sutton046

Apologies to the regular readers for the lack of posts over the last couple of months. So much to write about, and so little time to bash away at the keyboard! Over the last few months, I have been gradually setting up a dedicated teaching space. Located in Canning Vale,  this space is being set up for teaching hand tool woodworking. For years I have been lugging tonnes of gear around, hiring various venues, often only for a day or two, in order to run public workshops across a wide range of woodworking skills and projects. A huge amount of energy and time has been expended to deliver each workshop series. My home has been so full of tools, wood and too much gear! Imagine the idea of having a place set up for teaching, to remove the need to shift so much stuff back and forth and in and out of my ute and trailer each time. Imagine the possibility of running evening workshops, day time workshops, after school workshops, and one-on-one tuition whenever I choose!...

There is a growing interest in Green Woodworking across Australia. This has been unfolding for some years in the USA and the UK, but down here in the Antipodes we always seem to catch on a few years behind our cousins in the Northern Hemisphere. (Except in the uptake of new technologies, where Australia funnily enough has one of the fastest uptakes). However, we are talking here about the uptake of ancient technologies... I went on my Green Woodworking Odyssey to the USA in 2013, and since then have been sharing the joys of Green Woodworking with many people here in Perth, Western Australia. It is a different smorgasbord of timbers here to that traditionally used in Europe and North America. ' Riving a piece of Black Birch into section for spoon carving, at Drew Langsners,  NC, USA. My focus has been on using timbers obtained from Perths "Urban Forest",'the trees growing in suburban backyards, parks and gardens. The cover of these trees continues to diminish in the gu...

A while ago, I finally completed the handrail to the staircase I had written about in several earlier posts I have been meaning to tell the story, so here it is. Lets tell it in pictures: The handrail awaits its end, which will curve down and around the corner. The original profile my customer found on the internet in the USA. I worked out the process on a 5 stage machining process. Planning the curve. From above it needs to match the radius of Tread #2's curved nosing. Over its length it needs to drop the height of one Riser. Laying out the blocks ready to make the laminations, following the details on the horizontal and vertical axes.  Laminations glued in place, with epoxy resin. View from above, Cramps doing their job as the glue dries.. Meanwhile, as the glue dried I made up the jig for shaping the curve. Cramps off, glue dry. Time to shape the block. Router jig moves back and forth and around the curve to shape the outside surface radius.  Router jig doing its job beauti...

I've got about 8 shaving horses, which I use for running public workshops. I had previously made a batch of shaving horses from packing crate material and other recycled wood, which I did a post about  in July 2014. Since then I have made another version, like a super-modified saw horse. Let's call it the Mk II - a multifunctional shaving horse and bowl carving horse combo. My favourite horse, it is about 7 feet long, has fixed legs, and a heavy vise built into the tail of the bench. All this limits its portability. Some of the original shaving horses, English Bodger style on the left and Dumbhead style on the right. The Mk II Shaving Horse / Carving bench combo. A beautiful beast - with a tail vise! The Mk II has fixed legs, as it is a supermodified saw horse at it's core. Being all jarrah, it is heavy. It is very versatile in its holding capacity, but there are times when it is too big or tricky to transport.  I was invited by Timbecon to demonstrate Green W...