Elder pith floats

[hermes]

I thought I knew all there was to making floats till I heard about making them out of Elder pith, I know next to nothing about the material and would like to know some more about this odd material, has anyone used it or have any more info about it please.

 

cheers

[Peter Waller]

Elder Pith, the aroma of a pension queue on a still, hot summers day! Thanks for the idea Argyll, I'm still smiling about it, especailly after being caught up in such a queue the other day.

 

Elder Pith is incredibly light and bouyant, and comes, would you believe, from elder trees and bushes. The stems required for float making are last years dead ones. Split off the outer bark with a blunt knife and the pith should come out quite cleanly. Dead simple to work but VERY fragile. Toughens up with a coat of varnish.

 

Now you can go into the woods and really take the pith!

[hermes]

I have a load from my Mums garden but have to wait for ages now for it all to dry out, thanks for the help Peter.

[WickerDave]

I used to make them as a schoolboy several decades ago, they are still in a dusty drawer somewhere.

 

I don't remember splitting off the outer bark, just rounding off the ends with sandpaper and then glueing in thinner inserts into the soft pith. Painted with black enamel and white/orange tips, they were pretty resilient, and as Peter says, very buoyant.

[PeterJC]

Elder pith is best extracted from straight elder stems about half inch in diameter. You can use the whole stick or split the outer layers off to reveal the inner pith.

This is a really buoyant material but incredibly soft. If you want to make you own floats, stick to balsa - much easier to work with.

One word of caution, elder pith is mildly toxic, so wash hands well after using it.

Peter

[hermes]

I'm just interested in the history of making different types of floats and haven't seen much printed about them anywhere.

I want to try making some avon bodies with the pith just for a laugh really, seems as if it's a nice alternative to balsa wood.

[Vagabond]

Not only floats.

 

A 2" thick elder stem can be turned into a popgun barrel by removing the central pith and leaving a smooth bore of about 1/2".

 

Make a piston out of hazelwood, and you have an instrument that will fire acorns hard enough to break a window.

 

Peter Waller and Norfolk Boy may remember them - all Norfolk schoolboys used to be popgun technicians.

 

[ 05. April 2005, 10:01 PM: Message edited by: Vagabond ]

[Guest PhilB]

I've still got a few I made about 30 years ago! they haven't been used in ages. I bored a hole down the pith and slid it onto a feather quill or an orange stick. Glued on and painted with enamel they make great floats. The trick is to find the oldest shrivelled up stems you can - these are the ones with just a thin skin of bark which you can peel off with a thumbnail to leave just the pith. Happy hunting!

[Peter Waller]

Vagabond:

Not only floats.  

 

Peter Waller and Norfolk Boy may remember them - all Norfolk schoolboys used to be popgun technicians.

That and 'tanks' made fron cotten reels and candles!

[GlennB]

Peter Waller:

That and 'tanks' made fron cotten reels and candles!

Blimey, now we're going back.

Did you used to cut notches in the rim of the cotton reel for better traction??