"It's not bodge... it's character!" - an old geriatric work mate used to say to me. And I felt this come to mind as I built my tool chest last weekend. I knew it would be nothing fancy since it was pretty much built as the hand tool equivalent of banging some boards straight through the thicknesser … [Read more...]

It seems to be normal practice to sit a workbench against a wall and this is something I've often done myself. But having worked in many different layouts I now tend to favour bringing the workbench right out away from the wall instead. In a small workshop this can feel like a huge waste of space … [Read more...]

If you read our blog regularly then you'll probably have picked up that I love my hand tools but would never deny my dependence on a few basic machines when it comes to building our workbenches. I wouldn't wish to become too reliant on numerous complicated machines though and one of the reasons is … [Read more...]

This little primitive looking stool is one of the earliest pieces I built which my mother still has so it's well treasured. It was built with little more than an axe, a hard point saw, bit & brace and a chisel. It certainly isn't grand nor something to be proud of but I think it's a nice simple … [Read more...]

This morning Richard wanted to explain to me his techniques for hand planing - something he is wanting to get across clearly for a video we’re working on this weekend. I thought the best way to test his explanations was to try it out. It looks so easy when he does it so I just picked up the plane … [Read more...]

I often feel like I’m fighting the corner for Hand Tools and yet within my day to day work I have a number of machines that I have to rely upon. The machines are there because the work I do is big and the amount of timber I process is large - hand preparing every board for every workbench would be … [Read more...]