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Wooden automaton figure using a lathe.
Automaton - The Pole Lathe Turner
Colwin Way takes the mechanism made by Richard Findley and adds his woodturner automaton...
Woodturning
13
Feb
Elegant wooden chair with carved details.
Smoker's Bow Windsor Chair
Colwin Way Turns a Traditional Chair from Ash As a professional woodturner, I find...
Furniture & Cabinetmaking
12
Feb
Man working vintage log splitting machine outdoors.
The Woodland Resource
Wood, a material from trees, grown by the energy of the sun, is the beginning of...
Woodworking Crafts
11
Feb
Illustration of a traditional yurt with trees.
How to Make a Yurt
For centuries, the yurt has been the portable home of choice throughout central Asia....
Woodworking Crafts
10
Feb
Wooden bird sculpture flying elegantly
The Albatross
Peter Benson carves a large sea bird on the wing The wandering albatross and other...
Woodcarving
10
Feb

Furniture & Cabinetmaking

Ornate commode table and candle stands, 18th-century design illustration.

Insta Chippendale’s Director

May 30, 2024

Steve Bisco looks at the man and the book that transformed 18th-century cabinetmaking and carved ornament. This year sees the 300th anniversary of the birth of one of the greatest names in woodworking history – Thomas Chippendale. He was born in Otley, Yorkshire in June 1718, the son of a cabinetmaker. As he grew up he became a cabinetmaker himself, and also a master carver of outstanding talent. By the age of 31 he was living in London and in 1754. At the age of 36, he had set up his business at 60-62 St Martin’s Lane, near where Leicester Square Underground Station is today. The outstanding quality of his furniture, mirrors and other items, and their extraordinary carved ornament, earned him a high reputation among the grandees of the early Georgian era. Orders flooded in from dukes and duchesses and all ranks of the aristocracy. Chippendale set up the

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Wooden cabinet construction in workshop with clamps and tools.

Work Smarter

May 30, 2024

How often do you wish there was a better way to do something? We show you easier ways to get things done. Sub-assemblies If you are trying to put a project together, you start with a design – maybe just a sketch – then make all the components, a dry assembly after that – hopefully you don’t skip that all important step and finally glue up. That is the most stressful time of all, especially if it is a complicated piece of work. It is the time to be left alone, unless you need another pair of hands with absolutely no interruptions. Unfortunately, with glue oozing out, an assortment of parts and a lack of enough clamps of the right size, it can all go horribly wrong. So, let’s go through the process to get it better. Thinking it through At the design stage, try and consider how your great

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Woodcarving

Close-up view of sharp knife tip.

Sharpening Theory

November 30, 2024

Nic Westermann demystifies sharpening carving knives and chisels A few years back the (now ex) MP Ann Widdecombe appeared on a TV series having lost a large amount of weight. Sensing blood or money in the water, publishing houses circled trying to persuade her to write a book on her dieting secrets. In typical style she said that it would be pointless as the book would contain only two instructions: ‘Eat less, exercise more.’ Sharpening is the same. There is a massive amount of seemingly conflicting literature on the subject but the basic principles are very simple and can be distilled to just two, very simple points. Firstly, you need to cut the bevels to the right basic shape, the form of these bevels being dependent on the tool. This is best done using a coarse grit, especially if reshaping of the bevel form is needed. Secondly, you need to

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Ancient yew tree in sunlight

Tree for Life – The Yew

August 7, 2024

We look at a tree that is often seen as just ancient and venerable. The typical place to find an old, wide, open-trunked yew (Taxus baccata) with expansive branches that drop red fruits all over the ground, is a churchyard. But there is a lot more to the yew than just an imposing presence among the gravestones. Trees generally can live 400–600 years, but exceptional examples have been claimed to have an age of up to 2000 years old. English or European yew The English yew is one of a family of species Taxus that exists in various parts of the world. The word ‘yew’ has ancient European origins and while ‘baccata’ is Latin for red berries, it is in fact an evergreen softwood. This tree has long been part of mythology and folklore and seems to echo an ancient time, especially as so many are found located in churchyards. Nowadays it

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Woodturning

Turning wood on a lathe machine.

