Yesterday I rough forged a set of turners tools to go with my old lathe on the set of Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood film. These have been forged then ground and now go back in the forge to have the curved cutting hook forged. I have also been working on a quote for building an education shelter at the site…
Most of the trees I use come from a tree surgeon who does a lot of management on Sheffield’s street trees. Even large old trees can not be sold to the sawmills because of the risk of nails and things inside. This can mess up an expensive sawmill but I cut them up with a chainsaw and if I hit…
Yesterday I received a very exciting parcel through the post, my German Friend Hannes after his carpentry apprenticeship spent his journeyman time working in Japan with traditional temple builders. When he helped me build our timber framed logstore I coveted his beautiful Japanese tools and in particular a gorgeous carpenters axe. Hannes has just been back out to Japan and…
This tool is called an adze, it is just like an axe but the cutting edge is at 90 degrees to the handle. Adzes come either with straight blades for creating flat surfaces or curved ones for hollowing. This is a very old one I bought in Romania in 1998 and works excedingly well. I use it every time I…
Last week was half term and Jojo wanted to have a go in the forge at making a woodcarving knife for herself. I was busy turning but able to pop across and give advice from time to time but she pretty much just got on with it. In the forge The first rough forged knife, she made 3 Rough grinding…
The children are off school now and work and childcare have to be juggled over the next few weeks. One day this week Ollie and I spent the morning at the forge, he is very skilled at carving with a knife so I thought I would let him make his own knife. We started with an old car spring, heated…
Last weekend I went to Kent on an intensive bladesmithing course with master smith Owen Bush. I have been forging my own woodturning tools for 15 years but everything I do has been learned by trial and error and I wanted to see if I could improve the quality of my tools so that they stay sharper for longer. It…
