Hand Crafted
In recent months I have reflected on the very raw beginnings of our opening videos. It was building the workbench in my then back garden on two saw horses that intrigued everyone. I think we used eight hand tools. No tablesaws, planers, bandsaw and mortise machines. No clever tricks with cameras rolling, just down to earth woodworking with handsaws, planes, auger bits and braces but I did use a drill driver. In the background helicopters flew over, seagulls screeched and children in the playground next door obliged us with shouts and laughter as well as school bells ringing time for class.
My blog, the videos we make, the schools I’ve started, all provide the surety that woodworking with hand tools is a progressive, living, vibrant way to work with wood. It’s also protected and safe now for future generations of woodworkers because of the work we’ve been able to progress. But it wasn’t at all that way in the beginning. Even tool distributors have double and tripled their turnover with resultant profits because of what we’ve been proving for a third of a century.
I have often told how difficult it was and in some cases still is going against the grain of some and then the giants through the past three decades. Those early days when people like me were just a change of wallpaper for show promoters, magazines (which are indeed advertising corporations), and so on. I recall the days when I was the only actual woodworker at woodworking shows where mostly it was machines and related equipment being shown and sold. Everyone there was selling something off of the show floor. My niche had become so specialised yet we were only window dressing for the show to begin with. In the beginning I went mostly to promote hand tool use in woodworking, promoting it as an alternative way of life. My ambitions never changed; it was always about getting people off the conveyor belt of woodworking that woodworking had become. There was no razzmatazz with my work and neither were we at all challenged by the big boys and that’s because we became so accepted and established by you. You were the ones that supported me. Sought me out at the shows, sat in the chairs at the venues waiting patiently for the appointed time. It was just a matter of time before we started with a serious online presence and now look at where we are.
What made everything shoot forward for me was the questioning. You had so many of them along the way. Unanswered and even unanswerable issues of wonderment, not dissimilar to children asking for answers to what they didn’t know, but I answered one after another with the same honesty I had been shown by George in my early days of apprenticeship. I loved the innocence of it except at one time in an audience of 300 a man asked, “What’s the main difference between using a handsaw and a skilsaw then?” The question was loaded! I said, ‘In my experience, if you slip with a handsaw, you always stop before you hit the bone!’
In the 80s and 90s, with so few hand toolists around, the mini machine era slid seamlessly into place from the new era ‘industry providers’. The result? Everyone came to own the magical alternative woodworking. No longer would anyone need to master skill and of course the microwave version of instancy came into the world of woodworking except now anyone anywhere could own their own router and tablesaw, bandsaws, belt sanders and even chisel mortising machines too. Times changed in seemingly irreversible ways and at points I did feel overwhelmed by the effort it took to reestablish what I truly loved in the lives of others. It was an incremental work and when I felt completely isolated something would happen somewhere to encourage me to keep on keeping on. Yes, I was on my own in the quest because I really never met any woodworker then that felt in any way the same way I did. With those that trained me having passed on one by one, I decided to then take on the mantle as best I could. Back then I was just coming up to 40 years of age, still quite young. I saw my craft to be more than a merely intellectual pursuit for the then new intelligentsia of the age, those that approached it with a dynamic of some kind of superiority, my craft though was and always will be clearly for the ordinary and every day working man and woman…
…those who want the art of hand work in their lives at a level that exemplified true artisanry. It was here that I discovered how open the people I was reaching were to the possibility that they could become a new genre woodworking striving for the skills of the so-called professional woodworkers but including the quest for the highly skilled working hand skill demands. It was a most amazing time for me because I sensed a most serious switch. It went beyond woodland crafts and folk art even though pole lathes for turned toadstools and making ancient coracles had their place, I saw fine woodworking emerge into musical instruments like violins and guitars, the best furniture and then too the the inclusivity of simpler rustic aspects of woodworking as the revitalised woodland craft scene. For me though, I wanted others to have what I had always enjoyed from day one and that was the true experience of working in the worksop garage without the clutter and cluster of machines. I wanted others to see how the workbench and using hand tools that have been proven through a millennia of hand tools for woodworking could be more than enough when you owned skill. Today I have my dream realised. It is my belief that there are enough people out there following the traditions of hand woodworking for it never to be lost and buried again. The internet may have millions of faults, but in the absence of the ancient masters the skills live on through the films and videos and an online presence.
As I reviewed the different series of videos about to be released over the coming weeks and months, videos that we have pulled together for teaching as well as entertaining, I became aware of how our videographers are carefully crafting their footage. The awareness they have to capture what counts is remarkable.
