How to Make a Lectern
Michael T Collins makes an easily adjustable lectern. Dale Carnegie once said ‘there are always…
Submissions now open for the Mark Baker Woodturner of the Year Competition. Enter HERE for a chance to win prizes
Michael T Collins makes an easily adjustable lectern. Dale Carnegie once said ‘there are always…
In honour of our much missed and respected former Editor Mark Baker, we have launched…
Dave Western creates from scrapwood a killer whale that is based heavily on a dramatic form…
Ian Woodford shares some ideas for designing and making a nutcracker. Since the early days,…
John Lloyd looks at a 15th-century technique that revolutionised furniture making. No, this has nothing…
Michael T Collins makes a beautiful rustic-looking coffee table. I have long been a proponent of…
Paul Purnell makes a lye-shaped thumbstick. Following on from last month’s article on joining a…
As we transition from winter to spring, it seems only appropriate to move the workshop outside! This is, of course, highly impractical in almost all situations. Your table saw would likely sink into a hole. So why not make your own dedicated green woodworking area. There is nothing quite like shaving, spinning and carving amongst the buzzing of insects and fresh pastures of the spring. Gary Marshall explains what you need in terms of space to get going in woodland crafts. Although my own sphere of competence is woodland management, I have had plenty of contact with experienced green woodworkers. For many people it can be hard to know where to start this craft. So I thought I would approach it from a ‘dabbler’s’ and ‘occasional hobbyists’ point of view. Starting from basics You don’t need to own woodland to be a green woodworker, just access to ‘green’ wood, some working space
What you will need • 38mm twist bit or adjustable bit• Bow saw• Compass or dividers• Marking gauge• Cutting gauge• Chisel• Crosscut saw• Jack plane• Spokeshave• Coping saw• Rasp Tool tote exploded view Preparation Tool totes are traditionally made from pine (Pinus spp.) – a relatively cheap wood with the added benefit of being easy to work, long lasting and, as a softwood, less likely to damage tools. The most stable wood is quartersawn, where the wood is sawn radially out from the centre of a log, with annular rings running perpendicular to the board’s face. A good source for stable straight grain wood is especially flat 50 x 304mm construction timber. When picking your wood, look for boards that are cut close to the centre of the log. This tote will have one straight side and one sloping side and be made using 16mm boards for the ends and
I am going to demonstrate the techniques necessary to carve the human ear. Ears are arguably the most challenging facial detail to carve correctly – not because of any awkward or difficult detail per se, but because of the almost nondescript shape and the subtle variations of depths across their entire form. It is therefore essential to enlist the help of a willing model, who can sit with you at various stages of the work so that you have a real-life, 3D example to study, visually understand and re-create. I have also supplied the real-life images for this exercise, which will be of some help when your model is not available. Ear anatomy Before you start the carving exercise let’s take a look at the anatomy of the ear to break it down into its individual parts, which will help you to understand all of the various details that you will
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
As you contemplate your beautiful piece of timber and plan precisely how to cut with the least wastage, do you ever think of where your wood has come from? In what distant land has a potentially 200-year-old giant been felled to provide you with the materials for your hobby or career? Green tons Green tons are the measure of felled timber including its water content. By measuring the percentage of water content, it is thus possible to calculate the dry weight of the wood, otherwise selling on wet weight could be very misleading for end usage. Switching from hardwood to softwood In the UK, obtaining quality local wood is becoming increasingly difficult. Government data on forestry in the UK for the years 1976 to 2014 indicates that hardwoods declined in production from a total of 1,170 green tons in 1976 to only 532 in 2014, while softwood moved from 2,448
Arris: A arris is the term for a sharp edge on wood where two edges meet. It is common to sand this edge to make it less sharp. Awl: This is a pointy tool used for marking or drilling a small hole. Bevel: This is an angle on the edge of two meeting surfaces. On a piece of wood a bevel take the sharpness of the edge, on a chisel it allows the chisel to cut in nearer to surface. Bind: This is where a saw blade jams in the cut or kerf it has made, this happens when the set of the saw teeth is incorrect. Bit/cutter: A bit or cutter is a tool used in a spinning action such as a drill bit, a router cutter or a forstner bit. Blade: The main metal part of a tool. In the case of a saw it is the part that has the teeth, for a
In part one of a new project, Colwin Way makes a spice rack. As I’ve mentioned several times in previous projects, a lot of my inspiration comes from the people I visit or the people around me, and this month’s project is no exception. In 2001 I was very lucky to be invited down to Puy-Saint-Martin in southern France to demonstrate at a show organised by French woodturner Jean-Francois Escoulen. This was my first show in France and really the first time I was truly immersed in southern French culture, by which I mean stopping at 1pm for a three-hour lunch break in the full sun while tucking into paella served from the biggest paella dish I’d ever seen, plus being forced to take part in toasting the morning’s work with a glass of the local grape juice. Even though the demonstrating was hard and hot work, I still had
Amber Bailey offers a multi-layered approach to the restoration of a 19th-century lacquered panel. Several years ago, I was asked by a client to restore two 19th-century Japanese lacquer panels; they came with a variety of problems and, on completion, I swore never to work on lacquerware again. In reality, though, it was a matter of weeks before I was being handed them left, right and centre. They went from one of those things that I’d never before noticed to being everywhere I looked! As an art form, lacquerware is evident as far back as the 16th century, but pieces were rarely seen in the UK until the 19th century when an influx of lacquerware was imported into the country, mostly adorning dark and heavy wooden furniture. As interior designs have changed, however, these vast, imperial pieces have fallen out of fashion, and the lacquerware most frequently found today has been cut
