Last week I worked on a how-to booklet written and unpublished from a decade and a half ago. Reworking the work took me back to those days when I began to use my first digital camera two decades back now. Digitals irreversibly changed the dimension of photography, but in the beginning, a camera now costing …
In my world, the real and true power in woodworking is in hand tools. Simplistic? Not at all. I deal with one of the two key realms that have gradually evolved in the world of woodworking. I am not interested in the so-called professional realm. Amateur woodworking is of primary importance to me because it …
The builders began demolishing the back of my house two weeks ago and brick by brick the walls came down. This has been the hard work because the only access to this part of the house was through a 30″ gateway. That meant that three piles of demolished bricks, concrete slab and rubble equal to …
Taking wood from the tree before going to the timber suppliers is called conversion. Conversion is the specific process of cutting the tree stem down its length in different ways to produce beams, boards and sections of wood before the drying and seasoning process begins. After conversion, the wood goes through a period of seasoning …
I have written often enough about preparing for a project from time to time, but thought then to put together something more cohesive, to help others to see what I actually go through in prefacing a project. I am still not done after eight episodes. Who would have thought it could take eight substantive blog …
Finally, we arrive at the workbench with wood. The sawhorses get stowed, wood is rough-cut to width-cut and length-cut and stacked alongside the bench. It’s here that I pull out four planes for possible use in the next few minutes and then for hours. My diamond sharpening plates are to my left hand on a …
In my covering going to the wood suppliers and the need for planning and observance, I have been able to obviate the attempt we must make to minimise wasting our precious time, money, and then too wasting that sense of positivity our searching for wood seems always to begin with. Disappointment of any kind is …
It’s all go at sellershome.com . Join me on the journey as we build a houseful of furniture pieces together with other woodworking projects you will need when you make and build all of the pieces you will need for a growing family home. It’s not new to me and I did learn a lot …
I reach for the hand plane I made the handle for and it’s sized to my hand and to the task for which I use it perfectly. I reach for another that looks identical because I made the handle for that plane too. Both totes and knobs were made by hand, by me and without …
I was at a show 20 years ago, sitting with the audience, when an English guru of woodworking told his watchers that they must always set the so-called chip-breaker (he really meant the cap iron but didn’t know it) as close as it was possible to the cutting edge and so close you could scarcely …
on Prepping Wood VIIThanks! will contact him
on A New week of flexing beginsIt's actually this idea that helped me with working with hand tools. I started out with a bunch of very dull tools and never knew better so I fought and fought and fought the wood.…
on Prepping Wood VII+/- 0.25 mm I guess this is for non-working surfaces (I mean not for axle in hole for example). Although metal is generally seen as stable in ordinary life, dimensions change with… on Prepping Wood VIII have this problem with my progressive focal lenses. Although it is only in the direction right to left or left to right but not while looking from near to far along the board. Th…
on A New week of flexing beginsI was just having this delima.....I mean learning experience, yesterday. I was working with some white oak cross cutting, first attempt was a disaster. Took a deep breathe, thought…
on House Progress updateIt is only misbehaving on my mobile. I've tried clearing cache and browser history to no avail.
on Knowing your RouterYou know, there really is not that much to hand-tool woodworking. People often comment after I have said something like this, and it can be said disparagingly, that all you need is…