… to an issued packed with colour and invention. During my term as Editor of Good Woodworking I have been amazed by the glorious things you designers and makers do to wood to bring out its living essence. Just look at the cover picture above and vow to see Celebration of Craftsmanship & Design, where everything that I love about wood – its figure, its versatility, its luminosity – goes on…
What a lot we have to be thankful for… imagine being in the pit end of a two-man saw, like the one they have at the Weald & Downland Museum, then realise how fortunate we are that power tools and machines were invented and keep on being developed for various use levels, like the Jolly bandsaw which Andy King takes quite a fancy to. And standards of design and build are getting better all the time, with no less than four…
No-one could have been more relieved than UK Squad trainer Christian Notley that the contest to find the young maker to represent the country at WoldSkills in Brazil was finally over, and in this issue we look at the selection competition which cruelly saw three very talented young men reduced to one who was judged to just have the edge over the other two. We can testify to the narrowness of the victory. Spoiler alert here:…
We’re just back from the most nail-biting, sweat inducing – and that was just the spectators – contest I’ve ever seen, watching three young hopefuls battle their way over a fraught 22 hours to win a single place in the furniture-making category, representing the UK Squad at WorldSkills in Brazil.
Welcome
Fashion on the Ration, at London’s Imperial War Museum until 31 August, is a nostalgia fest bound to appeal to hoarders of offcuts and strange stain experiments in jam-jars. So with Make Do and Mend on my mind I resolved to donate four clumpy Windsors to the local furniture charity setup and replace them with an artfully mismatched set of diners. In a month I had acquired a couple of renovated chairs at £25…
In the next issue of GW Edward Hopkins meets Ben Boyland who works seven days a week developing his woodworking skills and trying to earn an honest crust.
It should go without saying that woodwork is a potentially dangerous pursuit, but we’re all grown ups aren’t we! So rather than pretend that chainsaws don’t exist I’m happy to include examples of what can be done with them in Good Woodworking. I trust you to put one of these fearsome machines into action only if you have had the appropriate training – and even then always with the utmost care…
Oh dear, we’re bound to get into trouble for this one from some quarters. Yes, we know chainsaws are inherently lethal, but in the right, trained, hands, they can be used to create very striking sculptures, as we fearlessly show you in GW292.
Back from the Yorkshire road trip I’m the person we run away from, the one who says, “I must just show you this holiday pic,” and then has you squinting at their iPhone as they thumb through the lot… but you’ve really got to look at the work of our two Yorkshire lads, Jacob Pugh and Luke Caley. In the next issue we reach the final leg, when we unveil a revolutionary and very special dovetail…
I’ve just returned from GW’s annual busman’s holiday, this time with TW’s Mark Cass in charge of the camera, on a road trip around North Yorkshire which introduced us to the Thirsk Furniture Trail, in this issue, and to young makers in York and a talented saw maker in Scarborough, about which more in future issues . Yes, it was a hard two days on your behalves, braving blizzards, exchanging…
