A friend found an old saw and sent it to me because my name is Sellers and one of my teaching associates is named Slack. The name on the saw was Slack Sellars & Co of Sheffield, England. According to W.L Goodman’s Plane Makers From the 1700’s this company produced edge tools between 1860 and 1960. This saw had no redeeming qualities by way of design or stable name and as you can see, the saw wasn’t worth a second glance…
Sharp tools are vital to successful woodworking, but keeping them sharp can be a problem. If the grinding and honing angles are not correct for the work you are doing, the job soon becomes a chore, forcing you to put too much pressure on the tool and risking an accident. Honing guides can help by holding the blade at the correct angle to the sharpening stone and simplifying the whole process. They are particularly useful for restoring tools that…
Unglamorous they may be but striking tools are still an esential part of a toolkit. Their use has been reduced by the popularity of the cordless drill and the twin thread screw and further redundancy notices were sent out with the arrival of the air nailer to the domestic market.
“the difference between a cabinetmaker and a carpenter was the size of his nails”
However, the trouble with any power tool is that the 'feel'…
This article is taken from the ongoing Back to Basics series in Good Woodworking magazine. To keep up with the latest instalment, be sure to get your hands on a copy, which you should find in all good newsagents. If ever you can't find it, please contact 01689 899257.
With so many tools to choose from, getting started in woodwork can be confusing. There’s so much to take in – what should you spend your…
Keeping your workshop supplied with machinery, timber and finishes, as well as doughnuts and tea, is not cheap. It doesnt help the wallet one bit, either, when you have a penchant for quality hand tools. Theres no need to despair, however. As I explained in GW202:27 when I discussed vintage planes, I find car boot sales are ideal for tracking down old, rather tatty tools that can be renovated. This time were on the lookout for wooden-handled…
These go back a long way and the clue is in the name. Like the feloe, wheelmakers used them. They come in different forms ; the most common include some for concave work some for straight and some for convex. Spokeshaves are essential when doing free-hand curved work and are amazingly versatile
Why do I do it? Sometimes I can understand it, although I can’t offer a full explanation! Just take a look at Pic.1 below. Working from the top left, you can see how my index finger locates the tip of the saw (top left), then helps to keep the saw vertical (top right). Finally, this finger holds the square’s blade down while the other three fingertips use the recess to grip the stock, and on the marking knife, it applies pressure to…
Ah, Sheffield. Built on seven hills she may be, but she’s not a beauty like Rome. The “ugliest town in the Old World”, George Orwell famously called her. “And the stench!” he went on. “If at rare moments you stop smelling sulphur it is because you have begun smelling gas.” Surrounded by sources of coal and iron, and powered in the pre-steam age by the water of five rivers, Sheffield grew up with dirt…
Israeli-born luthier Boaz Elkayam was once asked by Victorinox to build a guitar using only a Swiss army knife. It was a publicity stunt, of course, but when you consider that traditional Mexican luthiers build guitars using few tools other than the long, curved carving knife that they call a cuchillo, it doesn’t seem like such a tall order.
Unguided edge tool: from wasting to delicate shaping, the draw knife can be made a jack of many trades
There must have been a time when every woodworker had a draw knife in his toolbox. It’s the only way to account for the vast number available today in secondhand tool shops and on eBay; my friend even found one buried in a field recently, and after being cleaned up, he was able to press it back into service. If you…
In order to make a living with woodworking, I find there has to be a compromise between power tools and elbow grease, and I’ll be the fi rst to admit that I couldn’t survive without power tools. Saying that, if there’s one thing that power tools haven’t been able to match, it’s the fi ne control of basic edge tools in skilled hands. The bench hand plane, for example, is certainly a tool that will be practically…
Many years ago as a boy apprentice, most of the men I trained under had large tool chests neatly placed at the foot of their benches. Their airtight lids stayed firmly shut except when a special tool was needed for a particular job.
1. Bessey K-Body
Price: from £30
Toolbank 0800 068 6238
www.toolbank.com
The king of clamps. Immensely strong mechanism. Jaws remain parallel even under heavy pressure. Hardened steel rollers and superpolyamide jaws. Wooden handle with ideally pitched thread. As strong as a sash clamp but much faster. Available in sizes from 300mm to 2500mm with 85mm throat depth.
2. Screwfix Speed Clamp
Price: £8.89
Screwfix…