I wrote recently on beech wood and spoke of what I might see and describe as more soulless methods of making in the sense and mix of it giving very little if any sensory feedback. It wasn’t to open a conversation so much as to try to explain why we hand-tool woodworkers handle our materials…
It’s still dark now as it’s just 6 a.m. I still do not feel nervous and that is because for several days I did and that’s over. I booked my taxi to the hospital for 6.30. It’s a 20-minute drive and I wanted a hedge as a margin for traffic or something else going wrong….
. . . . at least on the outside! Confronting doubts and fears can be for outward appearances when inside something is churning away and you’re not altogether sure why. I slept well, opened my eyes at my usual; 5.15 A.M. start to my day, but it wasn’t to be in my usual direction for…
I think sometimes, often, we fail to see the unionising of different joints, failing to devise our own types but then how best to combine them in projects. My research spanning six decades has taught me many things and especially with joinery. Principally, I always wanted to see inside furniture to understand, yes, how something…
Throughout history, making tools of all types has always been a part of many a woodworker’s life. The ones that were skilled enough to produce levels of excellence surpassing other woodworkers became tool makers. they established patterns of work and design that exemplified levels of refinement other woodworkers wanted. Instead of being just carpenters they…
It’s pouring with rain this morning but I rode my bike anyway. The forecast seems to me to be rarely very accurate and I am glad that this is something the scientists can only confirm what is mostly taking place and cannot influence future weather more than they think they can predict it. My cycling…
There really is no one measure-fits-all all wood types when it comes to its moisture content. Green wood in the tree at the point of severance from its root can vary between around 30 to 300 per cent depending on the wood or tree type, the location of moisture in the stem and the season…
. . . by their cover. My wood stacks come from long planks that needed straightening for joints before joints could be made. The joints rely on straight edges to two adjacent faces trued first by hand planes and opposite faces sawn parallel by saw and planed smooth too. This has been my way for…
I’m working, planing and thinking or is it the other way around? Attention in two tasks is always an alternating process and never truly bipartisan in that usually the ability to concentrate on two or more high-demand tasks soon obviates deferment one to other in measured exchanges according to priority. I switch between three planes…
Some tools are just plain simple. The very simplest looking of all and the most misunderstood in its complexities is the plate steel card scraper. This single-piece tool is misunderstood just as much by professional woodworkers who rarely ever use them even as long-term woodworkers as it is by those just being introduced to the…