I hope that you can join us and that you do get the picture that we pass on skills and techniques for free through some of our Woodworking Masterclasses online. Go to our online broadcast here and then hit the appropriate button to simply register at no cost and then go to the free videos…
Paul, I just wanted to say a big thank you for the wonderful weekend course at Penhryn castle. The time went so quickly and it was informative, relaxing and thoroughly enjoyable. I loved your approach to the course and your views on life in general. Much of what you said can be easily transferred to…
Yesterday’s first day Yesterday was the first actual workshop workshop of the year and it was made all the better by the fact that we has a classful of people set on asking questions and listening to one another. The hardest questions to answer are the once never asked. How often do we sit there…
I want to revisit something that proved interesting throughout my tour in the US these past three months. I asked attendees at each seminar what angle we grind our chisel and plane bevels to and everyone said 25-degrees. I then asked what angle do we hone them to? The answer was a resounding “30-degrees” and…
Briefly. In answer to the question, why I prefer a #7 35mm gouge over a hand scorp or hook knife, it’s dead simple really. Whereas knives and scorps do similar and sometimes the same work, they are designed for different action, presentation and even wood types, I think. This gouge cuts a spoon in a…
I saved one of the highlights of my US tour until it was current and available. Atlanta Georgia was a wonderful experience for many reasons and as you know I loved visiting Highland Hardware and putting faces to the names of friendly people I had come to know at the end of a phone line…
Young people get going It’s been some time since I posted on my thoughts and feelings about people I have come to know, like Matt, a London Barrister who impressed me with his skills and tenacity with hand tools as he progressed his life to become. He loved his work in the world of law,…
This weekend is the first hands-on workshop of the season. The class is full and it’s nice to be in a fixed location after three months teaching on the USA tour. I still miss my US friends though. The mountains are looking lovely above the castle. Opening-skills workshops continue to increase across the continents and…
Bandsaw beaders with hook Bandsaw blades may sometimes seem a waste of good steel and indeed as an apprentice 45-50 years ago, we used to send them away to be sharpened many times over. Today they are all discarded for meltdown and that’s fine as the steel bands themselves degrade and become weak and tend…
I thought you might like these Here stand three generations of shoulder planes. The first one is a sand-cast model ‘stuffed’ with some figured mahogany and the owner of this used an old blade reground to fit into the body. It works very well with the tap-adjust method used on pre-adjuster planes, and feels surprisingly…