Fine Dust and Whether a Filter Helps
I spent forty years in joinery shops, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that a shiny brochure is usually just a way to hide a mediocre product. Most people go online and get buried under a mountain of technical jargon and marketing fluff, trying to figure out how to review an air filtration […]
Bringing a Rusty Plane Back
I found an old Stanley plane at a car boot sale last Tuesday, buried under a layer of orange grit that looked more like dried mud than metal. Most folks would see that pitted surface and think it’s time for the scrap heap, or worse, they’d head straight for a heavy-duty grinder to sand the […]
Finishing Without Breathing It
I remember a lad I taught back at the college, a bright enough boy, but he thought he could just crack a window and call it a day while spraying lacquer. Halfway through the job, he was leaning against the workbench, face pale and eyes watering, looking like he’d gone ten rounds with a heavyweight. […]
Giving a Screw Something to Bite
I’ve spent forty years on site, and if there is one thing I’ve learned, it’s that most people try to fix mistakes by making them bigger. You’re standing there, a cordless driver screaming in your hand, forcing a screw into a hole that’s already given up the ghost, and all you’re doing is turning expensive […]
Storing Solvents Safely
I remember a lad I taught back in the college days who thought he could save a few quid by keeping his oils and spirits in a cardboard box in the corner of a damp, unheated shed. I can still smell that sour, rancid stench when he finally opened the tins—a complete waste of good […]
Shop Vacuums and the Hose Diameter Problem
I’ve spent forty years on site and another ten in the classroom, and if there’s one thing that gets my goat, it’s the way modern manufacturers try to sell you a dream wrapped in plastic. You’ll see these glossy brochures claiming a machine has "unrivaled suction power," but they never tell you if that motor […]
A Desk Sized to a Person
Most people think that if you want to build a proper piece of furniture, you need a workshop full of expensive, screaming power tools that'll leave your ears ringing and your lungs full of dust. They'll tell you that you can't possibly learn how to build a desk without a table saw or a heavy-duty […]
Comparing Two Extractors Fairly
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 most manufacturers love to hide behind fancy jargon. They’ll throw a dozen technical specifications at you—CFM ratings, micron levels, and high-tech digital displays—to make you think you’re buying a piece of precision engineering. […]
Stopping Rust in an Unheated Workshop
I remember sitting in my workshop back in the late nineties, staring at a set of Lie Nibbs chisels I’d spent a fortune on, only to find them pitted and orange after one particularly damp winter. It wasn't some fancy chemical failure; it was just neglect. People will try to sell you expensive, high-tech sprays […]
A Bed Frame You Can Dismantle
Most people think you need a workshop full of expensive, vibrating machinery and a mountain of sawdust to tackle a project like this, but they’ve got it all wrong. I spent years watching apprentices struggle with noisy, cheap power tools that only served to tear the grain and leave them frustrated. When I first learned […]