Ever since I started blogging I have never felt on my own and that’s because of how you’ve always responded through the years. No matter what methods you use to make wood work for you, it does not take long to find likeminded people to unite with. Green woodworking, wood turning, intarsia and instrument making […]
Give me an empty space, a blank sheet of paper, a pencil and such and before a few minutes have passed lines seem to appear from nowhere. When I go into a home, an office a business I am ‘space aware’ and as we all know, ‘nature abhors a vacuum‘. Of course there is no […]
We videoed me introducing the new house for you all to watch. Our goal is to teach others to build a wide range of furniture pieces for furnishing the home. It’s a long term objective and we want to update people on what’s happening. The important thing for people to see is that this ties […]
He reaches across the workbench for a plane and says, ‘Let’s get crackin’ then.” His plane’s a Woden. Well used, well worn, well ‘broken in’. Mine’s new, narrow, a #4 Stanley. He’d loaned me his when I first started under him but then I saved up and bought my own. Mum told me, “Don’t pay […]
It’s a long and narrow garden. Straight lines, squared off. No imagination, easy maintenance. I really like gardens with secret corners and surprises to draw your interest. It was a quick and simple thing to mow the grass. Coming out of retirement The new house presents additional work but it’s a mix of work I […]
We often use guides in my actual work and then, or especially, in my teaching others be that via video or in classes one on one. In the past it was simple enough to get my students to cut their tenons to the parallel guide lines because, after all, they are so clearly visible, but […]
We’ve been building up our Common Woodworking site with more helps guides for new woodworkers to get started or to build their hand skills if they have mostly or only used machine methods. To that end our recently posted how to’s and exercises includes the ever-important dovetail joint. As ever, you have all been so […]
My, my! I could hardly believe it. Finally settled buying the house for building the house-full-of-furniture venture; the next stage in our online teaching and training. On Friday I took the house keys from the previous owners and I couldn’t think of anything else but a dream is finally coming to pass! Walking around the […]
I wrote a blog post recently expressing my feeling that the spokeshave is a far more important tool than we might understand. If I can make it more understandable for you then that’s what I want to do because I cannot imagine my own woodworking life without one. We’ve had questions over the years about […]
Making your first tools A few years ago, almost two decades ago now, I offered a course in the USA where we made ten hand tools over a six-day period. We made a low-angle, bevel-up plane in hardwood, then a lovely layout knife with ebony scales, brass-riveted through an O1 steel blade duly hardened and […]
