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I'm currently working my way through Chris Pyes book on letter carving and I can't help feeling I'm incising too deeply. The book recommends a chisel angle of 60 degrees which I'm fine with (I've even cut myself a guide block) but the resulting trench looks too deep to my eye. I suspect the...

I've been away from woodworking for a while (unless you count building walls and floors) and I thought it was high time I got back to it. Since I've taken up gardening I have all the seeds so what better item to build than a box to store them in. This is reclaimed timber so I'm not completely...

A few weeks ago I posted a question asking about a modification I was considering making to my PT. At the end of that thread I decided to replace the chain and see if that fixed the issue. Many thanks for all your help there but now I come to actually do the job I don't think the chain is the...

There's a photograph with annotations attached which probably explains it better than I can do with words! Essentially the problem is that when under load the chain that drives the feed rollers will skip on the outfeed roller occasionally , particularly on hard timber that requires more power...

Hi, about 4 years ago I splashed out and bought myself a Festool ROS sander (the ETS EC150/5 E to be precise). Unfortunately the other day it just upped and died on me. It was a weird failure as well, I'd used it that morning and it seemed perfect and then nothing, no sign of life at all...

A few months ago I dragged our cheap and cheerful kitchen table into the workshop, sanded it down to bare wood and varnished it. For some reason I can't fathom it's remained sticky to this day. The table is pine (the centre panels are pine veneer) and I used Ronseal satin interior varnish. I...

I'm renovating some of the sash windows around the house. I've got one here that needs a whole new bottom rail and the ends of the stiles need replacing too. I don't have a problem with making the pieces but I was wondering if there's a standard / recommend way to scarf / splice in the new...

For a while now I've been considering buying a small compressor for the workshop but I could do with some advice. The one I'm current considering is this from Axminster (AXMINSTER CRAFT AC21C, 21 ltr, 1.5kW). In the workshop it'll be used mostly for nailing and dusting which I'm sure it's...

I know this is a bit off topic for this forum but there's also a lot of knowledgeable and helpful people here so hopefully someone can help me out... So, we've got an old place that has a concealed gutter that runs along the front of the house. The water runs to the middle of the house and then...

Hi, I'm building a couple of doors and one of the pieces of timber that I'll be using for a stile has a bit of a bow in it. The timber is 54mm thick rough sawn meranti and I need to get a 44mm thick stile out of it, the bow is about 9mm over the 2m length of the stile! On paper at least the...

Hi, I'm in the process of making a number of new windows for our house, the joinery is going well but I'm getting close to the part of the job I'm really not looking forward to, painting. Last time I built a batch of windows hand applying the paint took nearly as long as building the windows...

Hi, I'm currently building a router table and to make life difficult for myself I've decided to use a piece of beech worktop for the table. After delivery of the worktop I unwrapped it and stored it on the workbench for a couple of weeks to acclimatise to the workshop. What I didn't think of at...

I'm planning on making a Go board (goban) so that I can use it as a practice piece to learn how to french polish. A Go board is just a flat piece of timber with a grid drawn on it. A full sized board is 19x19 squares but I'm planning on making a 13x13 (with 9x9 on the reverse) for learning the...

Hi guys, I'm just starting to fit out my new workshop and I'm thinking of putting in some ducting for dust extraction. At the sucking end I'll have a Record Power DX4000 which has a 100mm connection - it's a bit of a compromise dust extractor as it does reasonable volume (380m^3/hr) but can...

The builders are just finishing my new workshop (at last) and I'm trying to decide what to do with the floor. What I have right now is a trowel finished concrete slab. It's a reasonably good finish but I suspect, like most concrete floors, it'll be dusty. Does any one here have experience with...

I've just finished building my first sash windows :D and now comes the bit I don't enjoy so much, painting. As I've put in a lot of hours building the windows I'd obviously like them to last so I want to go with a decent selection of paints that will give me a few years before I need to rub...

I'm in the market for my first decent sander and I can't decide between them. The plan is for the sander to live mainly in the workshop where it'll eat all manner of different types of wood at various levels of roughness from gnarly to rubbing down for the final finish. With any luck there's a...

I'm designing some new sash windows and I've got a dilemma. Each sash is 2x2 so it's got a horizontal and vertical muntin. Since I don't plan on trying any fancy half lapping that means either the vertical or horizontal will have to be M&T'ed in at the middle. The question is which muntin is the...

Hi folks, not been around these parts for a while but I see there are a few names I still recognize, hope everyone is keeping well. Anyway, the title for this post is quite apt as I have a project where all three options are a possibility. We're looking at rebuilding an extension and the quote...

Hi everyone, I'm in the process of designing the layout for my new home workshop which will hopefully be built towards the end of summer. I've got a SketchUp plan of it and I've thrown a few bits in there to see how they fit but the workbench is making me think. The bench I'm using at the...