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Here are a couple of pics of a simple computer desk. One leg has cocked a bit but as I'm probably going to move soon, I'll probably let it settle into its new home before correcting. I reckon I could have made the legs a bit thinner and more tapered to make it look a bit more elegant but as...

Here's a pic of my third go at a shoe rack: The frame is of European cherry and the top of European walnut. This is the first time I've used metal in a project: the 6 mm hollow aluminium tube in the individual racks. I'm glad I've done it because now I know that I don't particularly like it...

Over the past three or so years I have found myself becoming increasingly interested in astronomy or more specifically, cosmology. While I find it hard to raise a flicker of interest in the moon or the planets, galaxies and the structures and processes involved in them are a source of mind...

I've put this up because I thought it might be of interest as an example of learning in progress. I decided to make a tray, to my own design, from some offcuts and perhaps got a bit over-ambitious by angling the ends. The first attempt was such a mess that I scrapped it. This is the second, not...

The reason I ask the question in the title is that I use an old No 5 fitted with a heavily curved iron for scrub-type work. I read somewhere that an 8" radius is about right for this and so I cambered accordingly but as time has gone by, I find myself gradually making the curve milder because to...

I recently got the new version (the third) of the Bridge City Toolworks CS-3 Centre Scribe. Here's a pic of it with two tools which it can replace some of the time. I did a quick test today as I had to mark the centre line of a piece of wood. I put the CS-3 on the bench with the wood to be...

The Iron Spokeshaves and Related Tools Manufactured by Edward Preston & Sons by Joe Stankus. This book is 116 pages of concentrated and detailed information about the subject matter. It is extensively illustrated with colour photography and illustrations showing patents and advertisements for...

I just spotted this on the Lee Valley website: https://www.leevalley.com/en-gb/shop/tools/hand-tools/drills/110669-lee-valley-replica-egg-beater-drill?item=15N1001 It continues Lee Valley's policy of producing copies of classic old tools. Given that I've got a weakness for egg beater drills, I...

This is a bit of a rum one, so bear with me. This morning I was having a chat with a colleague. who in a previous life had worked as a carpenter. I showed him a 1 foot, four fold ruler and he couldn't get over how small it was when folded down, and, being German, he'd never seen such a thing...

At the weekend I cut some dovetails and sawed off the shoulders. It is of course conventional to pare them down after sawing. I always cut the shoulder lines with a bit of depth so as to have the shiny edge to help with the paring. As we all know, the idea is to bring any scruffy bits above...

I could leave this OP as just the title but a word of explanation: if you were to make, say, a sign consisting of a single piece of wood to go on a door and you fancied putting a moulding around the edge, would H & Rs be able to cope with the end grain?

This is just an idle bit of speculative thinking born of a thread which appeared recently. Unfortunately I've forgotten the title but if I remember aright, Andy T put up a picture of an odd, very short little device for cutting rebates. My moving fillister rebate plane is around 9 - 10 inches...

I originally put this in the off topic section but it occurs to me in the upheaval of the forum revamp, it might have got overlooked and this is probably the better forum anyway: I've been trying to strip some paint off wood. It's softwood and is outside. The paint stripper has removed some...

I've been trying to strip some paint off wood. It's softwood and is outside. The paint stripper has removed some but there is a lot of the paint which seems determined to stay on. Should I switch to abrasives? If yes, then which grit would you recommend (I have a Festool Rotex sander.) Here is...

I've been trimming some tenon cheeks recently using the large Veritas router plane and have again noticed an odd little characteristic of it which can be quite useful but I can't explain how it comes about: you loosen off the locking screw, increase the depth of cut with the top screw, lock it...

HONEST LABOUR - Volume V of the Charles H. Hayward Years This is the fifth and final book of material published by The Lost Art Press and drawn from The Woodworker magazine from its days under the editorship of Charles Hayward during the period of 1936 to 1966. It consists of a collection of...

I've got a lovely pre-war Record 5 1/2 which up to now I've used for initial flattening of boards before doing the final touches with my Veritas LAJ. The odd thing was that the Record would sort of give up and the LAJ would immediately take full width shavings. That didn't bother me too much...

Good Morning All, I'm after the kind of brass screws which fit into a brass tube with an interior thread, the tube being knocked into a hole drilled into a piece of wood and staying there because the surface is knurled/ribbed/hooked. Ideally the screw head should be round and flat topped...

As a result of having some tiles put in, the height of my bathroom floor has risen a bit. I therefore need to take about 5 mm off the bottom of the bathroom door. For this I intend to use a circular saw on a guide rail. The question I have is due to the outer surface of the door (I'm fairly...

A friend of mine has expressed an interest in taking up woodwork, possibly to make boxes and the like. She came to have a look at my workshop and have a play with some hand planes. The main problem was a modern (Veritas) low angle block plane. She could use it but it was effectively a bit too...