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Had the opportunity today to have a look around the workshop of Wests of East Dean near Chchester, a very trad joinery and furniture making business. They have lots of machinery from Wadkin, Sedgwick and other makes up to rather more recent SCM stuff, but nothing digital. But the machine that...

Wadkin Planer Thicknesser serious and splendid looking machine for auction here. No info as to model number but looks bigger than most of those subject to restoration threads on here. No doubt there are plenty of Wadkinatics on here who will be able to identify it. Will be interesting to see...

I’m not a great thread starter but thought one or two of you might be interested in a major project I completed a while back. Because this is a completed project I can start off with a photo of the finished article so anyone who is not interested in the “how” can just look at it and decide...

A bit morbid perhaps but still a serious question. As we get older many of us increasingly consider our own mortality, even though we may not talk about it much. Many of us also have quite a lot of mooney tied up in tools and machinery while having family who have little or no knowledge of the...

Or another possible title might have been "should workshop stuff look good?". I have a rule of thumb which I mostly stick to - if it's a one-off which probably won't get used again, or only rarely, it can look as rough and ugly as necessary for speed of making; function is all. If I am going...

I have a Makita LS1040 compound mitre saw. It's a very nicely made and powerful tool but I hate the jolt on start up. It is available in the USA with soft start and a soft start module for it is available on line for around £20, which sounds to me like £20 well spent. Given that the saw is...

Recently had my planer thicknesser chew up it's ribbed drive belt. After searching around the internet using the code on the old one, I had some difficulty matching the spec. I eventually came across George Lodge & Sons Ltd in Hull and gave them a call. Could not have been more helpful in...

I am now listing more quality tools I don't use on ebay and all proceeds will be donated to Ovarian Cancer Action. Full details can be found on Deals, Offers and Bargains Elsewhere I hope the moderators will indulge me in what will be a post on two forums because I wanted to have a heads-up...

I'm not a tool collector, but over the years I have accumulated a number of tools which, for one reason or another, I find I don't use, so I have decided to auction them off on ebay and all the proceeds will be donated to Ovarian Cancer Action. I have been giving some thought to the tools I...

If I added up the cost of replacing everything in my workshop (amateur) it would come to a lot of money by most people's standards, not least my own! Most household structure and contents policies limit cover for what they describe as "outbuildings". In my case, my workshop is attached to the...

Not really anything to do with woodworking as as suchbut interesting nonetheless. Came across this on a Canadian forum. https://forum.canadianwoodworking.com/forum/woodworking/woodworking-aa/1135789-parmesan-tree. Assuming it is genuine, it would be interesting to know how such a case would...

For those of you who are interested in finishes but like me, only look at the Finishes forum occasionally, I have started a thread under this heading in that Forum and would welcome your views/experiences. Jim

Having experimented with WB finishes several times over the years, I have always disliked them for their cold and lifeless appearance when compared with my usual choices - shellac, pre-cat lacquer and, occasionally, oil based polyurethane. All of these are, of course, solvent based and...

Recently started a glue up without thinking it through fully and needed to clamp a joint with one outside face which was curved and nowhere at right parallel to the surfaces to be clamped. Panic! Need a shaped block . The first thing that came to hand was one of those waxy/rubbery blocks that...

... but I've been thinking a lot about cabinet scrapers lately. Such a brilliantly simple but effective tool that it is all too easy to neglect to treat them with the respect they deserve. So, after far too long storing my scrapers like this only (unsurprisingly) to find the hooks...

Good to see a magazine having the guts to offend advertisers by writing about the disgraceful quality of far too many manuals for woodworking power tools and machinery and to name some names. The August issue of Furniture & Cabinetmaking has an excellent article by Geoffrey Laycock. He has a...

I recently bought a Makita mitre saw and I am generally very happy with it. It needed adjustment to to bring both angle settings into 90 deg but that may be down to it being a display model at Axminster. However, there are two things about it that I hate The first iis how useless the...

Good to see Shane Skelton on Antiques Roadshow from Harrogate tonight, with some of his early saws. Jim

If you fancy a five day summer course where you can make whatever you like with a truly inspirational teacher in a beautiful place, I can thoroughly recommend this course at West Dean https://www.westdean.org.uk/study/short-courses/courses/5d6276-advanced-furniture-making-individual-projects. I...

This is worth a look for its sheer bravado https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvUU8joBb1Q Jim