What to Check on a Used Plane
I spent forty years on site and another ten in the classroom, and if there’s one thing that gets my blood up, it’s the modern obsession with "new is better." You walk into a big-box retailer today and they try to sell you a plastic-bodied, battery-dependent piece of junk that’s designed to be replaced the […]
Hanging a Heavy Mirror Safely
You’ll see plenty of videos online claiming you need a high-end table saw and a dust extractor to get a clean finish, but that’s a load of rubbish. Most people think that how to build a mirror frame requires a workshop full of expensive, vibrating machinery, when the truth is that a bit of patience […]
A Sharpening Station You Will Use
I remember standing in my first workshop forty years ago, sweating over a dull chisel that felt more like a blunt wedge than a cutting tool. I was trying to force the steel through a piece of oak, fighting the grain and cursing the day I ever picked up a tool, when I realized the […]
Ten Minutes of Tidying Before You Stop
I spent thirty years on site and another ten in a college workshop, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you don’t need a fancy, multi-thousand-pound modular storage system to find your tools. Most of those catalogues try to sell you on the idea that organization is about buying more plastic bins, but […]
Restoring a Boot Sale Chisel
I was sitting at my bench last Tuesday, staring at a rusted piece of Sheffield steel I’d pulled from a junk bin, when a young lad from the college walked in. He was complaining about how his new, expensive set of chisels couldn't hold an edge to save their lives. I just shook my head. […]
A Dust Free Corner for Finishing
I spent thirty years watching young lads ruin a perfectly good piece of oak because they thought a high-speed orbital sander was a substitute for a clean workspace. They’d spend hours buffing a surface, only to watch a single speck of dust settle and turn their hard work into a grit-filled mess. Most people think […]
Cutting Mitres That Close
You don't need a massive, expensive table saw or a loud miter saw to get a clean corner; in fact, most of the time, those machines are just a way to hide a lack of patience. I remember one of my first apprentices trying to force a sloppy joint together with a pneumatic nailer, thinking […]
A Chair Leg That Broke Across the Grain
Most people think that if a chair leg is wobbling or snapped, they need to go hunting for a heavy-duty drill and a bag of expensive wood fillers to hide the mess. They treat it like a structural disaster that requires a power tool intervention. But let me tell you something I learned after forty […]
Closing a Gappy Dovetail Honestly
I remember sitting in the college workshop back in '88, watching a lad nearly weep because he’d cut a pin too thin on a cherry drawer front. He was convinced the piece was scrap, looking for some magic wood filler or a fancy epoxy to hide his mistake. That’s the lie they sell you nowadays—that […]
Rescuing a Mortice That Got Sloppy
I remember standing in a client’s hallway twenty years ago, watching a young lad try to fix a blown-out door frame with a handful of wood filler and a cordless drill. He was making a mess of it, turning a simple fix into a structural nightmare. People think that when a joint goes soft, you […]