My isolation has been both good and not so good. I often think that we have stopped listening and stopped most of the time; to the point that many if not most cannot stand the unsilence of silence. Because of course there is no such thing as silence, except for the totally deaf, it is…

When you have just made a window frame and the stile has eight mortises in it, it reflects much work. George and I had been making the frame together for a little over a week and when we were moving it off the bench it was too heavy for my skinny frame and I slipped…

One of the single most important aspects of my craft is listening to sounds that resonate from the wood as we work it. I have often said to my students ‘Listen to the thickness of the shaving!’ At first, they seem somewhat bemused by the statement but once shown they get it. After many years…

I don’t do this usually, but I did send it back. Don’t judge a book by its cover! This book is a way of just printing money. Someone interested in Shoji screen panels for dividers, doors and window lites might buy it in the hope of being inspired but the reality is the most unimaginative…

Mondays roll around to keep Paul forever on his toes and I am planning on the chamfer plane prototype today in readiness for as early a release as possible. I also have my next project prototyped for filming this coming Wednesday and I think I have brought everything together to make a basic shoji screen…

I’ve shared many times on this issue, even if the word is slightly different. Many say there is no such thing as truth but of course, there is! Truth, in fact, literal fact, is everything! In my working with wood I have earned that any compromise with regards to veracity means I leave something behind…

Noun or adjective, fitting works, and, well, no it’s not woodworking, but someone has to do it. Fit them I mean. I put one of these on the doors to create a hands-free door and found that they work so well I wanted them on all the doors. They do take a while to stop…

My wood seems such a solid thing when all else seems to shake. Perhaps it’s not so, but I rely on it more than most and see it as that more than most, I think. These past two months of lockdown seem to have changed the world we once felt more solid about. People search…

Some of my fondest days have been spent in wild places where few men trod, cowboys rode on paints and cattle roamed vast tracts of ranch land. I watched a roadrunner lift a rattler, spin it in midair and kill it in a single move with it pointed beak. A wild boar with three-inch tusks…

It’s time for another Q&A session and this time it is live! We want to do these more regularly so we’ve decided to have a ‘theme’ each time, to focus on one topic. This week our Q&A will be on wood preparation. Thank you if you sent in your questions and I will do my…