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Sculptor crafting small figure under magnifying glass
Alexander Thomson October 5, 2024

Size matters

Peter Benson explores size and scale of carvings In this world where fashions seem to…

Woodturning a spindle on a lathe
Alexander Thomson October 4, 2024

Wax in Woodturning

Mark Palma looks at expanding the use of wax in woodturning. Wax has been used…

Furniture & Cabinetmaking

Wooden tool with screws and metal blade.

Mason and Housework

September 11, 2024

John Lloyd looks at a 15th-century technique that revolutionised furniture making. No, this has nothing to do with secret handshakes and aprons, this is the most important development in furniture construction. Not the combining of concrete, stainless steel and carbon fibre with multiple strips of wood and gallons of epoxy resin to create a curvaceous, multi-media extravaganza, and not the introduction of the Lamello ‘Zeta’ or CNC technology, although all of these are pretty impressive. No, the biggest and most impressive leap forward in the process of making furniture with wood must surely have been the, rather mundane sounding, ‘Framed-Panelling’ or ‘Frame & Panel’. Depressingly, along with just about every other clever furniture-making innovation used in this country, this new, earth-shattering technique, arrived from the continent; perhaps we were just saving our creative energies to stun everyone with the Industrial Revolution 400 years later. This big furniture breakthrough happened in

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Antique wooden sewing table with drawers and fabric pocket.

Looking for Clues

July 23, 2024

Derek Jones takes F&C to the sales for a quick lesson in dating It’s been a while coming but we’ve finally got round to launching an F&C account on Instagram aimed at topping up our regular published content with a more informal stream of tips, updates and general comment. It’s where you’ll find the occasional video clip relating to articles in the magazine and other snippets that, although valid, don’t always make the final cut. It’s also a place where you can comment and interact with other readers and yours truly more or less in real time. Time zones and other restrictions permitting! To get the most out of this feature you’ll need to open an account yourself and access the content via a smartphone or tablet. It just requires a valid email address and a password that you generate and only takes a couple of minutes. I’ve put this

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Woodcarving

Wooden bench vise on workbench

Making a Carving Vice

August 5, 2024

Mark Gough makes a carver’s vice that will be excellent in any workshop A good vice is an essential piece of workshop equipment for all woodworkers. This wooden vice is easy to make and robust enough for most carving projects – in fact, it can be scaled up for large sculpture work if required. This is undoubtedly the most used item in the workshop, so I have taken the opportunity to remake my old, substandard timber, vice, which I had for nearly 15 years and was getting quite battered, and document it as a self-build project for you, the reader, using a more suitable timber. I used European beech (Fagus sylvatica), but other suitable timbers would be Canadian hardrock maple (Acer saccharum), iroko (Milicia excels), or any sustainable, hard-wearing, close-grained hardwood.  The main and most important part of the project is the vice screw, so I have opted to use a

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Elderly man carving wood in a workshop.

Learning to Carve

June 21, 2024

Woodcarving reader, TimMcGinn shares his experiences and inspirations My introduction to woodcarving was an exhibition of a local woodcarving group’s works in the window of an antique shop in Odiham, North Hampshire. The group was led by Brian Leemans who invited me to come along to one of their weekly sessions in a local village hall. Brian, a former Head Forester at the Forestry Commission, had spent his lifetime in wood and woodcarving. He had been running the group for several years and they were all convivial company working on advanced pieces when I joined with two other novices. Brian’s skill and experience were soon very evident as we tackled our first woodcarving project – two dolphins using Flexcut knives and mahogany block shapes he had pre-cut. This was an excellent introduction to carving prudently and understanding the importance of the grain. The finished dolphins were then mounted on a

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Woodturning

Wooden spurtles and porridge with blueberries.

Kev Alviti gets stuck into this porridge stirrer project

July 19, 2024

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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Woodworking: person drilling hole in large wooden block.

Rough Turning and Finishing Bowls. Part 2

May 30, 2024

In the first article of this two-part series, I showed you how to take a piece of fresh timber and machine it into a blank ready for turning. Now we can continue with the process to produce a wonderfully finished bowl, graced with a certain elegance that can only come from natural wood grain. I will show how complete your bowl with various lathe attachment options, and how to dry it to avoid too much warping or cracking. So, dust off that lathe, and let’s get turning! Preparing the blanks for turning Natural edge Mounting the blanks onto the lathe is slightly different between natural edge and standard bowls. For a natural edge, I tend to create a flat on the natural edge face with a Forstner bit. This flat should be big enough to take a large four prong drive. Give the drive a couple of good taps into

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Woodworking Crafts

Person hiking near large tree in forest.

