Before we head for 2011 I am going to share the last pictures from my woodworking trip in Japan. This one is about the forerunner to the plane the spear plane, yariganna or yari-kanna. Here is the yariganna in use. I have not been able to corroborate the info below as well as I would have liked, it is primarily…
I don’t normally blog about personal stuff being quite a private person but feel the need to pass on some sad personal news to my regular blog readers.There is no easy way of saying this, after 20 years together and 19 years of marriage in October Nicola decided to leave me. We have had relationship issues for several years with…
I think it is common for craftspeople to have very ambivalent feelings about selling their work. On the one hand it can be a wonderful experience when we meet someone who really apreciates what we are doing and will enjoy the objects we make, on the other it can leave us feeling cheapened, as if our work has been turned…
Here it is, click the image for a big picture. Last week I finished off my bridge across Padley Brook. This was commissioned in memory of local man Arthur Haslam 1911-2009 and you can see the work in progress here and here The lovely photos were taken by a friend who was working in the area last week, thanks Addo.…
The Heritage Crafts Association year in brief – 2010 2010 has been a fantastic year for traditional crafts and for the Heritage Crafts Association in particular. We would like to thank you for your support and share a few of the highlights. We started the year with the prediction on our blog that 2010 would be the year that traditional…
This blog post shows how to fit a new axe handle, it could be a new store bought handle or one you made yourself following the instructions in the previous blog post on how to make an axe handle. This is the old head and new roughed out handle I made in the previous post. The handle should be thoroughly…
Now I am not about to rush out and buy one of these but I like it and I like the video. And whilst I am way off my normal blog subjects I shall share another little youtube gem for anyone who fancies a laugh. “Never fry gnocci”
I wrote this article a few years ago before I was blogging and thought it might be of interest to have here. Fitting an axe handle in this blog post. First wood selection. The perfect wood is nice straight grain ash fairly fast grown, if it gets more than 6-8 rings per inch it is much more brittle, 4-6 rings…
In 1901 there were 6800 saddlers working in Walsall. Little wonder then that the train station is in the saddler centre and the football team are nicknamed the saddlers but how much of the craft is alive today? This is the workshop of Frank Baines one of the twenty or so saddlers listed in Walsall yellow pages. This is Frank…
This is a style of woodworking very popular in Scandinavia and the US but very little known in the UK. I have to say most of the work done today I find rather kitch or twee. Folk for some reason often use the style to carve elves and gnomes or goofy caricatures. I am going to ignore all that stuff…
