Treasure Chest #1 – Stock prep and joinery

Whilst I was in the middle of the boat project, a friend approached me about commissioned a piece for his daughter’s birthday. The project had to wait a while because the deadline for the boat was looming, and I had a couple of other bits and pieces to finish up for a crafts fair, but as soon as I could I got started and that is what I have been doing for the last couple of weeks (as well as painting the house and cutting all the roadside hedges!) Continue reading “Treasure Chest #1 – Stock prep and joinery” →

July 1, 2016 5

To everything there is a season…

As predicted by a comment from George on my last post but one, I have been neglecting regular woodworking of late in favour of my new toy. Continue reading “To everything there is a season…” →

January 3, 2016 0

Bits and pieces

This post is a bit of a hodgepodge, just an update of what has been going on recently. First of all: The Biltong Slicer. I delivered it to my friend and it is fair to say that he was tickled pink. He says that he doesn’t want to use it because it’s too beautiful. That might be an overstatement on his part… Continue reading “Bits and pieces” →

June 3, 2015 0

Plane restoration #6 – Iron and cap iron

The iron and cap-iron cleaned up pretty well. There wasn’t a great deal of rust, just some patina, and that can stay as it does no harm.

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April 3, 2015 0

Sharpening #2

In my last post, I linked to a Paul Sellers video about recutting saw teeth. Near the end of the video he can be seen using a set of saw chocks, to clamp the saw plate at an easier height for working.

I decided that I would like to make a set of saw chocks for myself. I found this post on Paul’s blog, which gave the dimensions of his chocks, so I adapted the design a little and set to work.

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March 19, 2015 0

Re-cutting saw teeth

One of the hand saws that I bought from eBay was an old Disston rip cut saw. It arrived in pretty poor shape, but I hadn’t really paid anything for it, not much more than the postage really.

The teeth were all blunt and misshapen, and it was difficult to tell how many points per inch (ppi) it was. Needless to say, it couldn’t cut through a blancmange, let alone a piece of wood.

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March 19, 2015 0

Sharpening #1

When I was building my shed, it really was a predominantly power tool affair. With one exception. I decided that I would use a good old-fashioned chisel and mallet to chop out the notches for the noggins and studs. There must have been nearly two hundred of them. I needed to learn to sharpen my chisels.

All I had was the coarse/fine reversible oil stone and honing guide that came with my chisels, and that did the job nicely, a bit crude, but fine for the rough work I was doing in softwood.

Continue reading “Sharpening #1” →