They are young, ambitious, caring and kind. The sensitivity they have for both videoing and editing is to me remarkable. It is no less a craft skill than my own in woodworking. What a privilege it is for me to see the young and new engage with the ancient of crafts in such sensitive and complementary ways.
What a time to be alive, Paul.
Thank you for everything.
Yes, thank you Paul. I discovered those first workbench videos and I think it was the relative simplicity and beauty and the call of “ just 8-10 hand tools…” that connected with me and your sincere and enthusiastic desire to teach that hooked me and opened me up to a lost dream!
Thankyou Paul for the insight into handtool woodworking, I am new to the craft after years of bodging with power tools, I am looking forward to using lots if the techniques you have demonstrated and have already used the technique of using the bevel to achieve a curve with a chisel, who new it would be so simple and yet so pleasurable. I’m going to be building my first dedicated woodwork bench in the new year once the 4×3 in timbers I salvaged from some non standard pallets have dried out, after years of just using a workmate.
Have a great christmas
Along with the others, I’d like to thank you. You’ve brought this type of craft woodworking back to the level of respect it deserves. Not for you the faux make over nonsense using MDF and staple guns, or a reliance on a battery of power tools and machines, just honest craftsmanship and the joy that brings.
As much as all the various projects you’ve shared, I’d particularly like to thank you for de-mystifying the correct use of tools, saw sharpening, plane renovation etc. and all those little tips and hints which result in the light bulb moment when we watch them. I utterly love that aspect of your work. You’ve given us the tools and just as important, shown us how to use them.
Merry Christmas to you and all your team, and here’s looking forward to more of the same next year.
Thanks again Paul for being inspirational. I was one of those hooked by the promise of how easy machines make things, but it’s not true.
I am now working on my hand tool skills, what’s amazing though is that it has improved my understanding and control of my power tools. I love watching Norm Abraham’s New Yankee workshop but they hardly ever showed the set up time for the machines. But Norm is skilled with hand tools too.
I am a cyclist and motor cyclist both of which have made me a better car driver. To para phrase Norm I’d say, “learning to use your tools properly will make your work safer and there’s no more important safety rule than learning to use your hand tools, and wear some safety glasses of course.”
Merry Christmas to you and your team all of your followers and I am really looking forward to a making 2020.
When I was in Junior High (7-9 grade USA) I had a shop class and made a Pine rifle rack. I loved working with the wood but hated the screaming machines.
Many years later when I bought my first house I was picking up stuff at one of the big box stores and told the salesman I wanted to build a bookcase. I asked him what tools I’d need and he told me to buy a dado head for my table saw, which he assumed I already owned. I walked away disappointed.
More years passed and I wanted to make a work bench. All the benches I could find were made out of particle board or were really just plywood tables. I remember thinking that a top laminated from 2X4s would be about right but I couldn’t find anyone doing that. I had just started looking for things on youtube so I did a search there and lo and behold here was this English (what did I know?) guy doing EXACTLY what I was looking for! And he didn’t need a bunch of screaming machines to do it!
Two work benches, a lot of fettled tools, a scar or two, and a ton of shavings later I’m still hanging in there. Thank you SO much Paul. You’ll never know what running into your work has done for my life.
Love,
John
I am amazed at what an influence you’ve had on new woodworkers. When I watch YouTube videos, I see your techniques being used everywhere. And I know where they’ve learned what they’re demonstrating 😉 The hand craftmanship of old is not lost! Thanks to you and your team.
I have just started building the workbench and watched a few of those episodes on youtube this morning to remind myself of some details. Of the three workbench series, I have to say the one filmed in your backyard is what I like most. The videography is not as polished as in the later series but somehow I connect with that series more than others.
Glad to see you succeed in your venture and wish you many more years of the same!
Although the later videos are more polished and professional, the garden bench build has an honest simplicity about it. A bit like standing next to your mate in his garden. The playground noise and the school bell just add to the feeling that anyone can do this anywhere.
Hat off to you for bringing woodworking to such a wide audience. The world needs things made from wood with the only energy used being the woodworker’s breakfast.
I stumbled across your YouTube channel while searching up a DIY project my wife wanted. I was hooked instantly. For the better part of a month, I binge watched as many videos as I could. I was fascinated by watching you turn wood planks into furniture with hand tools.
But then a strange thing happened. You convinced me that I could do it, too.
