Some of you expressed surprise in my using machines for long and extended days for manufacturing. That was a past life for me. One day I rebelled and said never again. I will never go back there. In the same way some lament lost family, lost countrymen and lost comrades, I lament the sense of…
Thanks for your response to the previous post It was refreshing to see the response to the blog post on Lifting Your Spirits, here and on Facebook too. I can see why people have such a mix of feelings and passions about issues regarding machines versus hand tools and so on. I’m certain it’s because many…
We made a video last year on how I cut the common dovetail by hand. It’s simple and easy enough using oak so here is the video:
I find my interests shift between places where hand work and craft lift my spirits and machines seem less at home. I suppose machines always have seemed so invasive; an intrusion into the world where few men I ever met saw them as necessary but more forced onto them and they forced into using them….
So, if you ever wondered about the #3 smoothing plane you’ll discover yet another Leonard Bailey wonder of plane making. Over the past few days, because we keep a couple for students with smaller hands and less upper shoulder muscle mass, I tried out the plane with the ten ‘musclemen’ in the class last week. I…
I don’t know if my week this week interests anyone else, whether it measures up to a week you might understand or even want to hear about, but I write thinking perhaps it might. These are some of my digital images; a few recorded moments in nine days when we progressed an intent to change….
I opened the workshop door and watched as morning light spread from one bench to another and then another. I’ve seen this most of my work life now, 50 years of early morning entries I suppose. I often stop as soon as I step inside and as I did this morning to soak in the…
…Well let’s talk about the differences in real woodworking. We began making tables last night. Our classes are very fully and very different in that we operate machine-free for all the nine days of the course. That means planing and sawing surfaces and making joinery so everyone develops real skill. Another difference I decided on 25…
This is the first nine-day foundational of the year and I wonder of it’s a sign of change as I look at the demographics. It’s rare but this class is all male and the average age has dropped from the mid early 50’s to around the mid 30’s. It’s a low-maintenance class and for the…
As bit of a follow up to last night’s blog post I thought I should add some thoughts. There is a general assumption by many that the whole world has access to what some countries have available to them. For instance today I could most like buy 50 #4 smoothing planes from eBay for under…