Two owls call to one another as I unlock the door to the garage. The news powers up in homes around the country to tell of a drone attack that sadly and wrongly killed ten innocent people, including children, and we are all filled with a pang of sadness for the losses of life in …
Should planes arrive sharp and ready to go or are we expecting something that is really of little if any consequence? Well, our expectations have changed a little. It’s true, at one time no one expected any woodworking hand tool to arrive with a refined, surgically sharp bevel to the edges. Beyond a coarse grinding …
A week or so back I said that for around £200 you could buy the tools to make the cabinet I had just built (above). Someone commented and suggested it would be nearer four times that much and that for that you could buy a nice machine, or words to that effect. It really made …
I looked down at my latest design I just finished for Sellers’ Home. It’s the fourth piece this year, aside from all the other things I have been developing and working on. This one took some working through but how it ended up is exactly what I both wanted and needed. I calculate that outside …
When my hands ache from working, I remember the opening days entering the workshop to my apprenticeship and using hammers and mallets that gave me my first blisters. Not having worked more than an hour or two a week with my hands in school, they were indeed unprepared for eight hours of hammering and banging, …
It’s Katrina (Paul’s daughter in law). The builders are nearly finished with the dining room/kitchen and Paul is starting to think about the furniture he will be designing for Sellers Home. We want to know if you have a dining room, how you use your dining room and what you have in your dining room …
I have written my book on Essential Woodworking Hand Tools and left some tools out because owning every tool in the world is mostly unnecessary and especially is this so for new woodworkers who often turn the pages of catalogs and find themselves bewildered. Of course, we should be able to believe that every tool …
…for now! Over the weekend the new kitchen dining room that is now more a family hub came into use and for me it’s time to consider designs to develop as new furniture pieces to be made over the coming months and years. After three months of wall removal, foundation digging and rebuilding to create …
I have a few thoughts about tools like planes. We often think that we see the whole and when we do we can fail to continue searching for answers and often miss the point. Planes are the troublesome entity in the tools of woodworkers that often seem too unpredictable and awkward to use in the …
Hey Paul, I have been slowly going through some of your older videos and posts on here, and I’ve learned a lot (as I do from all the material you post). I have noticed in older posts and videos that you would be seen to use a greater variety of tools than you do in …
on Restoring the Jack . . . Plane SpeakingI started working with hand tools about two years ago. I've thoroughly enjoyed getting pre WW2 Stanley planes and working them into shape. I found some pretty good deals because I…
on It’s dark when I arrivePaul you are as eloquent a writer as you are a craftsman. your blog post actually made me sad. I 've yearned for years to experience being totally immersed in this wonderful craft.…
on Considering the costIf your charity extends that far try Tools with a Mission, Workaid or others on Google. That's for the UK but I am sure Google can help in other countries.
on Restoring the Jack . . . Plane SpeakingNo, Kobalt brand. From Lowes. Was my first plane. I didn't know any better and I think I paid $50 USD for it. I tried, I really did, but I eventually had to give up on it. Almost m… on Restoring the Jack . . . Plane SpeakingOh, not at all. More if you have that $10 throw away knife and it is dull and happen to have a belt sander of some type it is worth a try before tossing them in the garbage. Better…
on Restoring the Jack . . . Plane SpeakingWell, whereas it saddens me that your one bad experience can discolour the whole for those who could never afford a premium plane they really don't need in the first place and peop…
on It’s dark when I arrivePaul, I have similar thoughts as I see so much madness in the world, I think about a quote from the Apostle Paul to the Galatians; “For you were called to freedom, brethren; only d…