So with the bare amount of tools I could afford, I built a wall clock. And then another, and another. More tools. I built a bench and a table and a keepsake box. You’ve filled a void in my life that I always knew was there, but never really knew what to fill it with.
Thank you, Paul.
Hah, ain’t that the truth, I was splitting a piece of bamboo to make knitting needles and the last little bit didn’t want to cleanly sever so I did the dumb thing where I held the piece and lightly slid the saw down the kerf, expecting to feel the usual last bit of separation in a cut like always.
Except the outer layer of the bamboo was treated or something because it went from a clean cut like the rest of the kerf, to a momentary grab, and suddenly the saw is through… into the side of my finger.
“Tis’ but a scratch!”
Apply pressure, slap a bandaid on it, go back to work instead of trying to find my finger.
Like many others, I too found you via your first workbench build in your back garden. It was (and still is) your easy going “northern accent” that I found so mesmerising. I found it gentle but authoritative and obviously based on sound experience which we later learnt came from traditional apprentice training (George your mentor etc) and your subsequent woodworking life. In some ways the kids in the school yard, the overflying aircraft, the use of the nearby tree to butt your workpiece against when planing, even the occasional wind noise in the camcorder microphone all made it so real and for me attractive. The videography may not have been as polished in the original bench build video series as later numerous episodes but the garden workbench build series still stands out as a perfect introduction to what can be achieved with a few hand tools and proper techniques in their application. The amazing thing was that you were blessed with dry weather!
I am glad you feel that you have achieved success in preserving what you thought was a dying art and all through the use of the technological miracle of the internet. Your published books are not to be dismissed in preference to your on-line videos, the books are a constant reference for me, especially your second book “Essential woodworking hand tools”.
To you Paul, your team and to all your subscribers I wish a Happy Christmas and a peaceful new year.
I also discovered you because of those first workbench videos. I was really ignorant to woodworking generally and I never imagined that I could make anything with hand tools that was decent, but I could not afford machines. I was watching woodworking videos like one would watch videos about pilots flying the Concorde – fun to watch and see but never something I could actually do myself. You showed me I was wrong. I bought your recommended tools off of eBay and built that workbench. I splurged on nice tools and took my time and between the vice, the wood, and the tools it cost me less that $750 and months of enjoyment by learning and doing. I now use those simple tools and that bench constantly. It’s a new way of life. The process of making has brought me so much joy. Thank you Paul.
Hey Paul,
While I do enjoy the quality and polished look of the new videos, and how easy it is to see detail in HD…I do have a soft spot for the old old bench build videos in the garden. It was those videos that made me not so intimidated to start down the hand tool path. “I can do that”, I thought, “I can throw some sawhorses on the driveway and get those few hand tools”. Most other videos was somebody building a bench ON A BENCH, And usually some 4″ thick solid oak or ash roubo bench, making most of the cuts on tens of thousands of dollars worth of machines. But the rawness of the old bench videos made it look achievable.
Of course we should remember that the bench was really the only project and need that could be made and met outdoors. Also, it was decent weather too. Britain is not for rain-free periods as we had there.
Paul I want to thank you for that you have taught us not only about woodworking but about caring, living doing and so much more, It has been a wonderful adventure and mind opening Again Thank you so very much
A simple Thankyou for all that you have done to reach us all out here. For every 1 that comments, there must be 100 that reads it & smiles, but doesn’t know what to say.
Stumbling over your videos earlier this year has helped transformed my mental health from agitated & anxious, to calm & focused.
Tracey – South Australia.
Well done, Tracey. It’s a forgotten reality that working with your hands helps lower the stress levels.
I’m a 57-year-old mechanical engineer who has benefited greatly from your videos. I started with unpowered hand tools as a teenager, and had little else for years. My Dad recognized my interest and bought a number 4 plane and a decent back saw for me when I was fifteen. I bought chisels and sundry tools for myself shortly afterwards.
Seven years later, during the brief interval in my life when I was both a degreed engineer and a bachelor I bought a fair number of power tools and used those primarily for the next fifteen years. I then learned how to REALLY properly sharpen my hand tools and have been progressing back to hand till work since.
I also came across those garden workbench videos four years ago when I decided to build a proper workbench for this hobby, and decided to make it entirely with unpowered hand tools for the “health of it”. I bought a nice long jointer plane and antique vise at a local antique mall and a couple of diamond sharpening stones and set to work. I first had to make two mallets according to your videos on that item.
