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…
There can be no doubt over the years I have debunked many myths and mysteries surrounding woodworking over the years,mostly to make my world of real woodworking inclusive of everyone and available to anyone. No you don’t need heavy planes, retrofitted plane irons and definitely not thick and excessively hardened plane irons with particularly special…
Our upcoming stool series uses cherry for the build. You may want to be ready and have it in stock for after we finish the current series building the dining table. Where do you buy your wood from is a frequently asked, daily question at the workshop. It’s not always an easy question for us…
Some decades ago I walked across some common ground agonising over how best to describe a one-day workshop for 25 people coming for instruction from me. Every day for two full weeks the struggle continued and it kept me awake at night too. You see in 1989 I sensed a need to try to change the…
I often see the sphere I work in as a sort of personal ecosystem that somehow belongs to me yet gets shared with others stopping by the door. In an ecosystem all of the components are interrelated beneath the protection of the canopy of the forest. An understory exists within and beneath which fertile life coexists…
Apprenticeships and young people Today was an inspiring day filled with many hopes locked in aspirations where young men and women apprenticing in their Danish towns and cities live. The came to visit me to talk about their callings as apprentices in different crafts such as organ building, furniture making, joinery and carpentry. Their contribution…
Many of you have complained that the #7 sweep straight gouges we have recommended by two European makers are always out of stock and do I recommend any others. I do. I have used Pfeil gouges since 1995 and these too match and exceed the UK makers at least. This spoon took me about 6…
I like to remind everyone that it’s good to evaluate why you want to be or become a woodworker if it is in fact beyond just the making to in some measure become an artisan selling what you make. And that it’s good to ask yourself alone the right questions so you can set realistic goals. People…
It seems that we have succeeded! Aldi have finally brought their chisels to the US and are either available now or over the next three weeks depending on region. A friend of our work is sending us a set over to test and make sure they are the same quality we have here in the…