How to carve a fir wood cup in the woods without axe! Beginners guide... go for it!!

It doesn't really challenge me to craft a cup or a kuxa in a workshop with a workbench, with a vise, with a bandsaw, with a belt grinder, with a drilling machine and with the perfect wood and with the perfect chisels. I want to be able to craft a cup somewhere in the field, spontaneous. In this video I want to show you how I craft a cup with just a few hand tools. So stay tuned. Hello Youtube, welcome to another project video. Traditionally a kuxa is made from a birch burl. And in such a burl the wood fibers are aligned in all directions. That's why such a kuxa is super resistant against temperature shocks and shrinkage cracks. But in my area you can forget it that you can harvest such a burl legally. The forests here in Switzerland consist of two-thirds conifers and one-third deciduous trees. And a lot of wood types of these deciduous trees, like cherry, oak, beech or ash, are too hard to carve a cup just with a few hand tools and without the vise. Especially to craft a hollow is always a hard task. If I'm looking for a suitable piece of wood for this cup, I have the most realistic chance that I find a felled or falled silver fir or spruce. That's why I want to use one of these wood types for this project. And there is also another reason why I want to use fir wood for this project. A lot of cup carving pros represent their opinion that it isn't possible to craft a well-working cup with fir wood. Because fir wood is not durable enough, fir wood is not resistant enough, and hot liquid takes the taste from resin. So this opposite opinion gives me the extra kick to do it. Because sometimes I think these super pros are too much fixated in the tradition. And I'm maybe a little bit more open-minded. And yes, for sure, fir wood is not as durable as a birch burl or birch wood. But if you want to improvise a cup somewhere in nature, you have to work with the material you find. And I'm sure that I'm able to craft a well-working cup with fir wood. So enough blah blah. Now let's start with the work. In the next few hours, I want to craft such a cup. And when the cup is finished, I will fill up the cup at least 10 times with boiling water. And at the end of this video, I'll give you feedback if this cup works or not. The tools I want to use for this project are this cork. This is a self-made cork from an old ranch. It works fantastic. If you want to know how I made this, please check out this video. A little folding saw and my Victorinox Forester wood. I will craft a cup with a super simple design. No handle and not too big. I choose this simple design because it's much easier to carve without a handle. And the second reason is, if you don't have a handle, you have about the same thickness of the walls. And this helps to harmonize the process. So you will have less problems during the shrinking process with cracks. In the last five minutes, I was looking for a suitable trunk in this area. And I found this one here. This is silver fir, 15 centimeters in diameter, not too big for my tools, not too small for my project. This is perfect. So as you can see, the pith is not in the center. This is the smaller part. This is the bigger part. And I want to work, I want to go with the bigger part. In the area around the pith, there is always the biggest tension when the wood dries. That's why I go two centimeters away from the pith to reduce the tension in my workpiece. Now I make an initial cut. And when this cut is deep enough, I split it with some wedges. To split this piece of wood with an axe would be much easier. But I want to show you that it's also possible to craft such a cup without an axe. On the second side, somewhere here, I make also a split. This split is the base where the cups stand on. And here comes the rim to stay on this side. If you want to know why I place the cup in the trunk like this, not like this, or even like this, please check out my video from last week. So next step is drawing the diameter of the hollow. Here's the center. And I crafted such a little helper. The rim is the center needle. Now I can draw in the diameter of the hollow. Next step is to craft the hollow. If you work with a scorp or with a hook knife, you don't necessarily need a vise. But as soon you work with a hollow chisel, something like this, you need one hand for the guidance and the other hand for hammering or for pushing. And that's why as soon as you work with a chisel, you need a vise. When you work with a scorp, you don't really need a vise. make enough breaks and just hollow the cup. So the hollow is done. Now I make the outside shape with the saw. So I make a chamfer all around the outside of the rim that I don't break out the piece of wood when I'm carving the outside. So this cup is ready for use, at least more or less. I like it. It has a capacity of about two centiliters. And especially if you are a beginner, don't make a bigger cup. So this is enough. If the cup is not 100% watertight, you can seal it with linseed oil. But I don't have linseed oil here. Now I want to check out if this kind of wood, in this case firwood, is stable and durable enough for hot liquids. And we will see what happens. So as you could see, hot liquid isn't a problem for this cup. I'm not sure if this was eight times, nine times or ten times. And I'm also not sure what happened if I let it dry and make the same test in three months. But hey, I live in the moment. The only thing that annoyed me a little bit during the carving work was the hardness gap between the early wood and the late wood in the tree rings. But if this is your biggest problem, you are a lucky man. My conclusion is firwood is a fantastic wood for carving a cup in a bushcraft scenario. I'm sure that other types of conifers work also for this project. And as long as you don't catch a super resin-rich spot in the trunk, you will not have the problem that the water takes the taste from resin. So that's it for today. I hope this was interesting for you. I learned a lot. I would recommend go out, carve a cup. This is a wonderful task, but keep it simple. Thanks a lot for watching. Don't forget to subscribe to my channel and see you next Friday. Ciao!