The extractor bags inflated in to life and the thicknesser whirled up in to action. My knees buckled, back groaned as I took hold and lifted up half a bench top. I eased it on to the table of the thicknesser and heard the familiar sound of the anti-kick back fingers...
Like any item designed to be used and then chucked, hardpoint saws are not the best type of tool to be promoting. But I did decide to use one throughout my workbench build. It was difficult to know what tooling to use in our video because I'm hoping that many people...
You may have noticed that we've been a little quiet on our blog over the past month or so, and this is because we've been spending a lot of time at the barns (no internet). I've been building my own English workbench, and as mentioned earlier, we've been filming along...
I am now fully committed to using a wooden screw in this workbench but oh... the temptation! I had Mr Arnold's beautiful old metal screw looking at me from across the workshop as I started to assemble the bench this morning, so I just had to poke it in! I'm very much...
It's certainly not an essential tool but if you ever come by an expansive auger it's definitely worth grabbing as they're a great get out of shite card in the workshop. I've had this one for years and its come in useful many times when drilling out for something a bit...
Thicknessing with hand planes might seem like a slog. It's certainly physical work, and if there's a lot of boards to thickness, then it could soon become a workout. But with the right technique, planing wood by hand should feel more like a nice brisk walk, than an...
A few weeks ago we had a phone call from our good friend Richard Arnold who had a little something which he wanted to offer to me and was able to come out our way. We don't get out much so we jumped at the chance and planned to meet up with Richard and his wife Kate...
I have the most hectic schedule at the moment, as soon as I finish one job there are at least a dozen waiting to be started. Once I've got Richard organised and given him any hand he might need with the benches there are emails to be sent, materials to order and...
I knocked myself up a couple of saw horses yesterday from some old bits of pine I found laying around in one of the barns. I've already been forgetting to take tools on my travels between the workshops so I didn't want to start carting saw horses around with me as...
As they say, it's not the size of it but how you use it that counts and that comes to mind when thinking of my new workbench, because I've opted to build it 12' long! I knew fairly quickly that I'd build my new workbench in the English style and I'd also been toying...
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Recently I wrote a post about why you don't need a tail vice on your workbench. now we're looking at the other end of the bench and going through my favourite options when it comes to choosing a face vice. What Do We Want From A Workbench Vice? A face vice should be...
Design is a balance between function and looks. It won't work if you focus too much on one and ignore the other. But if it involves both art and science, then surely design must be skill that only very few are capable of? The truth is, anyone can do design, and the...
I'm the most untraditional woodworker who came to traditional woodworking. I just can't stand wooden mallets. To get any sort of clump from them they have to be massive; these huge cumbersome things. And on top of that, they absorb everything. It doesn't matter how...