I firmly believe that we all need to improve hand tool woodworking shop video chisel skills. Cookies This website vdieo cookies to store information on your computer. Need to find the center of a circle? LOG IN. I love nice tools, but realistically there are only a few I actually need. Source: Paul Sellers' Blog Published on:

The ability to move around the bench somewhat. I look at people working in apartments and tiny spaces and the one thing I see in common is that they work on physically small projects or they have to go through a dozen hoops to get anything done at all. Lovely post! I lucked out as an artist owned our house previously and had already built a 21x 15 workshop. My Little John workbench sits across one end, with plenty of room to move around it. Once these are installed and I can control temps better I will truly be like a pig in Antique Woodworking Hand Tools For Sale Nyo shit.

The quest for the perfect workshop could also become an excuse not to start anything. Same with tools, joinery—anything actually. Rock solid, and over-engineered probably, but I can dismantle it and take it outside, or anywhere I go.

My buddy workbench. And that is perfect for me. Great post to get the neurons firing. Seems to me that any workshop will ultimately become an expression of the personality of the person who will be using it, so whether the shop is a re-purposed bedroom, half a garage or a purpose-built studio, the motivated woodworker will take advantage of whatever opportunities the space offers and make that space work.

That said, some spaces are just easier to like than others. For me, important characteristics of a likeable work space include: lots of natural light, easily controlled temperature, plenty of natural light, enough room to swing an 8 foot board in any direction, and large windows full of glorious light.

After having grown up watching Norm Abrams, I thought I needed a big shop. Like you, I am amazed at how little space I really need. I am a hobbyist hand tool woodworker. I basically work along a wall in the garage. Without any sacrifice or discomfort, my space is 10 feet long. I have some cabinets on the wall as well for miscelanous items. In terms of depth, the bench needs two feet and ideally I like about 3 feet behind me but can get by with less if the car is still in the garge.

Of course, I dream of a square foot shop full of windows and a recliner Woodworking Hand Tools Video chair in the corner. What I currently have suits me well and I am quite content to work in it. Life could be far worse. Happy new year! So really all that did was make me keep watching somebody else woodwork on tv. While making me constantly try to figure out how I was going to do all that in my single garage with bikes , skateboards , fishing rods and all the other stuff that comes with family life , so needless to say you just never end up doing anything and just keep watching!

Hurray for Richard and Helen! When I first built my English workbench I had it against the wall under the window, well that was after I spent about a week just admiring it and turning the vice in and out for know apparent reason apart from it was amazing!

Maybe a bit odd I know but I was like a proud father! Ste, cheers for the tip re Duffield Timbers. Looks a better selection of sawn boards than I can find locally in Newcastle. As far as workshops go, the grass is always greener. Or stare at my vice. Next to a brewery no less, but one of those micro affairs. As soon as I had more space I set about building a whole load of extra stuff including a Matthias Wendel bandsaw and got myself a drill press.

I love the extra space, but I really miss having a bench around the place. Good luck with starting up designing to sell. It must be great having your own workshop now ,so a think you can say the gun is loaded just got to pull that trigger ha! But I know only to well how hard that can be with work and bills etc.

Because so few people really know how anything is made anymore, not many are able to judge the qualities that set a handmade piece apart from an MDF cube pressed together on a production line. I was as clueless as anyone else before I started woodworking. I think the marketing is probably five tenths of it. Still died pretty broke, though. Plus there are signs things are starting to change culturally, at least in the UK and Europe that I know of.

More of an appreciation for natural, sustainable materials. Even IKEA are going to start selling refurbed gear: they can see which way the wind is blowing. So almost no time like the present. Maybe wait to see how the Brexit malarky plays out though. Made sure I got my order for the wooden screw sorted before any tariffs kick in.

A know what you mean about the MDF wardrobes, a bloody nightmare to move about , but I see why people buy them as there affordable and they do the job. Hi, Thanks for the sharing such an informative article about hand tools. I also agree with you that I also believe hand tools are the best solution for the individual maker. This is a great discussion, it is nice to read about what other woodworkers do. I am fortunate to have a large heated garage to work Hand Tool Woodworking Shop 65 in.

I hung enough lights for an operating theater. I like to salvage grotty old lumber, and make boards from small logs. Not really interesting in being a hand-tool sawmill, so I have a bandsaw and thickness planer. I also have a sliding compound miter saw and table saw, which are nice for making a lot of repetitive cuts, but they mostly sit idle these days.

I bought a Ryoba saw, it looks and feels cheap, and it is a joy to use. One of these days I will call the nice Veritas people and see if they have good advice. Great post, Richard. Thicknessing is the most intimidating part for me and you just eased my mind considerably. Thanks Ilya, Yes, hand preparing can seem like a bit of a dark art. I have a set of calipers in my shop. I think measurements are a crutch, a crutch that many of us rely on too much.

But it takes a determined effort to throw away that crutch and walk on your own, without the yard stick or tape measure or calipers. Many thanks, beautifully written. The need to seek perfection is a human condition and overcoming it is naturally difficult. Why not measure your bits once and engrave the dimension on it? It seems that in the USA you like to make things complicated with your gauge systems, screw numbers, bit numbers and dimensional lumber where the real dimensions are different, etc.

Why not indicate the real dimension of things in imperial if you like it? Truer words were never spoken sir. Had to look up nadgers to be sure I got the reference right. You know us colonials…. I recently made the switch from sighting horizontally down the length of the board with sticks or with naked eyeballs to sighting vertically down to the surface of the board. I use a torpedo level first at one end of the board…. You can use two torpedo levels if you suffer from short term memory loss.

Very interesting stuff Larry, I always enjoy creative ways. Two levels would work if the board is horizontal and the levels are accurate. With one level, you just have to verify that the slope is the same and in the same direction.

You must also take care that if extremity A of your level was pointing in one direction for the first measurement your shop door for instance , it points to the same direction for the measurement on the other end of the board.

With a single level, the only necessary quality of the level is giving repeatable indications. I recently watched an online woodworker — who will remain nameless — measure a joint to what to me seemed like a insane degree of accuracy. I have just finished making several pieces and the only measuring I did was to dimension the original stock. Mortise and tenon widths were taken from the width of the chisel and the size of the stock. As you say Richard — this woodworking not engineering.

A lot of sense spoken there Michael. Richard, Spot on truth with your post. I never saw him use any winding sticks because he did not own any, and his wood working projects still had very tight, uniform tolerances.. Everything woodworking he did was by standard measuring rulers,squares etc, and by eye and feel just as you do.

Micrometers and calipers etc were for his machinist work Same goes for me in my shop, as he was my early mentor and taught me well. Cheers, Mike. Thanks Mike for the lovely insight. I still stumble by on crutches, measured in mm. It might even be a millimeter. I agree that this level of measurement is not good woodworking, make it fit, or fit for purpose, not some spurious size. Are you using a plane with a tightly set mouth?

Set that cap iron as close as you feel comfortable to at first, try it on some awkward grain. Too close and too far are not all that far apart. Too close means that your shavings are looking like crinkled crisps.

Too far, well are you getting tear? As a final question, what sort of plane are you using? As a whippersnapper, I learned to use story poles or story sticks to do jobsite measurement and shop layout. They are usually amazed to find I do it with sticks, sectors thank you Jim Tolpin , and dividers to solve design and measurement questions.

We should trust our eyes and fingers more than we do. Good thing I saw this post as I was on my way to town to buy digital calipers. This saved me some money that I can use for wood. About a mm. Some give crinkles, others give the universally accepted tight curls. Perhaps it is also a function of mouth opening?

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