All About Hollowing Rigs. Part 1

May 30, 2024

There are many ways to create hollow woodturnings, ranging from the very traditional gouges to some of the more modern implementations of carbide cutters. With that said, what tools are used is dictated mostly by the types and depths of hollowing being done. A bowl is a hollow turning as much as a lidded box – it has a different aspect ratio, but it is certainly a hollowing. For the most part, hollowing of those types of items is pretty straightforward and is accomplished using the standard woodturning tools. What about far deeper hollowed forms such as vases, urns and the like? In this two-part series on hollowing, I will take a detailed look into some of the techniques and tools available for clear out cavities for a woodturning project. For those who already own a hollowing system, you might pick up a few tips on setup, but we’ll mainly

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Hand spraying aerosol can with fine mist.

Oils, Wax & Grease – Lubricants and Rust Protection

May 30, 2024

We wax lyrical about the sticky subject of keeping your tools shiny and running smoothly. An email from a reader querying my advocacy of WD-40, set me on a train of thought about how we can keep the wheels of woodworking turning, so to speak. Ever since human beings have had a need to get objects to move, or tools to function well, there has been a need to lubricate and protect. As tools and technology get more sophisticated, so newer more specialised lubricants have become available to help do this. I haven’t written an exhaustive list of lubricants and rust protection, but I hope it will be a guide to help ease the way. The first thing is to consider what the general descriptions of different materials means as shown below. These descriptions have been written in a rather academic way, trying to encapsulate all the relevant properties of

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Woodworking Crafts

Hand spraying aerosol can with fine mist.

Oils, Wax & Grease – Lubricants and Rust Protection

May 30, 2024

We wax lyrical about the sticky subject of keeping your tools shiny and running smoothly. An email from a reader querying my advocacy of WD-40, set me on a train of thought about how we can keep the wheels of woodworking turning, so to speak. Ever since human beings have had a need to get objects to move, or tools to function well, there has been a need to lubricate and protect. As tools and technology get more sophisticated, so newer more specialised lubricants have become available to help do this. I haven’t written an exhaustive list of lubricants and rust protection, but I hope it will be a guide to help ease the way. The first thing is to consider what the general descriptions of different materials means as shown below. These descriptions have been written in a rather academic way, trying to encapsulate all the relevant properties of

Read More
Elegant wooden fireplace mantel with detailed carvings

Walnut Fire Surround

December 2, 2024

Louise Biggs shows us how she made a fancy fire surround when there is no fire… The projects for the next few months pick up on two pieces I made some years ago. Both pieces went into a very large room which, unfortunately for the timber, had an end wall constructed from glass. With strong light/ sunlight coming in for most of the day, the black walnut (Juglans nigra) has bleached to a pale yellow/brown colour. The burr veneer on the other hand, surprisingly, has stayed true to colour. Tools used Wood In the next few articles, I will show you the specific techniques involved in completing these pieces. In the case of the fire surround, the focus is on the shaped sections on the two side columns and how to construct the shapes before veneering them. Construction Veneer preparation Before any veneering can take place, the burr veneers need

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Videos

With a sharp bench plane or block plane, you can get smooth results when planing end grain. Randy Maxey shows a few tips and tricks on how he uses his block plane for this task.

Further viewing

Easy-to-Build Shooting Board

Learn how easy it is to get razor-sharp edges on your plane irons and chisels using waterstones. Randy Maxey steps through the process of honing a keen edge on your tools.

Further viewing

Removing Rust Spots from a Wood Plane

A small block plane, sometimes called a trim plane, is one of the most useful tools you can have in the workshop. It’s great for creating chamfers, easing sharp edges, and so much more. Randy Maxey provides an overview and shares his opinion of the Jorgensen No. 102 block plane.

Further reading

An Overview of Block Planes

Most modern clocks use a battery-operated quartz movement. When the clock quits working and a new battery doesn’t fix it, it’s time to replace the movement. It’s easier than you might think. Randy Maxey shows you how he replaced the movement in this wall clock.

Having cleaned up and checked the knives on our used DeWalt 735 planer, we put it to use to plane stock to 3/8″ thick for the parts of a tablet stand. Watch as Randy Maxey planes the stock, cuts the parts to size at the table saw, lays out the joinery, and…recovers from a damaged workpiece that fell to the concrete. You’ll also see how he overcame a design error.

Further viewing

How to Cut Tenons on the Band Saw

Creating custom scales for the handle of a fixed-blade knife requires a little care and planning. Randy Maxey steps you through the process of making knife scales from zebrawood in this series of videos. In this introductory video, Randy provides an overview of his plan to make the scales using the band saw, router table, spindle sander, hand planes, and other tools.

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Projects, techniques, tools, videos, magazines and more...
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