sutton046

A recent visit to Croatia was fascinating. Amongst the wonderful sights and smells of this ancient and very much alive land with its layers of history, my eye was of course often drawn to joinery and furniture. Not the modern stuff, but the older stuff which oozes history and story. Zagreb. So many amazing doors. Never mind the wheelie bin... The thing about these fantastic wooden doors is that they do not exist on their own. The context is important, and that context is usually the doorway, which is almost always made of carved stone, which was the building material of choice for centuries before concrete took over in the modern era. With so much marbleine limestone around the place throughout the country, it makes sense that so much of this stone was used. Being so hard, it also has weathered really well. Hence you find buildings that are well over a thousand years old and still standing. This, for an Australian, is a certain fascination and cause of much wonder! This door p...

While travelling, I can't help but notice wonderful woodwork everywhere. Here's some examples of some found in two different locations, inspired by the spiritual and created by talented craftsmen a very long time ago. The Blue Mosque, Istanbul. This beautiful building was built for the Sultan Ahmed, and was completed in 1616. Inside this very impressive building are 200 stained glass windows the inner surfaces of the domes and walls are covered with over 22,000 ceramic tiles. In this place of worship the architecture, colours and details are fantastic. Of course, my eye is always drawn to any woodwork around the place. With so much carved stone and tiles, there was not a huge amount of joinery visible in the area that the thousands of tourists like myself can get to. However there were two pairs of beautiful doors at the back of the rear area that I was able to get near. Identical pairs, I managed to capture some pics of them with my trusty iphone4, despite the low light condit...

What a beautiful plane! I had been looking for another No7 Jointing plane for my group participants to use. I came across one at my local markets recently, which I snapped up for AUD $50. A good price for a "user"- but there was something about this plane which seemed odd, and I just couldn't put my finger on it at the time. There were several indicators which told me this was an old plane. Stanley bought the patents for the adjustable metal plane from Leonard Bailey in the 1860s. The name Bailey was later cast into the plane bases in front of the knob in honour of Mr Bailey. The name Stanley does not appear anywhere on the plane, except for on the plane iron. The iron (blade) lettering says it was made in Australia by Stanley. The Stanley Works in Australia was located in the southern state, Tasmania. DATING THE PLANE. By digging around on the internet across a range of sites, I was able to put together a few clues as to the age of the plane. While I can't claim to...

A recent Saturday was a big day but a great day. I had been lined up to run two workshops with a whole bunch of Earthcarers , in the big shed at Perth City Farm . There were 20 places in the morning session, making Kitchen Chopping Boards, and 20 places in the afternoon session, Carving Wooden Spoons - and all 40 places had been filled ahead of the event. I don't usually work with groups that big, and pulling together the extra benches, tools and materials was a huge job. Aah, but we created some wonderful stuff!  Peg warms up the morning group as they gather with anticipation. Earthcarers are keen recyclers, and the purpose of the program was four fold: To help the participants learn about trees, understand about wood, and appreciate the importance of wood as a low-energy renewable recyclable sustainable carbon-sequestering material. To help the participants understand the potential of "waste" wood and its usability. To empower the participants with some basic skills to...