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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…

Furniture & Cabinetmaking

Woodworking tools and wooden box on workshop bench.

Making a Japanese-Style Box

Vic Tesolin takes you through the building of a tool box design that is millennia old. I’m a believer in the axiom, ‘A place for everything and everything in its place’. This couldn’t be truer when it comes to my woodworking tools. Not only does this keep your space organised but it keeps your precious tools safe too. You also spend less time searching for tools when you are in the throes of a build. The Japanese certainly understood this and their tool boxes are a testament to that. With their simple designs and easy building techniques, these boxes make great storage solutions. You can make them big or small, fancy or spare. Either way, you will have a classy home for your tools. The one in this article is on the large size designed with Western tools in mind. The traditional material for this tool box is softwood –

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Three woven rustic stools on green lawn.

How to Make a Woven Stool. Part 2

Lee Stoffer weaves the seat for his stool. To ensure the seat weave was of the highest standard, I visited my friend and basket maker extraordinaire, Martin Hazell. He’s developed his own method for chair seating with willow, which is reasonably simple to achieve, incredibly strong and comfortable. The finished stool should give many years of reliable service. Martin has a 15-year-old example that is still in great condition with regular use. You can also modify the frame, adding stretchers to give extra support to taller versions if you wish. Further reading

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Woodcarving

Woodturning on a lathe with chisel in hand.

Natural Edge Work. Part 1

Richard Findley tackles natural edge work. What is natural edge work? Natural edge work, sometimes called live edge, refers to turning where the bark or the natural profile of the outer edge of the tree is visible on the finished item. The only natural edge work I’ve ever done is turning yew (Taxus baccata) mushrooms, leaving a ring of bark around the foot and edge of the cap, but I have never tried anything bigger. As I’m sure most readers will be aware, there are two ways of mounting any piece of timber on a lathe, either in a spindle type orientation, where the grain runs with the bed bars of the lathe, or cross grain, where the grain runs across the bed bars. In both cases, natural edge vessels can be turned. The editor challenged me to make something natural edged in both orientations. Challenge set, I went to

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Woodturning lathe carving wood, creating wood shavings.

Tips on Using the Skew Chisel

Kurt Hertzog talks about the skew chisel. Of the many tools in a woodturner’s kit, the skew chisel alone usually falls into the love or hate category. Few woodturners are neutral on the tool. The classically trained tradesmen learn the power and versatility of the tool and it is often their ‘go-to’ tool for nearly all of their spindle work. The self-taught turner usually struggles with the skew chisel and, without some outside guidance or supreme perseverance, will rarely master the tool. Others who have had guidance during their learning will usually learn effective use of the tool provided their instructor is proficient with the tool. It is beyond the scope of this article to teach you how to use the skew chisel, but I’ll share a few of the ‘rules’ that have helped me. If you haven’t truly mastered the skew, read on to see if we can take

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Woodturning

Wooden spurtles and porridge with blueberries.

Kev Alviti gets stuck into this porridge stirrer project

I often joke that I run on oats. All through the cold months of winter, I look forward to my warm bowl of porridge on dark mornings, before I go out to trudge through the mud to feed the animals. It’s also the first thing my children could cook from scratch unaided. They have their chores in the morning and to have them empty the dishwasher and cook (my) breakfast is always a good start to the day, for meat least… When they cook the porridge, the children use a spurtle, sometimes called a porridge spoon. In essence, it’s a shaped stick to stir the porridge with, said to cause less clumping than a spoon as the cooked oats won’t easily stick to it. Spurtles have been in use for generations in the UK, particularly in Scotland where they are said to originate, and can still be found in many

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Hand-painted wooden bowl with colorful intricate design.

Colour, Creativity and Whimsey

Guest editor Andy Coates interviews artistic woodturner Tic Challis Tic Challis is an artist and woodturner living and working in Suffolk, UK. I first came across Tic many years ago while demonstrating at the club of which she was (and still is) a member. Tic had an example of her incredibly intricate and detailed pyrography on display, a platter if my memory serves, and it was breathtaking. As a long-time fan of pyrography, it was wonderful to see. Over the years Tic has developed her woodturning skills, now demonstrates at clubs around the country, and often attends events and trade shows with Woodart Supplies owner John Woods. Tic’s work is impossible to ignore; it is creative, colourful, whimsical, and often wild, and for me at least, never fails to bring a smile. Woodturning does not always play a part in Tic’s work but seems to have become the canvas she

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Woodworking Crafts

Hand-carved wooden mouse on wooden surface.

Carving a Mouse

Looking for a fun woodcarving project for the weekend? Johan Roudy carves a ready-to-leap mouse that perches neatly on any 90° corner. This precarious pet makes a fun little feature to place around your house, or to give as a gift to a friend or family member. A few basics This mouse is a fun project to carve. The base is left during almost all the carving process to allow the piece to be clamped on the bench more easily. Once the carving is done, it is carefully cut so that the mouse can rest, for example, on the edge of a shelf – as if being pursued by a fervent cat. My Japanese saw was quite handy for that step. A clean and accurate cut can be achieved both along and across the grain. It is important to carve the body large enough compared to the head to achieve

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Rustic coffee table with open book and glasses

Rustic Coffee Table

Michael T Collins makes a beautiful rustic-looking coffee table. I have long been a proponent of recycling wood and when a friend of mine said they wanted a rustic coffee table I jumped at the chance. I got to use some reclaimed barn boards to craft a new coffee table. Cut listTop – three boards make a 45 x 610 x 997mm topEdging – enough to frame the topEnd rails – 2 @ 441 x 125 x 38mmFront rail (drawer) – 1 @ 832 x 150 x 38mmBack rail – 1 @ 1010 x 125 x 38mmLegs @ 4 (see profile diagram)Drawer guide – 610 x 20mm oak dowelDrawer bottom – 10mm x drawer depthDrawer sides – 70mm x drawer depth Making the top Planing the top Jointing the boards Glue up The legs Adding the drawer Glue up Making the drawer The drawer bottom Attaching the top The finish Further

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