What an amazing idea but before you ask no I am not about to do a daily spoon. This blog post is a comment on a spooncarving project that is getting a lot of coverage in the mainstream media and an attempt to fill in some background and credit the source of the idea. STIAN KORNTVED RUUD is a young designer…
Back in December 2008 I first blogged about the need for a traditional crafts organisation. The Government funded Crafts Council has a limited remit for the “innovative contemporary” crafts leaving all of those of us making traditional functional work with no support or promotion at all. So it was that six years ago we had the first meeting of our proto committee…
I make hook knives for spooncarving and teach how to use them on courses so thought it might be useful for folk to have a video of how I use a hook knife to carve the bowl of a spoon. I have broken the various grips I use into three basic grips which form a good foundation and allow you…
I often get asked how to sharpen a hook knife for spooncarving so have had a video made. It uses cheap simple tools including something that may surprise you for the inside of the hook. Hope you find it useful.
These old beauties are at a scrap yard and heading to be weighed in for scrap if we can’t find a good home for them. I know nothing about them, they look at a glance like 3 phase but no doubt could have single phase motors fitted. They came from a shoe factory in Herefordshire three of them and the…
This is just a great video, a lovely simple project that I will be having a go at over the Xmas break
A couple of weeks ago I took my lathe to Acton Scott the place where Victorian Farm series was filmed to film for a special episode of Countryfile which will all be about traditional crafts. Ellie had a go at making a plate on the lathe. The program will also feature my friend Adrian Legge the blacksmith and reruns of…
I care passionately about traditional crafts but had no idea that anyone in the UK still made wooden lacrosse sticks. It turns out Tom Becket, just over the hill from me in Eccles has been making them for 50 years. The BBC reported last week that Tom will retire at the end of the year bringing an end to 102…
As a craftsman I care about how and where things are made. I like quality, I like to know a bit of the story about the stuff in my life, I like things that last. When it came time for new glasses there was only one option really and that was Savile Row Eyewear. This is the model I went…
This film has some of the most amazing handwork I have ever seen. Filmed in India in 1971 it shows handwork in large glass factories. The skill level, the amazing flow of bodies around the factory all carrying hot glass, the total internalisation of skill so that they can work three pieces of hot glass simultaneously and still have time…
