Rippling Flax

Our flax has dried in the shock long enough. It made a good size load after it was all put on. This is from a 50 foot by 50 foot patch.It seems like a quite a bit from that small area.Removing the seed pods is the next step. That is done with the Rippling Comb. This is our first time growing flax and I am building all the tools as we go, so this will be interesting.

Here is the rippling comb in action. Mounting the comb on the box seems to catch the majority of the seed pods. After using the comb this way for a while I took it back to the shop and added legs to raise it up about two feet. I need to add some weight to it or stake it down however as you have to pull quite hard to take off the seed pods and the whole thing wants to move around.I should have welded the nails on rather than brazing them. The nails bend if I get to enthusiastic pulling and if they were welded on I could heat it up on the forge and temper them a bit.I can't do that with the braze because the brazing compound will melt and let go before it is hot enough to temper.                                  

Here is the flax laid out to ret or rot the "glue" that holds the stalk and fibers together. This is called dew retting and will take about two weeks. The flax has to be turned over a couple times during that period. You can also ret by submerging the flax in water.This is much faster, only about a week I guess. We will probably do some that way too so we can compare the results.Right now I have enough projects going that I am in no hurry.