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Does anyone happen to have a set of side bead planes? I am looking for some measurements. I have a few, but they are all from different manufacturers and have different layouts. The actual bead itself is pretty clear, it’s usually a half circle of the diameter advertised on the plane. It’s the...

Morning Reading some of the previous posts, it sounds as though there are some people on here who do know about CNC, so I may as well ask! I am looking to buy a small, budget, CNC router for engraving and milling brass. Basically I want to engrave some small brass plates and cut them out of a...

Evening Hoping for some advice on table sawing. My table saw was the second machine tool I bought for my workshop. The first was an Evolution mitre saw, which was ok (died eventually) but I could tell had nothing like the accuracy or robustness I thought I’d need in a table saw, so wanting...

Here’s something “interesting” I’ve stumbled on recently. Many people know that the finial of moulding plane wedges changed shape from a rounded shape to a more crescent shape in the mid-1800s. I always thought this was simply fashion. Out with the old, in with the new etc. Left = old style and...

Hi I really really could do with a bandsaw for chopping up 5” beech plane billets, and ideally some mild milling of deeper beech and other hardwoods. I’ve been trying to make do for a while but I think I have to take the plunge, even though I don’t really have space for one. I’ve never had a...

Ok here’s a little project that may be of interest to someone. I want to make a new clutch of planemaker’s floats. I want some for skewed mortises, such as rabbet planes and frankly most moulding planes. I am not aware that any modern moulding plane makers use skewed wedges in their planes...

Does anybody have any ideas about machines for engraving brass? I’d love to play around with one of those old pantograph things, but I don’t have the space for it. But if I could find a cost-effective and small machine that could do some basic brass engraving, that would be great.

Hi Does anyone have any experience with shell bits for a brace? Pros/cons, tips, etc. I might get a couple. Thanks Steve

Happy new year To be clear, I don’t really want an oscillating spindle sander. I don’t have much space and I really don’t want something heavy I have to move about, plus I have way too many tools and not much money at the moment. But, for some minor but important details on recent projects, I...

I expect I am only one who hasn’t seen this, but in case I am not, a chap gives a nice demo of how to set a saw properly. I might give this a go next time I have to do it. Perhaps not! in below clip at 2:00 in Saw making

Hi Ive had quite a lots of success recently burnishing beech to prevent too much uptake of BLO on end grain. I have simply been using a piece of dowel to,do it. Problem is, wood is never quite flat, and I can see the benefit of hard bristles to get a consistent finish, i was going to get a...

Hi The other day for some reason i tried flattening the back of a blade with a piece of 600g sandpaper and when I saw how quickly it worked I realised that my trio of Faithfull diamond sharpening plates is probably knackered after about 4 years of abuse. So I thought I’d ask for suggestions for...

For what it’s worth…. i needed a 1/4 inch skew chisel recently. I couldn‘t find a second hand one online, and I wasn’t up for paying for a posh one, so I went to Screwfix and got a Faithfull 1/4” bevel chisel and ground it skew and re-hardened it, it took 10 mins work to get the back properly...

Hi I have asked this question before, but I didn’t really come to a conclusive conclusion, so I’m going to try asking it again. I now have a substantial pile of moulding planes that require finishing. The reason I haven’t applied any finish, as I am being indecisive about the finish that I want...

Evening I‘ve had an old Parkinson Perfect vice for quite a few years now. When I built my new workbench a year or so ago I cleaned it up and installed it, with the inner jaw kind of recessed in the bench, and the vise screwed into the wood. It seemed at the time that it wasn’t easy to mount...

Evening These planes I’m making are starting to work really well, but I’m still not there with recreating some of the finer details. I realised my gouges (which I have very little experience with) may be sharpened incorrectly. Or at least I want to eliminate that as a reason for messing it up...

Evening If I want to put a bevel on an edge of a piece of wood, I can hold it at the required angle on my shooting board, and it planes a lovely crisp bevel very accurately and quickly on the edge of the board, But if I want to put a mirror bevel on the other side of the same edge, I flip it...

I knocked out another plane today, partly because I wanted to practice making skinny planes, before having a go at some low number hollows and rounds, and partly cos I wanted to have another go at boxing (although I used a scrap of oak for it, not boxwood,). I thought I might try to make it into...

Hi I have traditionally done all of my stock preparation by hand. When I was making my casement window recently, this took a very significant proportion of the time for the project. Probably 50%. It’s a miserable job, but I found that for me, it’s been the only way to guarantee flat and square...

Hi guys I’m coming to realise that putting a consistent profile on the bottom of a moulding plane is an extremely difficult business, due to the requirement for longitudinal flatness along all the surfaces. So I need to upgrade my little home-made scratch stock, to incorporate a fence et...