Workshop Jobs for OctoberNew!!
I remember a particularly bitter January back in my teaching days when I walked into the college workshop and felt the dampness settle right into my bones. My fingers were so stiff I could barely hold a marking gauge, let alone a chisel, and the condensation on the metal surfaces was thick enough to ruin […]
Five Free Improvements to a Workshop
I spent forty years on site and another ten in a college workshop, and if there is one thing that gets my goat, it is the modern obsession with "upgrading." I see lads walking into the trade shops every week, eyes glazed over, looking for the latest cordless kit or some fancy-pants vacuum system they […]
Setting Up a Workshop in Three Phases
I’ve lost count of how many young lads I’ve seen walk into a hardware store, eyes glazed over by the bright packaging, ready to drop three grand on a suite of cordless tools that’ll be obsolete in five years. They think a big bank balance is the same thing as a proper workshop, but they’re […]
Teaching the First Hour
I remember standing in the workshop back at the college, watching a lad try to force a blunt chisel through a piece of seasoned oak. The wood wasn't yielding, his face was turning a bright, dangerous shade of red, and I could see his grip tightening in a way that usually precedes a slip. Most […]
Signing Someone Off on a Machine
I spent ten years in the FE college classrooms, and if there is one thing that gets my blood up, it’s seeing a supervisor hand a green apprentice a thick binder of safety regulations and a clipboard, then walk away. That isn't training; it's just passing the buck. If you think you can tick a […]
Running a Workshop Other People Use
Most people think that if you want to start a maker space, you just need to buy a load of expensive, shiny power tools and plug them into a heavy-duty circuit. They’re dead wrong. I’ve seen community projects crumble in a month because they focused on the noise rather than the discipline. If you're trying […]
Costing a Job Including Your Hours
I spent forty years on site and another ten in the classroom, and if there’s one thing that grates on my nerves more than a dull chisel, it’s the way people treat their own labor. I see young lads and even seasoned makers getting tangled up in expensive software and "consultant" jargon, trying to find […]
Photographing Work Before It Leaves
I remember sitting in my workshop back in '94, staring at a pile of mismatched timber and a stack of coffee-stained scraps of paper that were supposed to be my plan. I’d spent three days on a bespoke sideboard, only to realize I’d miscalculated the mortise depth because I couldn't find my original measurements. It […]
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, […]
Standing on Concrete All Day
I remember standing in a lad's new garage back in the nineties, watching him struggle to set up a marking gauge because his floor was nothing but uneven, cracked concrete covered in a layer of cheap, decorative epoxy. He’d spent a fortune trying to make it look like a showroom, but the moment he dropped […]