At Christmas time we tend to escape from going to work as a sort of midwinter respite period of recovery from all the world has thrown at us. It can be a sort of long weekend of sorts, where we extend the usual weekly breaks to spend extra time with family and friends in a…

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…

A spatula held in the vise came from a small, angular, rectangle of thin wood salvaged from some cabinet doors made of elm. The doors I garnered were just scrapped and about to be tossed in a skip at the National Trust’s Penrhyn Castle in North Wales. My workshop, used to be there in the…

I don’t do this very often but some of you may not be members of my Woodworking Masterclasses and you might just miss this one. Some projects just grab me and this was one of them especially. I don’t copy the designs of others, ever, and this one is totally mine too. I wanted something…

Working on a new project this past week made the week pass all too quickly. Chopping mortise holes and cutting tenons, ploughing out grooves in oak and then surface planing the stuff from bandsawn cuts left me well exercised yesterday with no complaints fitness wise. If I was at all tired it was trying out…

I remember feeling down when I climbed through the latch gate at the workshop that morning. I’m not a sad person but my boxer dog had died in the night, from old age. No more Bingo. I missed his early morning walks first thing and his ready and steady welcoming when he lifted himself from…

It seems to me a universal problem with hand tools. I don’t really know who owns who these days. I don’t know who’s out there that might have been involved in making these. I do know that they should all be ashamed. No country seems to be exempt from the demise but as it is…

…or could it be? Think composition and the one-line from a four-line poem that succinctly says a thousand things at once. It’s taken deepness in the processing where the image captured speaks from a handful of words. It’s not a common thing to find such treasure above jewels and precious metals; not one wasted word…

I have to build another shed, a garden shed. I’m building this one in two parts, Part I is the actual garden tool shed, for tools and compost, plant pots and seed trays; It’s important I be ready for the new gardening season. Part II is a compact lean-to greenhouse for starting my vegetable plants…

And they do come around quickly, don’t they? I have been interested to share my future with you all for a number of years. My future reflects on the lived life of my past as a woodworker working full time for five and half decades so far. In some ways my past ties in with…