Workshop Electrics and the Rcd
I remember a lad I taught back in the college days, a bright enough boy, but he had this habit of daisy-chaining extension leads like he was stringing Christmas lights. He thought he was being clever, saving time by plugging one lead into another just to reach a router across the bench. Then came the […]
Biscuits, Dominos and Dowels Compared
I remember standing in a college workshop twenty years ago, watching a lad try to justify buying a top-of-the-line, computerized biscuit joiner that cost more than my first motor. He was reading a glossy brochure that promised "unmatched precision through digital calibration," but all I saw was a machine that would be a paperweight the […]
Silencing a Stair From Above
You’ll hear plenty of blokes telling you that the only way to fix a wobbling step is to go out and buy a heavy-duty impact driver and a box of expensive structural screws. They’ll have you tearing into the joists before you’ve even had your tea, making a mess that’ll cost you a fortune to […]
Jigsaw Blade Choice Decides Everything
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 tool reviews focus on nothing but flashy specs and motor wattage. You’ll see some lad on the internet telling you how to review a jigsaw based on how many lumens […]
Keeping Track of Hardware
I spent forty years on site and another ten in the classroom, and if there is one thing that drives me mad, it’s watching a young apprentice waste twenty minutes digging through a chaotic toolbox just to find a single brass butt hinge. You don't need some fancy, multi-tiered plastic gadgetry or a subscription to […]
Scribing Skirting to an Uneven Floor
Most people think that when they need to learn how to repair a skirting board, they’ll need to head down to the DIY shop and buy a whole new set of mdf strips and a heavy-duty orbital sander. They see a split corner or a dented edge and assume the only way forward is to […]
Raised Beds and Which Timber to Use
Most folks think you need a shed full of expensive power tools and a heavy-duty mitre saw just to get a garden project off the ground. They’ll spend half a morning wrestling with a noisy circular saw, fighting the grain and leaving splintered edges that look like they've been chewed by a dog. But if […]
A Screwdriver That Fits the Screw
I remember sitting in the workshop during my final year of apprenticeship, watching a lad try to force a screw into a piece of seasoned oak using a cheap, hollow-handled driver from a supermarket multipack. The tip stripped instantly, leaving him cursing and spinning a useless piece of metal in a ruined hole. It’s a […]
Sanders and the Dust Problem
I spent thirty years on-site and another ten in the classroom, and if there’s one thing that gets under my skin, it’s the way modern tool reviews feel like they were written by someone who’s never actually felt a grain of oak under their palm. Most of these online guides are just reading off a […]
Finding the Right Screw in Ten Seconds
I remember standing on a job site in '84, staring at a half-finished door frame while some lad scrambled through a plastic tub of mixed-up brass screws, looking for a single 30mm wood screw. The sun was going down, the sawdust was settling, and we were losing time because nobody knew how to organise fixings […]