My blog index and top ten posts

I have just added a new blog index over to the right and whilst I was indexing I picked out ten blog posts which have been personal favourites, have initiated corespondence and debate or have led on to other things. For readers new to my blog I hope you might find these posts of interest. In craftsmanship and apprenticeship you’ll…

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Sheffield council to audit metal trade skills.

Sheffield is famous across the world for steel, cutlery and metal trades. Steel was first mass produced here using the crucible process and stainless steel first made into cutlery here in 1913. Times move on however, the majority of that kind of manufacturing moved out to China and Sheffield Council have successfully invested in rebranding the city “Creative Sheffield“ English…

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Japanese axes and adzes

Whilst building the tea house in Japan we used a many axes and adzes. The axe that got most use was the carpenters ono, a bearded laminated axe that comes in various sizes from small one handed hatchets used for removing the waney edge of boards to large heavy versions used for squaring beams.  This is Tak at work and…

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wooden bridges

Today I came across this video of the most wonderful wooden bridges in China and wanted to share. This is some of the most wonderful woodworking I have seen for a long time. It reminded me of some wooden bridges I first saw on a trip round Europe 25 years ago. I revisited them this year whilst on a motorbike…

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what is Japan like?

Having just come back from Japan I have lots of photos of our craft skills exchange to share but as a first post I thought I would share some more general thoughts answering the question everyone has asked since I got back. “What was Japan like” Like any tourist I only saw a snap shot, a brief view of a…

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