A Customer Guide to Making a Binocular Strap

The following guide and accompanying photographs were kindly sent in by Woodlore customer Barry Cheadle:

If anyone has ever admired Ray’s binocular strap and wondered exactly how it’s made, here is a detailed account of my journey to recreate the design.    

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Upcoming Appearances

With the publication date of the new book British Woodland just around the corner, Ray is making appearances at a few festivals and book shops. Book your tickets to see him now:

2nd May – Stratford Literary Festival

3rd May – Swindon Festival of Literature

4th May – David’s Bookshop – Letchworth (SOLD OUT)

15th May – Chorleywood Bookshop

16th May – Toppings and Company – Bath

31st May – Hay Festival

7th June – Cheltenham Science Festival

Woodlore Christmas 2022 Posting Dates and Office Opening Hours

Christmas Posting Dates:

Our final posting day this year will be Wednesday 21st December. However, in order to ensure your parcel has the best chance to arrive in time for Christmas, please place your order ahead of the dates below as recommended by our couriers:

As an extra helping hand, all UK orders over £50.00 (not including postage costs) being dispatched on Tuesday 20th December and Wednesday 21st December will be dispatched via a next working day delivery service. That’s an upgraded service at no extra cost to you.

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Your Bushcraft Knives – Julius Pettersson blade

We love to see our customer’s projects and crafts, making beautiful items and this is no exception. Thank you to Steve Brewster for sending in these photos and words about his recent knife project using the Julius Pettersson knife blade he purchased from us.

Well after a few “rookie mistakes” and spending more on reindeer antler than the blade, I have finally finished my knife build. 

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A Message from Ray

We find ourselves living through a challenging time, to say the very least. Like you, we have been listening to the sad news reports of Coronavirus victims on a daily basis. Our thoughts go out to all those who have lost family members or who have loved ones currently fighting the illness in hospital or at home in self-isolation.

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2020 Course Dates are Now Available to Book

Our Woodlore courses due to take place in 2020 are now available to book on the website. We have many of the old favourites in the schedule including Fundamental Bushcraft, Traditional Living Skills, UK Woodland Navigation Family Bushcraft and Tracking.

Lighting a fire on the Fundamental Bushcraft course

In addition to some of the more regular courses we also have some new ones taking place this year including the Woodlore Bush Chef with Ray Mears and the Autumn Fungi Forager. The Emergency First Aider course is also back on the schedule after a short hiatus.

Autumn Fungi Forager

If you would like an insight into what happens in the Woodlore camp during our courses take a look at our video from the Introduction to Bushcraft course….

Tom’s Heroes of Telemark Experience

A blog article written by Aspirant Instructor Tom Seward about his experience on the Heroes of Telemark Expedition earlier this year:

Earlier this year I was lucky enough to attend the 2019 Heroes of Telemark course in Norway.

I wanted to take part in this course to start to learn about the cold environment, cross country skiing and to learn more about the amazing story of the men of Grouse team and what they went through in 1943.

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The Brown Filter Bag

We have received this lovely post from Rupert Brown of Brown’s Bushcraft who tells us the story of The Brown Filter Bags:

My name is Rupert Brown founder and owner of Brown’s Bushcraft based in the South West of France. In addition to teaching bushcraft I am also the creator of The Brown filter bag. Along with many bushcrafters, I used Millbank bags for coarse water filtration and recommended these to students on my courses. The Millbank bag was used by the British military worldwide since the 1940’s. It was issued to every soldier along with chlorine tablets to provide a simple and effective means of treating dirty water. Millbank bags used to be readily available from army surplus stores. But when the army stopped using Millbank bags some years ago, they became more and more difficult to come by.

Millbank bag

The original millbank bag

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