This is an absolute gem. Sent to me by blog Reader Tim Marshall, recorded in 1984 two “bushmen” Bill Boyd and Mark Garner fell a tree, split “slabs” off it and hew them to make house timbers. I have worked with some seriously talented hewers in Japan, Germany and the best from the UK, when I watched the first few…
An interesting piece of research has just been published looking at what British people are proud of. Respondents were more likely to take pride in the things that were closest to them – for instance their family and home – than in the ‘nation’ more generally: 87% said ‘I am proud of my family’.77% said ‘I am proud of my…
The National Institute of Adult Continuing Education NIACE want to know how you got into the crafts, the results will be published on their website with links back to your website so worth 5 minutes to answer a few questions. Details of NIACE craft “tool kit” from Jan Lasnon “Rather than me phoning individuals and (as is always the way)…
How do we raise the status of studying artistic rather than pure academic subjects? There has been much discussion recently about how society values academic vs tacit knowledge, skills minister John Hayes said “In my view, the skills of a bricklayer are in no way less admirable and certainly no less hard-won than those of a stockbroker. Matt Crawford’s book…
I have no doubt dear blog readers that you have a good appreciation of quality, probably far more so that the average person in the street for whom quantity seems more important. Does quality have to cost though? Are we just the fortunate few to enjoy quality? A few weeks ago I had to say goodbye to this pair of…
Yesterday the postman brought an unexpected gift from Japan, a big old Japanese saw. It is wonderful condition and sharpened ready to use. This was sent to me by my friend Tomio.When I spent time working with traditional Japanese carpenters last year this was the particular saw that I most coveted. More details and pictures of the saws in Japan…
Last week I spent 3 days in London for meetings. That’s a London plane leaf by the way, London is full of truly astonishing trees that few folk ever notice. And from an old London landmark to a new one, this is the shard, the first very tall modern building on the South bank, it is going to be pretty…
Today’s blog is simply a very entertaining image that I found on the internet, I just love it and hope you enjoy it too.
One last post on my time with the replica Oseberg ship. I always like to have an overview of this sort of project and share what I have learnt. Often the interest is the detail but the most important things are the big picture about how the worksite works and the project is organised. This is clearly a multimillion pound/dollar…
Well I think it is time for some tool pictures. The tools made for the building of the new Oseberg ship form the largest collection of replica Viking woodworking tools in the world. This is the main tool room. It’s easy to see at a glance whether a tool is missing at the end of the day, this helps when…
