Groovin’ tools

StringingToolsWoodworking

So the last try to make a straight line cutter for stringing didn’t work so well, the fence mortice was too sloppy. So today I cut a new one. Simple process; pick a scrap of wood from the bin (in this case a piece of walnut because I’m not averse to cheating when it comes to mortices 😀 ). I’ll reuse the beam so I mark off a line on the fence with a square, drop one edge of the beam into it and then mark the width off on the fence and carry the line around with a square; mark top and bottom of the beam with a wheel gauge using the same reference face you used for the square, and that gives you the outline of the beam on the front and back of the fence and aligned.… Read the rest

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Mark Dennehy in 2 Comments

Ah for feck’s sakes…

ShedStringingWoodcarving
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Woodworking

I only just finished digging that sodding thing out!

*sigh*

And I’ve not been getting much done in there thanks to subzero temperatures and public transport making the work commute into anything up to a six-hour-a-day nightmare (yes, a foot of snow won’t slow down Canada, but Canada spends more on their snow clearing hardware and people than we spend on Varadkar’s Strategic Communications Spin Unit…). Mostly I’ve been putting together new tools for some things I’d like to try, namely stringing and carved arcading. So for the stringing, I already have the dead fancy radius cutter from lie nielson (probably the most bling tool I own), and a small perspex scrap to give it a pivot point when working on some of the usual designs:

But I haven’t got a straight line cutter because I figured I should be able to make one, they’re basically a marking gauge, see the lie nielson one:

Fancy, but basically just a marking gauge.… Read the rest

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Craft

GeneralWoodworking

So, there are a bunch of things I could say on this, primarily centered on the way that “Craft” is the latest fad in certain industries (looking at you, Silicon Valley) and how most people you hear using the word can be safely written off as asshats who think you should “follow your dream” (which is lovely but the bank still want their mortgage paid at the end of the month). I’ve read otherwise apparently sensible people talk about how it’s easy to “pursue your craft” and how you only need to have twenty thousand or so in the bank as insurance against most of the things that can go wrong; people talking about how it’s a shame that today’s consumerist world builds everything with machines (hey, I like working with hand tools as a hobby but it’s only suitable for mass production if you’re not in favour of human rights or people being able to live a decent life); and a small host of other things that would force a polite person to bite their tongue and go read something else.… Read the rest

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Mark Dennehy in No Comments