[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSlIDYR4xWE] Here's some footage that I took a few weeks ago when we first received our video camera and it makes a nice demonstration of our new 'Little John' workbench. We had an hour to spare and though Richard was in...
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The Wheelwright
There’s no doubt that some crafts are easier to keep alive than others and the art of Wheelwrighting strikes me as one that would fall pretty low on the popular past times list. Working outside is enough to put most people off and you have to question if all that fire...
The Little John – Small Hand Tool Workbench
Our latest small woodworking bench has now been named and is ready to step out in to the big bad world. We introduced The ‘Little John’ last month and if you haven’t seen it yet you can catch up with that post here. After taking this compact 5' workbench along to the...
Prague Marionettes at the EWS
Woodworking is a practical skill so it’s always been needed for our very basic home comforts; roofs, doors and furniture etc. But wood is such a versatile material and there’s often an additional artistic element there that’s designed in or perhaps even left...
Making the Past our Future
Since completing work on the Wadkin cross cut saw we’re beginning to wonder how we ever got by making workbenches without it. Despite it’s age it’s got to be the most dependable machine that we’ve ever owned and whatever we throw at it gets cut fast, clean and...
Workbench Designs
A workbench should be heavy, very heavy. So I build a lot of benches with good thick 4” tops and simple but robust bases. Now a days we tend to call this the French bench, mainly due to recent trends in workbench designs. I don’t think the evolution of workbench...
18th Century Cornice Plane (Video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7qGISLyCDs&feature=youtu.be We had a great time at the recent European Woodworking show and have a few snippets to share with you over the coming weeks. My favourite moment was trying out an antique moulding plane brought along by...
Does it Hold?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI38vYEYOe0&feature=youtu.be We’ve had a great response with the Pin less leg vice over the past couple of years and customers always seem to be impressed at how simple and powerful it is in use. I also receive a lot of enquiries...
The Blacksmith
Following up from yesterday’s post on our cupboard hardware - we’ve had a few emails enquiring about the blacksmith who made the pieces so I felt it would be worth providing a bit of background. James Kendrew is an apprentice trained blacksmith and so continues the...
Medieval Cupboard – The Hardware
We had a lovely surprise today when we found out that the hardware for our cupboard had been completed early. To be honest that’s an understatement, unwrapping each piece was definitely more exciting than Christmas. I was fairly anxious because I knew exactly how I...
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Dictates. And I Like it.
I've wittered quite a bit before about about my troubles with goblin hands and small knobs. In particular, plane handles. Normally anything that trys to be a handle makes a rubbish handle, and as a rule the most un-restrictive handles make for the best. A wooden...
ECE Hand Plane Review
We don't do many reviews. That's because I'm human and that makes me biased. But sometimes, something comes along that's quite special, it's then that I find it hard to shut up. I discovered this hand plane when looking at commercially made frame saw blades for some...
Prototyping. Yay or Nay?
For most pieces I don't prototype. It's something that often isn't necessary or which time has not been allocated for. So normally I isolate prototyping to areas that I consider to be particularly troublesome or unusual, and make a mock up of those bits alone so I can...