The First Five Hand Tools to Buy
I spent forty years on-site and another ten in the classroom, and if there is one thing that gets my blood up, it’s the way modern shops try to sell you a solution in a plastic case. You walk into a big-box store and they want you to believe that you need a dozen different […]
Being a Good Neighbour With a Planer
I remember sitting in my garden back when I was still teaching at the college, watching a lad next door try to "fix" his noise problem by building a massive, expensive plywood enclosure around his router. It looked like a coffin, and it did nothing but make the whole thing vibrate like a tuning fork, […]
Putting an Edge Back on an Axe
I remember standing in a damp woodlot back in '84, watching a lad try to fell a decent piece of ash with a blunt, heavy axe. He was sweating, cursing, and swinging like a madman, but the wood just bruised instead of splitting. He thought he needed a bigger, more expensive tool, but the truth […]
Assessing Woodworm Before Treating It
I remember sitting in my workshop last Tuesday, staring at a Victorian chair that looked more like Swiss cheese than furniture. Most people will tell you that you need to blast it with chemical sprays or hide the mess under a thick layer of plastic filler, but that’s just a way to mask a problem […]
Rebuilding a Knocked Corner
I remember standing over a piece of seasoned oak in my workshop back in the nineties, staring at a corner that had been absolutely smashed by a heavy mallet. The young apprentice beside me immediately reached for a tub of pre-mixed wood filler and a sander, convinced that a bit of "plastic" would hide the […]