. Then a spoon auger is used to roughly hollow out most of the log.
After it is hollowed we cut the log down to the desired length of our pots.
The next steps are harder to describe and require a lot of shaping with a very sharp carving knife. In general the idea is to hollow it out leaving a consistent thickness all the way around.
Next we traced the end we wanted to be our "bottom" onto the harder wood that would become that base as the log drys and shrinks around it.
A small tapered lip inside the pot and along the edge of the "bottom" helps it to sit in place while the pot shrinks around it to keep it all sturdy.
