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Wooden bird sculpture on a bright background.
Alexander Thomson September 15, 2024

This week from the WWI

Firstly, welcome to the new Woodworkers Institute! It is still the same great resource of…

Wooden hand plane, spiral carvings
Alexander Thomson September 14, 2024

Stylised Killer Whale

Dave Western creates from scrapwood a killer whale that is based heavily on a dramatic form…

Rustic coffee table with open book and glasses
Alexander Thomson September 9, 2024

Rustic Coffee Table

Michael T Collins makes a beautiful rustic-looking coffee table. I have long been a proponent of…

Furniture & Cabinetmaking

Large tree with green and yellow autumn leaves in park.

Tree for Life – Oak

We decided to go looking for interesting and more obscure facts and useful working information on trees. Where better to start than the mighty oak? The words ‘hearts of oak’ stirs an impression of a tree that is strong and mighty and reliable, which indeed it is – but which oak are we talking about? Worldwide there are more than 270 species of oak excluding those we know of from pre-history! Here are the two most common types that you can find in the UK: English oak English oak or pendunculate oak (Quercus robur). This sometimes produces local variants as tiger oak (when quartersawn) or brown oak due to growing conditions. The wide spreading ‘field oak’ with a level underside to the leaf canopy where it has been grazed, is the quintessential image of an English meadow landscape. Sessile oak Sessile oak (Quercus petraea), like the English oak, is home

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Handwoven rattan stool on green lawn in garden.

How to Make a Woven Stool. Part 1

Lee Stoffer tells us how to make our own comfortable stool. Having a comfortable seat for carving is a must for me. I find a stool is the ideal solution. Being both strong and lightweight, this post and rung ash (Fraxinus excelsior) construction with a woven willow seat works really well for the job and makes for a great introduction to green wood chair making. I’ve used sections of a large 500mm diameter log as I was making a batch of frames. A 500mm long length of 200mm diameter straight, knot free ash should provide plenty of material for this project allowing for a few spare parts/mistakes. Select ash which has between four and 12 growth rings per inch. Oak (Quercus robur), maple (Acer spp.) or sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa) would make suitable alternatives to ash. Things you will need Stool exploded view Making the legs Post and rung stool

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Woodcarving

Intricate white flower sculpture on a red background.

Grinling Gibbons-Style Flower Festoon

Steve Bisco makes a lime wood foliage carving in the style of Grinling Gibbons. Grinling Gibbons’ projects are always popular with carvers who want to take on the challenge of a lime wood (Tilia vulgaris) foliage festoon. This project is composed of elements featured in the overmantel festoons of the King’s Apartments at Hampton Court Palace. Hampton Court was a favourite residence of Henry VIII, but its Tudor buildings were old and out of date. King William III decided that this palace, 13 miles from London, was safer from the Jacobite mobs who plagued his reign after he ousted James II in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. William set about building a large new baroque wing on to the old palace, fitted out in the current fashion with elaborate carved festoons decorating the state rooms, and there was only one man for the job – Grinling Gibbons, Master Carver to

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Carved wooden relief of Thoth writing

Sunken Relief Carving Project

Mark Gough carves an Egyptian style relief of the god ‘Thoth’ in spalted sycamore The idea for this article came from a book purchased many years ago titled Relief Woodcarving & Lettering by Ian Norbury, specifically from the chapter Egyptian Relief. The author explains the technique and supplies images to show examples, one of which is a relief carving of Osiris and Tutankhamun. The selected image for this carving is an adaptation of the god Thoth from a stone carving in Luxor. The basic technique for sunken or Egyptian relief requires the outline to be cut in with a V-tool and the inside edges rounded over and shaped to obtain the illusion of depth with the use of shadow. To obtain a deeper shadow effect here around the edge straight stop cuts are cut in with a knife. The smooth, sanded finish I have gone for avoids the reflection from

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Woodturning

Close-up of polished wooden chair with cloth.

Types of Wood Finishes

Andrew Thomas looks at using wood finishes Wood finishing is an important and extremely enjoyable skill to learn. If accomplished correctly, these processes greatly enhance the natural beauty of wood, and consequently, the overall attraction of the finished form. This is, of course, a very personal matter for which we all have our own individual preferences and favourites. Finishes also add a layer of protection that reduce moisture ingression, UV degradation, and to some extent, denting. In this article I will outline and demonstrate some of the finishes that are available to purchase, and evaluate their effectiveness for the purpose of application to woodcarvings and sculptures. There are literally dozens of prepared wood finishes available that are appropriate for woodcarvings and sculptures. These basically fall into the categories of; oil, wax polish and bleach. These can be traditional or modern formulations, with either a hard durable surface, or a softer less durable

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Handcrafted wooden containers with lids on display

How to Make Spice Pots

I hope you enjoyed the first part of our French inspired ‘leaning jar spice rack’. If you recall, the inspiration for this project came from a trip I had to the south of France on a woodturning excursion and a couple of pots I bought from French turner Thierry Martinon. In this issue we’re going to follow the original bit of inspiration very closely and make the pots to fit the rack, but also to make lids for our pots and include a small scoop. If you’ve kept up and finished the project so far you should have the rack made and experienced some offset turning and made some reusable offset jigs. As much as I enjoyed making the rack, it’s the pots where the real fun is and was the start of my vision when I first saw Thierry’s version all those years ago. As with all our other projects

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Woodworking Crafts

Woodworking tools and dovetail joint pieces on dark background.

The Modified Gottshall Joinery Exercise

Never heard of the ‘Gottshall Block Test’? It is an exercise for beginning woodworkers included in Making Antique Furniture Reproductions by Franklin H. Gottshall, a period furniture writer. The key value of this exercise lies in understanding that grain directions play a critical role in how you use a chisel. Your goal is to keep the chisel edge from digging in and splitting the wood. After teaching classes modelled after Gottshall’s exercise to woodworkers who are not beginners, I can safely say that the Gottshall exercise is a worthy pursuit for the average traditional woodworkers as well.  The modified exercise and the tools When I teach, I follow a slightly different approach from Gottshall’s as our focus is on the chisel. First, I replace the round and mitre corners with a tail (see diagram). Second, the only cutting tools we use are the handsaw and chisels – no drill or

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Hand carving geometric design on wood plank.

Getting Started with Chip Carving

Murray Taylor takes you from sharpening your knives to making your first triangular chip cut. I would like to take you through the process of sharpening, choosing your wood, carving positions, drawing a grid, and on to your first cuts. I have taught a lot of people the art of chip carving and the greatest difficulty they seem to have is getting to grips with sharpening. I hope to break this down into a series of logical steps and try to remove the feeling that it is a ‘black art’. What we are trying to achieve is a blade that tapers from the back edge to the cutting edge as a smooth taper, culminating in a fine micro-bevel. The sides of the blade and the bevel should be finished to a high polish such that, when drawn across the end grain of a piece of wood it cuts very easily

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