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I have one in my workshop and use for small bits and pieces. Its small, quiet and surprisingly robust for such a miniature tool, but I also have a large 1 HP one that if I had to have only one would win hands down. neil

…..and don’t forget that’s before you have deducted the cost of equipment, petrol, materials and then the chunk the chancellor wants…. When I set up on my own I worked out what I had to turn over a month to be able to support my family, business overheads and tax, and then tried to project the...

I do this on a regular basis thicknessing the strips of wood that are bent into the sides for violins, violas and cellos….these are curly maple and have to be evenly thicknessed accurately to one tenth of a mm varying from 1mm to 1.6 depending what instrument I am building. I clamp the strip on...

I'm not sure how to post photos..but i can e-mail you some if you send me a pm with an e-mail address. You are welcome to come and take a look at it, I live just off Cherry hinton road. neil.

Next month we are moving house and the big clean up has begun….. so I am selling my coronet imp band saw, and before I put it on e-bay I thought I would post it here. It comes with a stand that looks like it came originally with the saw and a couple of spare blades. I want around £60 and the...

Gorgeous stuff……….

Hi john, I think it is/was a pretty grey area legally speaking. The lawyer I talked to for advice when the handwerks kammer threatened me guessed they would as likely as not fail in court, but they wanted to frighten me into becoming a member and paying for all the courses to get my meister...

I’m not certain about how it works here in the UK, and if my experiences as a violin maker are relevant to all other crafts. But in many of the mainland Europe countries where the apprenticeship system is still a integral part of training as a violin maker you work your way up from a “learner”...

I use something rather similar (just with a deeper reach) in my workshop for measuring the thickness of parts for the violins,violas and cellos i build. neil

If the pieces are long enough I would have thought clamping the piece flat on the bench and planning away from the clamp is the best way, this is the way I do it when thicknessing the material to make sides of the instruments I build. This way I plane strips of highly figured maple down to...

A baby bottle warmer works fine but I just use an old saucepan of water on a hotplate with a glass jar contain my glue standing in the saucepan…you just want to watch the water doesn’t boil dry. neil

Ultimately it depends a lot what you will be doing and how much large machinery you have. My workshop is 6 /14 foot and must be one of the smallest professional workshops around, but the largest things I work with are cellos and the vast majority of tools I use are hand tools so I just had to...

Maybe it’s rather tenuously related to real woodworking, but I will be at the Royal Northern College of music in Manchester (which is not too far from Leeds) exhibiting the violins violas and cellos that I build at a music festival there from the 10th through till the 13th together with about a...

Yes Andy that is a pochette on the wall, it’s the first stringed instrument I ever made back in 1981 …I found a picture of one in a book when I was at school and there where a couple of measurements in the book so I had a go at making it, got hooked on making stringed instruments, and have been...

Here are a couple of photos of my work space including a file and chisel rack and also my storage for planes and other tools. I have very limited space so I have ended up cramming a lot of stuff into a very small space but still managed to keep it relatively clear of clutter as this is the...

I use black beading on the violins I build for the inlay around the edges, in my experience ebony can be a nuisance to bend around tight corners where as most dyed softer woods are much easier to handle. A lot of the dyed soft wood I have come across appears to be maple that has been dyed with...

I have for sale my old Tormek super grind 2000; it is one of the older models but in great shape with still 9 1/2 inch diameter left on the stone. I want £125 for it and thought I would offer it here before trying e-bay. If you are interested and would like some photos of it e-mail me and I can...

They’re not to hot on dates, my catalogue has the date of the sale as “Wednesday, October 23rd 2007” ………….:-) neil

I have the scangrind 200s http://www.scantool-group.dk/page115.aspx which I think is identical to the record http://www.recordpower.co.uk/index.pl?p=SCAN200S&a=i apart from the slightly different adjustment screws on the tool rest. I think the polishing wheel could easily be fitted to the...

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