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,…
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,…
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…
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…
There’s something magical about the word ‘weekend’. If we are at work, and however much we might enjoy what we do for a living, by the time we get to Wednesday we know we are halfway towards the next weekend. In our imagination those Saturdays and Sundays are filled with sun and laughter, but of course the reality is all too often grey skies and family disagreement. If we are retired, then we will still probably be living…
Welcome
It never ceases to amaze me how woodworkers can produce the most stunning pieces while working in spaces not much wider than an arm span. Take Chris Alley for instance. There he is, allocated with not much more than a cubicle in a huge tithe barn – admittedly he has a share in machines in another area – making everything from staircases to sideboards with painstaking care and innovation, having found a way to…
There’s something very personal about a workshop. It’s almost a private place, a refuge if you like, a space which is ours, to do what we like in. Shut its door and we can plan what we are going to make, how we are going to make it, with what materials and using which techniques. That’s because half the fun is thinking about doing the job.
Then there’s dreaming about tools, arranging kit on shelving, in drawers and on…
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Chris Tribe, a successful maker of fine furniture for many years, was only too keen to go back to school to learn the proper way to make an instrument – actually he made two and nipped round with his camera – and tells us how he got on at West Dean College. Les Thorne turned this huge bowl from air-dried timber…
Complete guide to Turning
The last time Practical Woodworking covered woodturning, we set about enthusing you with the UK’s most popular woodworking discipline, advising you about equipment and how to use it effectively before getting you started with a few simple projects. This time we know we’re preaching to the converted, and if you’re anything like the turners we know and love, you’ll be champing at the bit to…
Classic: in keeping with classical art... traditionally accepted... excellent standard... doesn’t soon go out of fashion... marked by beauty of form, good taste, restraint and clarity. These, just a few of the definitions offered by the Chambers dictionary, are in furniture terms a Roman mile away from the style and quality of the beds, dining sets and kitchens to be had on a…
