Make a Broom - PEP BB nest.straw.makebroom

I made a broom from a hazel pole, cut in the local woodland, and some reeds for the head. I believe they are a Phragmites species. The reeds had been cut from a fishing lake nearby and I took them home to repurpose them.

The hazel was cut today and is entirely natural and untreated. As you can see in the first image, I cut some alder and some sallow to trial too, but they were the wrong size and length. I believe hazel is a traditional choice anyway.

I scraped the bark and cambium from the hazel using a billhook and a knife. I left a small ring of bark for decoration. I then sanded the whole handle (which is difficult as it is still green) and applied a coat of tung oil.

Tung oil is non-toxic and hardening, much like linseed oil. Unlike linseed oil, it is readily available without unpleasant "hardeners" and other chemicals, which are often in "boiled" linseed oil to speed up polymerisation. I use it for everything.

I secured the trimmed rushes to the handle using lengths of copper wire, salvaged from a telegraph pole (they were flapping loose, I think originally as a ground/earth cable). I twisted these using a pair of pliers and tucked the end into the bristles.

The broom seems to work well. I'm not sure how long it will last but, given how quick and easy it was to fit the bristles, I can always replace them if needs be.

Superb work Luke - that’s a beauty.

A few weeks back, I made brooms for my daughter. But, it wasn't until yesterday that I finally got a chance to sand and oil them!

Historically many brooms were made with birch &/or heather branches or other branches. You dry all the branches and then tie them to your stick. I happened to have trimmed a bunch of red huckleberry bushes in the spring, and they were all dry.



I watched this video, and it showed how to make a broom with "broom corn" (sorgum) and how the bristles were seperated into four bundles, and each bundle then attached to the handle.



I found that the long, very skinny blackberry vines worked much better as "twine" than the thicker/healtheir blackberry vines. I ended up removing the above vine and using a skinnier one (it was much less prone to cracking and breaking)



Then, like in the above video, I wrapped the bristles with vine, and then wove the vine between the bristles to stablize them better.



It's holding up great against violent sweeping from my daughter.



She requested one with softer bristles. I learned on this page that brooms can also be made with weeds. I had a bunch of nipplewort that had gone to seed and were naturally dried out. I mixed those in with the thin huckleberry branches.



To make it easier, I sewed it together with hemp twine I'd been given.



My neighbors had given my kids their old play cabin. My daughter LOVES it, and now she has brooms for her cabin!



They work great for adults, too. My husband joined my daughter in sweeping the patio!



To finish them off, I sanded them and then oiled them with tung oil. I oiled the vines and twine, too, for good measure. I also put a little oil on the bristles that I could easily access. Since these will live outside, I wanted them to be as protected as possible!