Another tool chest of a different kind I designed this joiner’s tool chest many years ago and though it follows something of a traditional pattern, I improved the design and designed it as more a training project because I wanted to include other important features people might want to learn from as they make it….
Upcoming workshops in the UK Soon I go over to the New Legacy UK for another month-long workshop. Both schools are working well and the last workshops of the year will be in the UK, which are full and overflowing so we may do an overspill for Foundation I there. If you were put off…
The chisel chops, splits and pares the wood in shapes a man knows but no one else understands and from his hands the shape he sees inside his mind’s reflective eye emerges from the pool of chips now swirled in frozen eddies on his bench top where he stops to take then make decisions from…
Watching, waiting for accuracy to emerge in each student varies. Some get it immediately, while others fall behind a little. One man moves rapidly, makes a mistake and recuts a whole piece, others just get it. Three-dimensional woodworking generates energy between the benches. The new successes translate into smiles, relaxation and often laughter. Everyone…
Finding the balance – a real perspective Often times presentations depicting former lives of woodworkers famed for their work are represented factually in a way that might seem more to leave a confusion of who they were and what they did, rather than clarity and true and thoughtful insight. Often statements are made to in…
With a full class of sixteen the questions come thick and fast throughout the day. Friendships form quickly and tool discussions start and stop minute by minute as cluster groups share glimpses of their personal planes and spokeshaves with one another. There’s a sort of joyous euphoria around each bench that at most stages of…
Seasons and seasonings change My day was filled in the “seasons of mists and mellow fruitfulness” October brings though not in my native England. Yes we had rain, but it was made the more lovely by visiting The Hancock Shaker Village again. My day off was spent on a return visit to the Hankcock Shaker…
Autumn comes with mists of mellow fruitfulness The class came to an abrupt end somehow and time slipped so quickly by. We all had dovetails Shaker candle boxes, made a Paul Sellers dovetail template in oak and learned how to make drawers using half-lap dovetails. I say it every time but it’s true. These classes…
The machine shop The workshops in New York were purpose built in two halves. Something I have always aimed for in my own life since the mid 1980’s. There is nothing unhealthy in a hand-tool-only workshop, but as soon as you introduce power equipment, hand held or stationary, that all changes. A lot of woodworkers…
It was as I said, eye opening first, inspiring second and dovetailing third. The first dovetails were really good, the second ones less perfect and then we started the boxes and we were on our way to discovery. Half boxes stood on the bench as we closed for the day and swept the floor. We…