 I've been very busy recently, it's nice to take it out for an evening, watch the sunset, watch the clouds, listen to the birds, and relax looking into the flames of a stick fly. I've been cooking on sticks for about 20 years, started when I improvised, and then over the years I developed my own little grates. Talking with the Free Range Network recently, we thought, why don't we actually publish the designs for a free, build-it-yourself grade. And so we had a little think, and this is what we came up with. Costs just less than £10 if you buy the parts from a DIY superstore. And we've put all the designs and the instructions for how to build it in this handout, which is available from the Free Range Activism website. The grates made from three things, angled galvanized steel, threaded rod, and 24 nuts. Angled steel, any old lightweight angled steel will do, galvanize is better. Fraded rod, a little bit hard to get from skips. Nuts, any old nuts to fit your threaded rod will do. Here's the design. There's no dimensions on this because the idea is you fit it to your saucepins, whatever size you want to make it. The issue is, it needs to be about 10 centimetres off the ground. Begin by marking up your steel, holes and lines. Very important to have square lines. Now if you have an engineering square, fine. If not, any old square card or railway ticket will do. Fraded rod, difficult to mark up because it's a spiral. Just pick a little spot that's the right distance and mark it for cutting. I'm using an old toolbox which has a little V cut into it. Note how I keep the blade below my thumb. We don't want to slice thumbs off doing this. And keeping it tight up beneath your thumb allows you to steady the blade and cut more easily. You cut from one edge to the middle. When you get to the middle, you turn it and then you carry on. If you try and cut through the whole thing at once, it's difficult to keep it exactly straight and stable and you never make such a good job of doing it in two pieces. And boom, off it goes. Very important when you've cut your pieces of metal to finish them with a file. It's not to make them look neat and tidy. It's because cutting it makes some very sharp edges. And if you don't finish it, then you won't need to cut your scratches on it that seriously if you accidentally lean or rub against the grate. So file off round off the edges. Give it a good going over a file. Give it a fair wee of your fingers. It doesn't have to be a beautiful job. Just feel with your fingers and make sure there's no sharp edges. The threaded rod is harder to cut. You put a nut either side of the cut. Cut through the middle and then undo the nut. Because when you cut it, you're going to damage the thread. And undoing the nut fixes the thread again. Here's all the pieces cut. I haven't drilled the holes yet. That comes next. But you can see all the pieces have been the grate laid out. I'm using a pillar drill. Nice and quick. If you use a power drill, you'll need to use something to get skinning everywhere. Or drill a pilot hole. It's all explained in the handout. So here are all the drilled parts ready for assembly. I begin with the hinges. The hinges are the shorter the two lengths. Put the two sides on. And then do up two more nuts either side. Now the nuts lock together either side of the metal and create a hinge. You see here adjusting the nut. Get it just the right distance. And then put another nut on the outside. Oops. Now we're going to lock the nuts together. Locking the nuts together means they don't move. So you get two spanners or a spanner and pliers. Twist them towards each other and they won't move. Now do up the inside nuts. And again lock them together makes a nice tight hinge. There we are. That's one end of the finished hinges. Now I'll do the same at the other end. Next we put the the base section in. Now notice how I've got the nuts because it has to go all the way through and then go back in itself. Put the nut side aside and lock off one end. And do the other end. This is quite difficult because you have to slowly bend the metal as you push it out by tightening the nut outwards. And in the end lock the nuts together at the other end and it holds it. There's a nice trapezoid shape. It's not going to go around nice and stable to hold your grater. Of course doing that you've got a little bit of metal that sticks up. That's quite sharp. So what you do get some pliers bend it around your studding. And there you can see it makes a nice flat surface so it stands without being unstable. So final test take the sides fold them inwards and if you've got it nicely cut they should just meet in the middle like this one. If you want them if you want a longer grate no problem at all. It just has to be about 10 centimeters off the ground. Final load test stand it