Making a Wooden Neck Yoke
Making a Wooden Neck Yoke
by Zach Miller of Davis City, IA
This old-time neck yoke is a simple carved wooden piece with strings and hooks that is placed on a person’s shoulders for carrying buckets. I use my yoke for hauling water for our sheep, bringing collected maple sap back to storage containers, and supplying fresh cold well water to our home. When buckets need to be carried over any distance, this yoke does a wonderful job transferring the buckets weight from your hands and arms to the top of your shoulders. My grandfather made the pattern and showed me how to make one. This style of neck yoke has been used in my family and among friends for three generations. It is considered a valuable tool in our homesteading lifestyle.
My desire is that others might benefit from this simple yet elegant tool. The entire thing can be made by someone with moderate woodworking skills and a few essential tools.
To begin you will need a block of wood about 3 ½” x 8 ½” x 38” that is well-seasoned or kiln dried. A slab could be split out of a log or cut on a small bandmill. Most species of wood will work, but one that carves easily and is knot free is preferred. Carving through knots takes more time and care not to chip into or otherwise mar the complicated grain structure around a knot. We have used eastern white cedar, western red cedar, silver maple, red elm and walnut. Basswood with its tight grain and ease of carving would work very well. Cedar is light and easy to carve. Red elm being harder and more dense was made thinner and smaller in diameter without sacrificing strength.
The first template is laid out on your block of wood avoiding knots whenever possible. It is also important to make sure the grain runs lengthwise from tip to tip on the marked out shape. Being careful to stay just outside the lines, this shape is then cut out. A vertical cutting bandsaw is my choice, being quick and able to cut following the curved lines. If a bandsaw is not available, other tools, such as a hatchet and a coping saw, could be used. Care must always be taken when running power tools, horse powered or otherwise.
The second template is laid out on the underside of the roughed out blank with the center lines aligned. The line drawn around this template is the outline for carving the shoulder seat. I put the blank into a vise to hold it steady while carving out the shoulder seat. A vise can dent the wood when clamped tight, so I use a thick scrap of harness leather as a layer between to protect the wood. This is especially important as work progresses toward a finished piece.
I use a large gouge – a special round chisel – and a wooden mallet to carve out the shoulder seat. Work from the line toward the rounded cutout for the neck, following the grain as much as possible. On a straight-grained piece of wood it is pretty simple to work; from a shallow depth at the line, working deeper toward the center and the neck cutout. The shavings should peel off easily with the grain coming out. If the grain in front of the gouge is going deeper into the the piece, the gouge will start to split into the wood rather than carving out a shaving. If this keeps happening, stop, and try working from the opposite direction.
I usually take about 1/8” of wood in lines parallel with the grain. Work a little deeper with each pass until a nice rounded even shape is reached. The shoulder seat is about 2” at the deepest point when finished. At this point it can be tried on the user’s shoulders, if available, to get a proper fit.
A rounded wood rasp works well for cleaning up, rounding the corners, and smoothing the neck opening.
After this is completed the yoke is flipped over, reclamped in the vise, and carved with a draw knife. To keep from tearing into the grain it works best to start in the middle, lengthwise of the yoke, working out toward the tips. First one half then the other rounding the top of the yoke. The yoke should taper from the rounded broad middle down to round tips. If done carefully a draw knife can leave you with a nice smooth finished product. Some pieces of wood with knots or wavy uneven grain have to be rounded on top with a wood rasp.
Sanding will remove most small lines, nicks, or grooves in the wood. A small piece of sandpaper that fits in your hand is rubbed on the wood. Start with a coarse 50 grit piece and sand the entire surface working to finer grit paper. 200-400 grit sandpaper makes a finish to my liking. Harder wood can take a finer finish in general. Here is a woodworker’s tip for an extra fine finish. After the initial sanding, dampen the wood with warm water. This raises the grain. After the wood is dry, sand it again. This will give you a much finer finish. Just remember not to make it so nice that you do not want to put it to good use!
b – The hole is drilled parallel to the hook to keep the bucket from tipping off.
c – NOT like this or it can tip off your bucket. This is learned from experience!
An oak branch Y is my favorite for making a hook (see below). A 1/2” to ¾” diameter limb is of sufficient strength. I cut the green limbs with a coping saw and carve the ends round with a knife. A hole also needs to be drilled to accommodate the cord size. It is fun to find two matching oak limbs for your hooks. A small 1/4” steel rod can also be bent for this purpose and used instead.
Two leather strips about 3/32” thick, 5/16” wide and about 7’ long are my preference for cords on each side [see #2]. The two strips of leather pass through the hole in the wooden hook half way down their length. They are then folded in half, forming four strips. These four strips are then braided into a round cord with the wooden hooks firmly attached at one end. Other cordage or string could also be used that is sufficiently strong enough to hold the weight.
A ¾” hole for the leather cord to pass through is then drilled into the end grain on both tips of the yoke about 2 – 2 ½” deep [#3]. Another hole is drilled with a ½” bit at 90º to the first on the bottom side of the yoke [#4]. Only drill this smaller hole to meet the larger one from the end. Do not drill clear through the tip of the yoke. These two holes connect inside the center of the round yoke tip.
The leather cord end opposite the hook is passed through the ½” hole and turns to come out the ¾” hole on the end [#5]. A knot is then tied in both cords at the appropriate length for the user [#6]. Ideally, when the yoke is on your shoulders, the hooks hanging down on each side should be comfortable in your hands with your arms loose at your sides. It should be easy to grab the bucket’s bale in your hand while hooked onto a full bucket. Also remember most cords stretch so you will want to make it a little short to compensate.
The knot in the cord should fit tightly through the ¾” end grain hole and hold fast, unable to slip through the ½” hole. If you use a smaller cord, hole sizes will need to be adjusted as well.
A round plug is fitted tightly into the holes on both ends to finish [#7]. A metal sleeve can also be added to keep the pressure from splitting the wood. After having a couple that split out between the two holes, I started using a metal sleeve on the tips.
An oil or oil beeswax coat is one way to finish your new yoke. I have used walnut, peanut, and olive oils as well as beeswax; something to seal up the wood and bring out the natural colors.
If kept out of the weather, oiled yearly and taken care of, this yoke should serve you a lifetime.
A quick version neck yoke can also be made out of a 2” x 6” board, 36” long. Make a mark at the center 18” from one end. Leave 6” of the board full width in the center. Both ends are tapered down to 2” wide and a hole is drilled through the thickness 2” from end. Cut out the neck opening and carve the shoulder seat about ¾” deep. A knot is tied on the top side of this yoke to keep the cord from pulling through.
