As we’re always writing about workbenches we thought it’d be a good change to take a look at a piece of furniture. I’m just working on the design of a small cupboard that Richard will be building shortly and it seems like a nice little piece to go through with you in some detail. Like much of our furniture it will have a medieval feel although it is by no means a replica, the timber will be quarter sawn oak and our blacksmith is on with our bespoke hand forged hardware which should really finish it off.
We’re always eager to promote good old traditional woodworking skill in fact its an ambition of ours to be able to provide some kind of education in traditional woodwork; without a means for these skills to be learnt they can only dwindle away and be forgotten. There are many individuals doing a fantastic job of this already but our aim would be to focus on keeping the learning accessible and enjoyable by presenting it here on our blog. We’re looking to get set up with a camcorder so that once we get stuck in to the cupboard build we can document and share some of the methods used. The construction is intentionally simple so we can use this build to focus on some of the more essential skills such as timber preparation and some very basic joinery. If all goes well we’d love to follow it up with various other builds in the future.
Keen to see progress on this – seems to me very little being handmade in this style/period at all.
And you are lucky to have a decent blacksmith – they are none too common either!
I’ve visited many blog sites and I have to say this is the best I’ve seen I actually feel like I’m watching Paul Sellers work. Good on ya mate for keeping the tradition alive and for all your hard effort you put into this site.