All About Lime

May 30, 2024

Gary Marshall takes a look at the lime tree, whose history lies back in ancient times. Think of a lime (Tilia vulgaris) tree and you may picture just one type. However, there are around 30 distinct species in the genus Tilia worldwide. They generally have telltale zigzag twigs and heart-shaped leaves. Limes range from the American basswood (Tilia americana) to the rare and lovely Tilia tuan from China, as well as many hybrids and cultivars. This article concerns three closely related types; the common lime – a hybrid (Tilia x vulgaris) and our British native trees – the small-leaved lime (Tilia cordata) and the large-leaved lime (Tilia platyphyllos). The common lime is a familiar tree in the British Isles; it’s a hybrid between the small-leaved and large-leaved limes and is best seen in an open parkland setting. It’s valued for its stately, tall form, for its bright, lime green leaves emerging in

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Wooden bench with lower shelf

How to Make a Bench

September 24, 2024

In this extract from Pocket Hole Joinery, Mark Edmundson makes a blanket bench with a handy shelf. The tops of benches always seem to accumulate stuff, so adding a shelf below this blanket bench should help to alleviate that problem. Adding the shelf also hides some pocket holes, so it’s a win-win as far as furniture details go. The benchtop planks are the biggest pieces required at 53⁄4in wide and 38in long, but the rest of the pieces are either narrow or short. The machining is basic, and it’s possible to build this bench with just a tablesaw, jigsaw, and pocket screw jig. A chopsaw or sliding crosscut sled to cut multiple parts to the same length would be helpful to ensure tight joints but is not essential. Overall, this is a very simple project for the beginning woodworker that illustrates how versatile pocket hole joinery can be. Stock preparation

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Latest Videos

Randy Maxey shares a project design he used to teach woodworking to local residents in El Salvador through the non-profit organization “Tools for Opportunity” ‪@toolsforopportunity7242‬ The simple design allowed the woodworkers to become familiar with power tools and woodworking design principles. It is a popular design that will not only look good in your home, but it serves an important function in keeping your outdoor gear handy and organised.

Further reading

How to Make a Bench

Every once in a while, someone comes up with a radical new method or tool that knocks tradition for a loop. Tooley Park scribes are a new take on a centuries-old method of scribing a workpiece. For example, fitting a cabinet filler strip against a wall that’s less than plumb and even. Or scribing an inset door to fit the cabinet opening precisely. Or scribing the bottom of a chair leg for cutting it to eliminate wobble. Many craftsmen and carpenters would use a compass or a crude shop-made tool to do the job. Tooley Park offers another option for scribing that is worth a look.

Further viewing

Hand Plane Anatomy

Stanley Bedrock planes were first introduced in the late 1800s. Their design is a little different, some say better, than conventional bench planes of the era. Randy Maxey disassembles the Bedrock plane to clean all the components before reassembly.

Learn more about Stanley Bedrock Hand Planes:
http://www.supertool.com/StanleyBG/stan15.htm
https://toolsforworkingwood.com/store/blog/1314

Stanley Bedrock hand planes were designed and manufactured to be different than conventional Bailey-style hand planes. But were Bedrock planes better than the common bench plane? Randy Maxey compares the two styles of hand planes and points out the differences between them.

These planes were first introduced in the late 1800s. Their design is a little different, some say better, than conventional bench planes of the era. Randy Maxey was fortunate enough to get his hands on a couple of Bedrock 605 bench planes when a technical school decided to get rid of them. After a few years in storage, he pulls one off the shelf to learn more about Bedrock planes and bring this old hand plane back to life in the workshop.

Further viewing

Stanley Bedrock 605 Bench Plane Restoration – Part 2:

Mortise and tenon joinery is time-proven and known for its strength. There are multiple methods for cutting tenons using power tools, hand tools, or a combination of the two. Randy Maxey shows you how to cut tenons accurately on the band saw.

Further viewing

Cleaning and Testing a DeWalt 735 Planer
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