My new Fretwork website.

[scrimper]

After promising to create a website for several years I can now announce that I have just published it on Google sites.
The main purpose of the site is to record the History of the Hobbies and handicraft companies and fretworking in general.
There are pages on various saws through the ages,
plus help and advice on buying a saw and info on blades etc.
I also have a designs page with old fretwork designs that I have recreated and redrawn in many cases so that people can download them (free) to keep them 'alive' so to speak.
Before I published the site (today 12th feb 2024) I contacted The current Hobbies company who replied that they are fully supportive of my efforts and pleased that I have recorded their history.

I would appreciate it if members here would be kind enough to have a look and give their opinions good or bad on my efforts , but please bear in mind it's not a professional site nor am I skilled in creating websites. Also I make no money from the site and it's all my own work and opinions.

The site can be found here (it won't be in search engines for a while if ever!)

https://sites.google.com/view/scrimpers-fretworking-site

 

[Adam W.]

If you put a link to it in your signature, it will magically appear on the google crawlers radar.

 

[Ed Weber]

Thanks for the link

 

[scrimper]

If you put a link to it in your signature, it will magically appear on the google crawlers radar.

Thanks Adam, have done. Funny thing is that another of my sites Google will not list it even though they host it but Bing finds it fine.

 

[AES]

After promising to create a website for several years I can now announce that I have just published it on Google sites.
The main purpose of the site is to record the History of the Hobbies and handicraft companies and fretworking in general.
There are pages on various saws through the ages,
plus help and advice on buying a saw and info on blades etc.
I also have a designs page with old fretwork designs that I have recreated and redrawn in many cases so that people can download them (free) to keep them 'alive' so to speak.
Before I published the site (today 12th feb 2024) I contacted The current Hobbies company who replied that they are fully supportive of my efforts and pleased that I have recorded their history.

I would appreciate it if members here would be kind enough to have a look and give their opinions good or bad on my efforts , but please bear in mind it's not a professional site nor am I skilled in creating websites. Also I make no money from the site and it's all my own work and opinions.

The site can be found here (it won't be in search engines for a while if ever!)

https://sites.google.com/view/scrimpers-fretworking-site

Thanks for the heads up @scrimper. I'll be off to have a look asap.

 

[AES]

@scrimper I've just spent a LONG time "paddling around" in your new site and have responded with comments direct on there. But in short, IMHO that site is a 1st class "one-stop shop" for any and all scrolling beginners on this side of the Atlantic. Many congratulations for what is clearly a real labour of love. EXCELLENT

 

[scrimper]

@scrimper I've just spent a LONG time "paddling around" in your new site and have responded with comments direct on there. But in short, IMHO that site is a 1st class "one-stop shop" for any and all scrolling beginners on this side of the Atlantic. Many congratulations for what is clearly a real labour of love. EXCELLENT

Thank you so much for your kind comments, I have had the site ready for over a week but was dubious of pressing the publish button in case folk thought it was poor. I have been a fan of the old Hobbies company since I was a small boy. I was absolutely delighted at the reply I got from the manager of the current Hobbies company when I emailed them about my site.

 

[toolsntat]

Quite marvellous and just what the Hobbies enthusiast was looking for.
Thank you.
Cheers, Andy

 

[ajs]

I remember the cover on the Hobbies 94 catalogue well, think I saw the the 96 one in WH Smith but never picked it up, was busy with other things at the time. It was the 93 or 94 catalogue that as I've said previously here that made me lust after a Diamond saw as a teenager earning £7 a week paper money, finally got one a couple of years back.

But yes, nice site. I'm not going to say I have or will read every word because your interests are not necessarily the same as mine, but certainly not a waste of time as useful to dive into if needed.

 

[ajs]

I remember the cover on the Hobbies 94 catalogue well, think I saw the the 96 one in WH Smith but never picked it up, was busy with other things at the time. It was the 93 or 94 catalogue that as I've said previously here that made me lust after a Diamond saw as a teenager earning £7 a week paper money, finally got one a couple of years back.

But yes, nice site. I'm not going to say I have or will read every word because your interests are not necessarily the same as mine, but certainly not a waste of time as useful to dive into if needed.

Thinking about it, was it 94 that came with the plan for a milk float? Remember building one for my nephew.

 

[Jaco]

Quite marvellous and just what the Hobbies enthusiast was looking for.
Thank you.
Cheers, Andy

Yes, very good site.

 

[bushwhaker]

Fascinating!

 

[Barkisland]

What a great site Scrimper. When you look at the patterns and early pieces it does make you appreciate how skilled the early fretsawers were; no Hegners 100 years ago! What a wonderful reference you have compiled. Thanks Richard

 

[scrimper]

Quite marvellous and just what the Hobbies enthusiast was looking for.
Thank you.
Cheers, Andy

Thank you so much Andy.

 

[scrimper]

I remember the cover on the Hobbies 94 catalogue well, think I saw the the 96 one in WH Smith but never picked it up, was busy with other things at the time. It was the 93 or 94 catalogue that as I've said previously here that made me lust after a Diamond saw as a teenager earning £7 a week paper money, finally got one a couple of years back.

But yes, nice site. I'm not going to say I have or will read every word because your interests are not necessarily the same as mine, but certainly not a waste of time as useful to dive into if needed.

Many thanks AJS

 

[scrimper]

What a great site Scrimper. When you look at the patterns and early pieces it does make you appreciate how skilled the early fretsawers were; no Hegners 100 years ago! What a wonderful reference you have compiled. Thanks Richard

Many thanks Richard. I used to do most of my fretwork with a hand-frame, it's so much better with a powered machine.

 

[scrimper]

Many thanks everyone for your comments on my website, I think I had the idea and started it back in 2019 but gave up as it seemed impossible with so little info available on the companies. I left it for 4 years then gave it another go. Most of the info on the Hobbies and Handicrafts companies I found by 'trolling' through 100's of very old Hobbies and Handicrafts magazines finding little snippets here and there. The help and advice stuff I got from my 'Head' I just sat and started typing, I know it's not perfect my grammar and stuff is awful, At school I was hopeless at English. But I am pleased that I have put the History of the Hobbies and Handicrafts companies online for others to see and hopefully record their history.

I thought it was only fair to contact the present Hobbies company to ask if they were happy with what I have written about them and offering to change or remove anything they did not like. I was delighted when they replied how nice it was to see their history recorded, they actually said they were honoured by the work I had put into the site

As I have a page devoted to Hegner I contacted them too and they too were very positive and offered me the rights to add some of their tutorials on the site if I wished.

 

[Cozzer]

That's a lot of dedicated, hard work!
Congratulations to you.
Excellent.

 

[Agent_zed]

If you put a link to it in your signature, it will magically appear on the google crawlers radar.

Never quite sure what google does but in theory the links in signatures are marked with rel="nofollow" which tells search engines to ignore the links.

Best thing they can do is to sign up to google's search console as it will give loads of info about page indexing status and reasons why pages aren't indexed etc
you can also submit and check sitemaps.

 

[scrimper]

Never quite sure what google does but in theory the links in signatures are marked with rel="nofollow" which tells search engines to ignore the links.

Best thing they can do is to sign up to google's search console as it will give loads of info about page indexing status and reasons why pages aren't indexed etc
you can also submit and check sitemaps.

With one of my other sites (created on Google sites) I just could not get Google to index it even via the Search consule although Bing found the site no problem, The only way a managed to get that one listed was to buy a domain name and point the google address to that.