Make time for organisation While I was working, there was never enough time to set up or maintain a workshop. Since leaving the rat race, however, I’ve finally been able to convert my garage into a proper workshop which has been a source of enormous satisfaction. Apart from the luxury of being able to manoeuvre easily and find everything when I need it, I’ve realised that organisation + self-discipline = efficiency. It’s…

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…

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Use of Van Dyke Crystal Stain for Ebonising Oak I have shown a weak mixture and a stronger mixture to show how the effect can be varied.

Pocket hole assembly alignment – homemade clamp

I first became aware of pocket-hole techniques after watching Norm Abram use a very expensive system to cut them. Norm’s system was clearly way out of my league, a huge piece of standing machinery with integrated router, drill and clamp, it was way more suited to a production environment than my humble shed but the technique looked very simple.