Our house is pretty spoon obsessed at the moment but also a very creative place. Barnaby Carder “Barn the Spoon” is staying with us and we have been having great fun discussing the most minor refined details of spoon design and cutting technique. It is a joy to share this stuff with someone as deeply interested (obsessed?) as me. We…
This week we had a fantastic spooncarving course here are a few pictures. It was so much fun I forgot to take photos until the last few minutes. As always there was a tremendous range of really wonderful folk from Yvonne the biodynamic beekeeper to Duncan the knifemaker and Barn the itinerant spooncarver who has been staying with me for…
A few days ago I posted the lovely short film of Lloyd Kahn and thanks to various comments was put onto Lloyds blog here there is lots of fun stuff, but I had to search back posts on tools and found this great picture and links. I have not managed to find the image on the museums site yet or…
In 1996 I took my lathe to demonstrate turning as part of the Mary Rose Trust stand at Bristol Festival of the Sea. My lasting memory of the weekend was not the tall ships, wonderful though they were. I stayed with fellow green woodworker Gudrun Lietz and one evening watched a video called Cesar’s bark canoe, it was the most…
It is difficult today to comprehend just how vast the Sheffield metalworking industries were, but whenever I am in town I see the evidence everywhere. Today I was collecting wood for a spoon carving course next week. Anderson Tree Care are cutting trees from the banks of all Sheffield’s rivers after the big floods in 2008. This is the worksite,…
I may be a Luddite and use medieval woodworking tools but I also love some forms of technology, to me it’s not a question of everything in the old days was good and everything today is bad or vice versa. Today we have the opportunity to choose the best from the past and put it with the best from the…
I still have a few more things to post and some more pictures from our time in Japan but was just sent a link to an article in the Japan Times. It was interesting to see how the Japanese press saw us. Rustic building fest spans two continents Traditional craftsmen come together to share their skills Back in early August,…
The life of a craftsman often leaves little distinction between work and play, certainly there are less “days off” than those in full time employment but the work is very rewarding. So this was my weekend. Saturday was a suit day, a trip to London to chair the Heritage Crafts Association committee meeting. Our committee have been working incredibly hard…
Just wanted to share a great day. It started with a visit to Flinn and Garlick the last traditional sawmakers in the UK. They were a bit busy and not many of the interesting tools were running in the workshop so I am afraid I have no photos to share this time but I will be back.Then it was off…
Did you ever see a better sharpening set up than this? The water trough has running water fed from a stream so is continually flushing away the swarf and slurry from the stones. This sharpening trough was set up on the edge of our tea house worksite in Japan and the Japanese carpenters would visit regularly to keep a perfect…
