I think that is true of our courses. We’re quite different really and we spread the good news of real woodworking all be it on a small scale. I taught my first class in the USA back in 1989 or thereabouts. Since then my hands on courses have shaped 5,500 woodworkers and I have taught…
I personally think woodworking is a very marvellous thing and it doesn’t really matter whether you do it by hand or use machines or both. I like to do my work as much by hand as is practicable and so about ninety-eight percent of my work is indeed worked by my hands. I think this…
…or should I perhaps say Working wood makes living good. In some ways my blog records a wide range of things I might otherwise have never written down and that includes everything from new tool reviews to my opinions on sharpness and what sharpness is. Some time back I presented something to my students suggesting…
Every so often a grouping of tools comes together as a package via eBay and at first glimpse of a poorer image you might pass over it without thinking. This might have been the case when I bought the tools shown here. The image was quite unclear but the silhouette of the small router piqued…
We had a new intake of students from around the globe today, Sierra Leone, some from the USA , east and west, Netherlands and Spain. Oh yes, and the UK. They will be here for nine days and I am always surprised how easily people from different continents can totally connect in just a matter…
Some time back I posted how to make my dovetail template because of all the ones I have made through the the years this was the one I felt to be the best. My reason for passing it on was of course to ensure its future in the tradition of would be craftsmen making their…
Often it’s the unexplainable things of life that make the most sense to our sensibilities. Strange really, when you think about it. The leaf a tree carries and the way wood severed from it’s root in the same stem brings life to what we make from it. These things are things a scientist explains and…
I was just sixteen when I made mine from the same pine with the same eight hand tools bought brand new that cost me six weeks wages working 52 hours in each week to buy them. I got paid £3.50 a week back then and the tools meant something to me because they cost me…
We recently made the video series on making the trestle table using some very unique methods and techniques I developed partly for training must mostly for rock solid build. I am more amazed by the audience we reach these days and just how quickly people are developing their skills to become true woodworkers. The online…
I recently progressed the videos on making different types of frame saw using different ingredients to maximise performance. Visitors stopped by over the days I was working and we were filming and they saw the saws in progress and indeed being used. One man asked my why Europeans didn’t adopt the English tenon saw for…