down give it a good bang all nice and steady. Great finished. Here you are. I got these two saw spoons in a sale recently which is why I had to make myself a new grate. And here they are in use outdoors. There's an R2 lighting fires and it's purely a matter of practice of actually getting out and doing it. Now I'm doing this in grass and you would make a scorch mark if you just lift the fire on grass. So I begin cutting a square of turf out about five centimeters deep, cut a rectangle, lever up one corner and then use the knife to slowly cut away underneath to remove the live part of the turf. And what you do is you expose the subsoil so that when you light your fire you're actually damaging the soil the turf because you've taken away the live skin of the earth so to speak. I've collected some grass from out of the hedge, some old hogweed sticks, chopped them up small, heat them from the heat. Now I've got some very thin sticks that I'm going to add to that, thin because they burn more quickly. So when you start to fire the grass goes first because that will set fire to the thin sticks then I finish off with some bigger sticks and now my fire is all ready to light. What I need is some tinder. I've yet to meet anybody except really hardcore primitivists who don't take a toilet roll walking. So get some toilet roll, wrap it up, tightly bind it all together and get your knife and slowly scratch away at it. What you're trying to do is make a sort of cotton wall-like fluff of shredded tissue fibers and that's going to catch the spark from my fire steel. Could use a match to set fire to that just as good but I prefer a fire steel because unlike matches it doesn't get damp it it will you can get it wet and scrape it and it will still light. I have very few luxuries but this is my biggest outdoor luxury. It's a Serium Iron fire steel, a quick scrape and it produces very hot sparks ritual. Quickly set fire to my toilet roll tinder. Put that underneath and away it goes. I let it burn up for a little while. Quick blow, get it all going. This is where the practice comes in, knowing when to blow and there's the grate put over the top. Now whilst that fire is establishing itself and getting a bed of ashes to keep burning I'm preparing what I want to cook. I'm going to have one saucepan full of boiling water to make tea and the other is some leftovers from home which I'm just going to warm through and really it's just a matter of sitting and watching the sunset and occasionally throwing a little stick onto the fire. This is a short distance out of town, no great effort to walk here. After a very busy week it's just the end to a nice relaxing day. I grabbed these sticks as I was coming up to the top of the hill. I mean literally it's just a stick here, a stick there, pick them up off the ground. You can see the the water's beginning to boil now so I'm going to find something to make tea. It's too late for hedge garlic, it's too early for yarrow so I've got some nettles. I've got four or five nettle stalks to just pull off the stalk, stick the leaves wholesale into the boiling water, tamp them down and leave them to stew for five minutes to make some more lovely luscious nettle tea. Strange that the nettle tea you buy from the shops tastes very sort of dank and bitter. When you make it from fresh nettles it has a lovely sweet aromatic flavour you just can't get if you buy it in the shops. There we are, just about done. Now before I slowly savor my tea I'm going to douse my embers in water. It's very important that you leave the site looking spotless. Now that begins by dousing your embers in water to completely put them out and to make sure they're out run your fingers over it make sure there's no hot spots if you come across a hot charcoal to pour some more water over it. And whilst the water soaks in and the embers cool down and the soil cools down I'll sit, drink my tea and watch the sunset. There we are luscious nettle tea once they've been in the boiling water for a few seconds the stings completely disappear leaving with some lovely tea. Sunset not a brilliant sunset but a lovely airy sunset with clouds and birdsong. So I've scattered the coals to get rid of them into the grass and the hedgerow now I'm just neatening up the hole a little bit take off the charred size now put the turf in place, tamp it down and then before I go away I'll water it to make sure that the grass can keep growing and actually the the embers will help fertilize it a little bit. And here you are this is unpacked and ready to leave you wouldn't know I've lit a fire there. End of the day feeling refreshed time to trudge home start a new week. You can find the details online I hope you build yourself a great and really get into the idea of use and stick fires and all the wonderful joys of the outdoor.