The internal structure of Cressing Temple Barns and the throng of people gathered there for the European Woodworking Show, serves to illustrate this Special issue of Good Woodworking admirably: we’re focusing on big timber-based structures and also on the fun to be had with wood. Woodworkers down in the West Country are still using methods that this ancient barn would have been built with, and,…
The shiny face and through-a-bush-backwards hair are the result of spending a fraught but fun taster day at Axminster Tool Centre; there was certainly no time for getting the comb out to rectify the coiffural damage wrought by a protective head shield and facemask in the rush to turn a vase in two hours, not to speak of a plumb bob, a leaf carving and, er, what you see pictured below. Projects of a far more professional…
September 2013
As an almost perfect summer draws to an end with England winning the Ashes in some style, we’ve put together another splendid assortment of projects, techniques and tests for you to peruse. Read on and enjoy…
• Room service – Peter Bishop takes some English walnut, two leather straps and a piece of steel rod…
Magazine planning, like that for any job I suppose, is subject to variables. You start with a few givens, the features you know have a place come what may, then you go into frantic plate-spinning mode, trying to juggle all the unscheduled but wonderful things that happen in a month into too few pages. For example, having covered what I thought would be the best of graduate work last month, I went along to New Designers…
Just what do we understand by the word ‘simple’? To me it means not only easy in the sense of making something without difficulty but, perhaps more importantly, it refers to ease on the eye. So when we were considering projects for this issue we had in mind two aspects: the making and the design, and the two of course do not necessarily go together. While some pieces may be easy to build and undemanding but pleasing to look at,…
August 2013
As the 2013 heatwave spreads sunshine and contentment across the land, we hope you’ll be able to find a shady corner in which to sit and digest what we’ve put together for you this month. You’re excused workshop duty for the duration… unless you have air conditioning!
• Posh porch 1 – Andy King does…
Wow! Is there some up-and-coming talent in the UK! So much so that we are having to split our coverage of New Designers, the annual London show for graduates, into two, this month looking at the work of the Building Crafts College, Bucks Uni and the Williams & Cleal furniture school and next month at the rest. But it isn’t only those who have had higher education-level training who can prosper and I report on an apprenticeship,…
Chatting to other philosophers over an evening drink or two, I've come to realise that it's variety in all things which really increases one's enjoyment of the simple pleasures in life. Although we all appreciate the homeliness and convenience of our own workshops, any jobbing carpenter will tell you it's the unexpected challenges of site work that can make it so enjoyable (some cynics might say endurable), and can provide the…
Didn’t it make you feel just a tiny bit smug, watching that episode of The Apprentice where the would-be entrepreneurs tried to design and make a piece of flatpack furniture? The heroes and heroines of this month’s issue don’t know the meaning of the word smug. We’ve got Ludvig Solvang talking to the boat builders who protect the heritage of their very different techniques in the Arctic Circle…
I'm sure I'm not the only woodworker to be called upon to perform an impromptu piece of domestic repair, often in what could be described as a less than perfect situation. It often seems to involve doors, chairs or windows; I’m frequently presented with a not entirely suitable item of ironmongery, or an ill-fitting decorative element that has been recklessly sourced by the well-intentioned householder, and expected to fix it.…
Welcome
I thought the lovely people at Bosch were setting me up. Drill through this concrete, they said so, just to show I was game for the joke, I seized my weapon… and all I had to do was hold it in position – the motor did the rest. Read about the Bosch Blue tools that are being launched in the next few months in my business profile.. I also got up to London, to meet the Makers in Residence at the Building…
