A Potting Bench for Standing Work
Most people think you need a shed full of noisy, expensive power tools just to figure out how to build a potting bench. They'll point you toward a circular saw and a cordless drill, promising you'll be done in an hour, but they're selling you a headache. I remember a young lad in my college […]
A Garden Arch That Survives Wind
Most folks think you need a shed full of expensive, noisy power tools and a pile of pre-cut timber to get a decent garden feature standing. They see those flimsy, mass-produced kits in the big-box stores and think that’s the only way to go. But if you ask me, that’s a shortcut to a headache. […]
Clamping Something With No Flat Faces
I’ve spent more hours than I care to count staring down a piece of timber that simply refused to behave, usually while a massive, expensive power clamp sat uselessly on my bench. Most blokes think the answer to a wonky joint is to just buy a bigger, more expensive machine, but that’s a load of […]
Reviewing a Tool You Are Attached to
I spent thirty years on site and another ten in the classroom, and if there’s one thing that gets my blood boiling, it’s the way people talk about gear these days. You go online and see these "experts" unboxing a brand-new chisel or a cordless drill, talking about the weight and the finish like they’ve […]
Writing About a Tool That Was Bad
I remember sitting at my workbench last Tuesday, staring at a new set of chisels that cost more than my first car but couldn't slice through a piece of soft pine without tearing the grain. It’s enough to make you want to throw the whole lot in the scrap bin. Most people online will just […]
Finding Timber That Matches a 1930s Piece
I’ve spent forty years watching people walk into a timber yard and spend a fortune on expensive stains and chemical aging kits, thinking that’s the secret to how to match old timber. It’s a bloody joke. They spend three days layering tinted varnishes only to end up with something that looks like a plastic imitation […]
Reading Grain Before You Plane
I remember standing in a workshop back in the eighties, watching a young apprentice try to force a plane through a piece of oak. He was sweating, leaning his whole weight into it, while the wood just tore itself apart in jagged, ugly chunks. He thought he needed a bigger motor or a heavier machine, […]
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 […]
Matching a Finish on a Test Piece
I remember a young lad in my college workshop, years ago, who thought he could solve a repair by slapping a fresh coat of modern polyurethane over a Victorian sideboard. He spent three hours with a machine, only to end up with a patch that looked like a brightly coloured bruise on an old man's […]
A Timber Rack That Holds the Load
I spent forty years on site and another ten in the classroom, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that a messy workshop is a slow workshop. You’ll see folks buying these expensive, pre-fabricated plastic organizers from the big-box stores, thinking they’ve solved their problem. They haven't. Most of that rubbish is made of […]