Now my time in my workshop garage is mostly a time of quiet solace and enjoyment, with the sounds of hand tools, the crackle of my wood stove, and music that I can actually hear while playing with tools. I’ve discovered how easy hand cut dovetails are to make. The only roll I’ve bought in two years is a bull nose plane.
Thank you, Paul for helping me to return to real woodworking.
I too discovered the possibility of working with hand tools as a result of those original bench videos. I accidently stumbled across them about a year and a half ago when looking for ways to get a truly flat and stable bench top (my other passion is building and flying model aircraft for which a dead flat building surface is essential). I may have found them by accident, but I can say they truly changed my life.
I have grew up as a typical Do It Yourselfer doing projects around the house (including some very ambitious home remodeling). I considered myself to be quite capable in the basics, but always assumed that I needed to spend lots of money on lots of fancy machinery to be able to go beyond that.
Those videos really captured my attention and encouraged my to look at woodworking in a completely new and different way. They inspired me to go out and buy a few old tools on eBay and learn how to really sharpen and set them up properly. I will confess to buying a few new tools too (like a dovetail saw from Veritas), but for a total investment that is a small fraction of what one fancy new machine would cost a whole new world of possibilities has opened up to me.
I still do use power tools for some activities, and I have much, much, much to learn, but have started a new journey (albeit late in life) as a result of your efforts to share these time honored ways. And as a new grandfather, have been busy using this new (to me) world of possibilities to build wooden toys for my new grandson. I hope to pass on the tools and the teachings to him someday.
Thank you for making this possible.
I had a jarring reminder today because we had some trees trimmed and a couple removed and I grant it wouldn’t be as quick and easy without the chainsaws but they’ve been done for hours and my head finally stopped throbbing a few minutes ago.
That incessant piercing scream over and over and over all morning into the afternoon completely reset my internal noise gauge.
Sometimes I’ll be working around part of a curve with a bowsaw or cutting a smaller board to length in a nice quiet workspace where all I can hear is a window fan and trees rustling outside, which makes my handsawing seem really loud sometimes.
Then I realize the missus dozed off while I was sawing something where she could very obviously hear me–as she had been talking to me and looking my way shortly before–and I daresay the rhythmic vizz-vrrn-vizz-vrrn actually //helped// her fall asleep.
Neither of us could even relax slightly all day with those chainsaws shrieking and screaming outside.
Yes, it’s funny how we give the name ‘Tree surgeon’ to someone with a 30″ chainsaw. As if ‘surgeon‘ befits the tender care of a tree limb severed by thousands of ripping cuts per minute. Picture them hanging from Perlon ropes and anchored with belays and karabiners dressed in surgery gear and wearing disposable ear-loop face masks. If you ever get the chance to read an old book called, This Was Logging it is well worth having. There the men used 14’ two man crosscut saws to sever the giant trees from their roots. Imagine the devastation had they used the chainsaws we have available today. I think we would see far fewer trees slash cut if it was still manpowered rather than chainsawn.
Oh I know the damage, the noise, the danger to the users, it’s fast but at what cost?
I was just showing her a video with a guy using one of those big japanese whaleback saws to rip a log and she didn’t realize I had the volume up all the way, youtube volume boost, and we were still talking over the regular “whiiizh-whoozh-whiizh-whoozh” sounds.
In relation to your comment about men logging as exemplified by the book ‘This was logging’ we need to remember that a lot of women cut down trees by hand during WW2 for the war effort. That was the tough end of the women’s land army I suspect. Horses were the basic method of transport though I suspect timber conversion may have been done by large circular saws powered by early tractors. The days of sawpits with the Top Sawyer and The Bottom Sawyer had gone by then. However sawpits were used to prepare the timber to construct the wooden warships of the English Navy.
I’m not sure what the point is here. Surely we are talking very specifically of an era long before WW2 and nothing to do with the Second World War, an era a century before when people took individual responsibility for every ax stroke because they owned it and it was hard work. I presume here that are inferring some kind of sexism which didn’t actually take place in any way.
