sutton046

The Shaving Horse. It is a fantastic device, which appears through the centuries in pictures, documents and woodcuts. Used by Coopers making barrels, Wheelwrights making wooden wheels, Bodgers making chairs, and green woodworkers making everything from brooms and rakes to hurdles and axe handles - the Shaving Horse rules supreme with its versatility and the shear joy of using it. The best companion for a Shaving horse is the Drawknife -  and of course the Spokeshave too. It is essentially a foot operated vice, which comes in various forms and styles. On Saturday 26th November 2016, I am offering a public workshop "Make a Shaving Horse". We will use predominantly recycled wood, sourced from building salvage to packing crates, to build our trusty steeds. The charge is $200 and all the materials are included. The workshop is being run in Canning Vale, Western Australia. Bookings essential, via email. Places are limited, so don't m...

Better late than never! The September workshop program is finalised, with a few adult workshops and lots of kids workshops taking place in the first week of the Sept/Oct school holidays. Check them out! you will find them under the Upcoming Workshops link. A new workshop for kids aged 8-14.  Knifework. Remember when kids all had pocket knives and loved to use them, shaping the end of a stick? WHAT WENT WRONG? How come we took the knives away and wrapped our kids in cotton wool? All the fun was taken out of public playgrounds too, as we somehow got all risk-averse and incredibly boring. It's taken more than 20 years, but at last there is some sense returning. Have you noticed the high climbing frames and big swinging stuff returning to the public playgrounds. Hooray! It is well understood that kids need to learn through taking risks, through physical challenges, and through engaging in nature. If kids in earlier generations could learn to safely use pocket knives, there...

Pallets and packing crates are moving around the world in the countless millions  every day. The majority are made from wood, and while many are reused again and again, there is a massive number here in Australia which end up in landfill.  Madness, really, for the following reasons: 1. Organic matter in an anaerobic decomposition process (buried deep in the ground) produced methane. More than 20 times more dangerous for global warming than carbon dioxide. 2. Wood is a great energy source. It is solar energy trapped in the lignin, cellulose and other matter which makes up plants. Better to burn waste wood for its energy than to  bury it in the ground. The carbon dioxide produced in combustion can be taken up by growing trees if we plant them! 3. Wood is a wonderful natural organic material which is renewable, recyclable, and reusable. Unless it rots or is eaten by insects, wood can be used again and again for Millenia. While there is a lot of quasi recycling going on out t...

The public workshop program for July 2016 has been organised. This includes these School Holiday workshops for kids aged 6 - 14: Make a Kitchen Spatula PalletCraft for Kids. Make a Kitchen Chopping Board. Make a Cajon Drum. Make a Small Lidded Box with a Sliding Lid. And offered for the first time: Carve a Wooden Spoon (NOTE: for kids aged 8 - 14)  Parents are always welcome to accompany their children to the workshops . For adults and young people aged 15 and over, we are offering: Restore Old Tools     (a Tuesday evening) Carve a Wooden Spoon from Green Wood     ( a full day Sunday) PalletCraft - Recycling Pallets and Packing Crates        ( a Saturday afternoon). Come and join in the creative fun with us at the Heritage Woodcraft Centre, Unit 1 / 30 Canvale Road, Canning Vale, Western Australia. Bookings are essential. Bookings and enquiries are best done via email to  adventure@wn.com.au

The next batch of workshops have been organised, and should offer something for everyone. School holidays fall in this period, so there are several workshops for kids included in the program. Here is an overview of the workshops on offer: Carve a Spoon from Green Wood . A full day workshop. What a fantastic opportunity to get primal, using ancient skills and techniques to make something lovely and functional!. Spoon carving is all the rage around the world at the moment.   Introduction to Wood Carving . A 2 hour morning workshop. We will do some relief carving as we learn and use a few techniques to craft something wonderful. The pic below may be more complex than we'll do in the time, but you get the idea... Sharpening planes and Chisels . A 2 hour morning workshop. Learn these basic skills and make your tools sing again! They don't work well if they're not sharp.   Saw sharpening . A 2 hour evening workshop. Learn to give new life to your old saws. You'll be a...

We seem to be motoring rapidly into 2016 already, so I don't want to miss this opportunity to reflect on the 2015 year. As I write this, I am away on holidays, 200 miles from home. So amid the canoeing and other summer activities with grand kids and other family members, I have grabbed a few rare quiet moments to write this post. The dilemmas of Social Media and the time it consumes. There have been many less posts this past year on this blog than previous years. I lay the blame squarely at my own feet for putting time and energy into posting on both  Instagram and the Joy of Wood's Facebook page. With limited computer time, getting involved with both of these platforms has reduced the time available for the blog. However I have found that the FB page has become a useful local communication tool and Instagram has become a great source of inspiration - seeing what others around the world are creating with wood. The other great source of...