I wanted to further improve my hand tool abilities, so I took an idea from Paul Sellers (www.woodworkingmasterclass.com) an accomplished hand tool woodworker from Britain, with 50+ years of experience. He now teaches online, and does a great job. The tray consists of equal parts of Walnut and Maple. I could have used a wide …
I need to make new product for the 2025 Farmer’s Markets. So I needed to create some new end-grain cutting boards. The process for this one uses standard 13/16” boards, instead of having to get 8/4 (i.e. 2” thick) boards. The patters that it makes are pretty cool. I chose to make them out of …
As I have noted in the past, I typically put aside one weekend a month to do shop maintenance/improvement. This helps keep my shop tip top and ready to go, and helps to improve the efficiency of the shop overall. For this month, I had four things I wanted to do: The sharpening is not …
Well, I had all these plans this weekend to get work done, but I have come down with some sort of crud that has floored me. Pretty weak, sniffling, sneezing, coughing, etc. Its not the flu or Covid, but a really bad head cold. Wife had it last week, and apparently gave it to me. …
I wanted to build some more artistic style charcuterie boards for the new year. One of the ones I wanted to build was a three-dimensional end-grain board. There are a lot of process steps, and the wood is somewhat expensive, but in the end, it comes out with something beautiful. So you start off with …
I wanted to build something with just hand tools to improve my skills and demonstrate that I could do it. Many folks don’t understand that, if you are building 10, 20, 100 of an item, then machinery and power tools certainly help. Once they are set up, you can run the same part over and …
As I have noted before, I try to take the first weekend of each month and use that do to shop improvements and shop maintenance. I do maintenance on the machines, build storage and jigs for the shop, and generally try to make ways to have the shop work more efficiently. It gives me a …
I have been accumulating and using tools for green woodworking, which is a traditional way of working wood that has not been kiln dried, but is green from the tree and then air dried over an extended period of time (years in some cases). The wood is used for bowls, furniture, chests, and other items. …
I was approached at my last Farmer’s market by a lady who had a lap cross stich holder that needed to be repaired. It had three “posts” which held the holder up above a rounded plywood base, which sat in your lap. The posts were glued into the hoop, and had broken off. To fix …
Sometimes you have to build some simple shop storage, nothing fancy, but it needs to get items organized and “out of the way.” I recently acquired a selection of practically new battery powered DeWalt tools, and they were cluttering up the workbench and work surfaces in the shop. I did not want to just shove …