Paul, in my 30 years of traveling with the Navy I was amazed on what was produced by the locals in the many Port Towns. Another Sailor and I had our mountain bikes and would ride inland 30-50+ miles a day as soon as Liberty was allowed. The Ports were a type of different society from the the life lived 5 or more miles inland. One thing that I noticed was that most homes had their own shops from machinery to woodworking and in their place of business was little to no room for parking or relaxing(what I noticed later was that most homes had an atrium type of relaxation area). About 10 years ago I noticed your Workbench Series and ever clicked. I could build a small workshop with minimum tools that could produce whatever my mind decided. Prior to your videos I thought that I needed an aircraft hanger to attempt anything but now I use my sawhorses with two 8’ 2”X4” with plywood on top for my 8’ workbench, my Harbor Freight foldable workbench in which after watching and improving the aluminum clamps I was able to strengthen the foldable workbench to make it my primary workbench until I was able to build my workbench with wheels. I’ve built countless of items since and I attribute 99% of my learning to you and your team. I still use to basic tools like a 12V or 18 framing saw and drills whilst building decking. But my high end router of my affordable table saw have been taking up well needed space in my garage for more than 5 years. My precision tools from micrometers, tape measures squares to the yardsticks are my primary tools. Thank you for all your efforts and I’ll definitely keep my pencils sharp.
I remember the backyard workbench building video. It was going great until near the end you used an electric drill too make holes. What, no brace and auger bit? I inherited a brace and set of auger bits from my father in 1975. The brace hangs in front of me when I am at my workbench, but the bit are in a drawer wrapped in newspaper. I also inherited a set of “drill bits” each with a wooden handle; never used them, maybe I should.
I love your videos especially the ones on hand planes. Before it was never and now I can not do any woodworking without using one. Your style of shooting board hangs right next to my workbench.
Thank you.
I am 76 years old but like I heard so much thru my life it is never to late to learn so thank you for giving me that chance
Paul, I have watched quite a few of your video’s with great interest. In each of them I have the feeling that it is just you and I, even though I know you have a considerable audience. That personal interaction with the viewer is quite unique to say the least. What a joy it is to watch you as you work and comment about the work as you go. I listen very carefully to your words and sometimes you say something that is somewhat amusing almost apologetically. Working with tools of any kind has inherent dangers and you convey this so well. I liked your answer to the question as to “difference between skilsaw and handsaw?- If you slip with the handsaw it will stop before it gets to the bone!!” perfect..
Paul, it was that very workbench series that gave me the means and the pathway to realise my lifelong wish to learn about woodwork. I started on the bench not long after my sixty first birthday in April with a handful of tools and no idea of what I was doing.
Your videos have taught me so much. The bench now sits proudly in my garage and I spend my entire weekends there. I have made some passable bookshelves, a small table and several dovetail boxes.
It is a wonderful thing you have done and I thank you most sincerely for sharing your passion and your knowledge.
I want to make boards is there such a thing as a one person ripsaw that is efficient?
Oops boards from log i should have said
So many in fact!
Check out youtube videos with searches like “thumbhole rip saw” and “ripping with frame saw” and “whaleback saw rip” for a few very different but equally valid approaches to the problem of getting boards out of a log.
Thank you, Max. I’ll check those out.
Hi. I’m in my living room listening to Sandie Shaw, looking through my window on my curved marri and dry golden grass.
Purposeful blog to end the year.
Good job. We feel you are our friend because you open up your life. Thanks
Thank you, Paul, for teaching me about hand tools. I’m still transitioning from my Sears Craftsman’s table saw…to handsaws, chisels and planes.
Building a wall-full of bookcases on cabinets, a little after midnight with Christmas deadline three days near, I chose to feed a 30-inch piece of birch on its 3/4 edge with 3-inch width into the buzzsaw to slice off a 1/4-inch thick profile. All went well cutting 60% through one side, then reversing to get the other 40%. Then, using my push-stick to clear the loose piece, either the push stick or the birch met the buzzsaw and the kickback kicked like a mule, the sound reverberated throughout the house to the other wife-end. Eight stitches later, the push-stick teaching my hand a lesson, the ER doc said, no table saws after midnight.
Even better, waiting to heal, I’m thinking how much easier (and project expeditiously) I could have re-sawn that piece of birch on my Paul Sellers-tutored workbench.
Learning by the ouch.
You are one of a kind, Paul! While i do not always follow your path, you have a love for the craft that is unequaled by any craftsmen i have met in my, admittedly not so long, life of 52.
To get to the point, i use to work wood with my father and grandfather in my childhood, also we had woodworking class in ground school, and all my life was working in the shopfitting/stand-building industry, where machines rule. I find myself nowadays not wanting to be around machines anymore, except, as in your case, a bandsaw and a column drill, and while postponing the decision for some years, while in another field of work, i am now starting to rebuild my confidence in my long unused skills and to build my workshop.
Will keep following your blog, as your wrinig is soothing at times, and your view of the world keeps me grounded.