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”
Many moons ago, my wife and I bought the house we live in now, from the estate of my great-aunt. It is a house that I have known all my life, although the old girl probably wouldn’t recognise it now.
A little while ago a friend popped in with some presents for me – three logs. One of apple, one of ash and a smaller one of acacia (myrtle). I had put word about that I was interested in some big lumps of seasoned hardwood to make a mallet from.
It was after watching these videos from Paul Sellers that I first became interested in making my own mallet. He uses oak in the videos, but I had read somewhere that apple was quite a traditional wood for mallet heads, so I decided to go with that. Continue reading “Joiners Mallet”
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.
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.
goatboys woodshop 