How To Make A Splint Broom

As I have studied and read about frontier living, my awareness has grown of the work it took to have the simplest things. Take a simple broom for example. You couldn’t run to store and purchase a broom. When you were living on such small cash flows as most of the people had, you didn’t waste hard cash on something as modest as a broom, especially when you could make your own.

First you make sure your knife is sharp. You can’t make a proper broom without a real sharp knife. Then you go to the woods and find a small hickory log. After all the work was done for the day, you sit by the fireplace and strip the wood back from one end in thin splints a foot or so long. You work your way around the log. Now be sure to leave the upper ends of the splints attached.

Then you make another go around and make more splints leaving their lower ends attached just above the tops of the first set. You stop making the splints when the log is the proper size to be a broom handle. You bend the splints downward into a tight bundle and tie them down tight. Smooth out the rest of the handle, Make a hole at the top of the handle and put a piece of rawhide through, and tie off. Hang the broom on a hook ready for use.

You haven’t spent a nickel of your cash money.

Did I forget to mention that each broom took about six hours to make?

I think I’ll stop by the store and buy a broom, maybe even an electric one.