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I have some lab bench tops from the mid 1950s which are made of Utile. They were from a lab which had Parana pine cupboards and bookshelves, and notice boards from an African hardwood whose name escapes me for the moment. Stools were made of beech. They were all ripped out in the 1990s and...

Any jig with wheels that run on the stone, such as the Eclipse that I use, will have a limit to how short a blade can be sharpened to the desired angle, caused by the laws of geometry. The Eclipse has the correct protrusion lengths for 30° and 25° cast into its body, and if you cannot achieve...

I've actually been told this by a 'superior'. Apparently my bevels weren't big enough! I explained that I followed the American practice of micro-bevels and nothing further was said... Les

Assuming it's British made, the thread will be 5/32" BSW, which was used for drawer handles (I still have some). It's the same thread as originally used for Meccano, so if you still have some of that lying around you can swipe one of the nuts. There were never enough Meccano nuts anyway, so...

Oo that's nice! Les

I notice that some of your wood-handled tools are held by Terry clips. I've always avoided doing that in case the clips mar the handles. Do you find that it does, or am I being over-sensitive? Les

The dog would have to be a boxer for that. Les

This makes sense, because until the advent of the metric system, France used the foot (pied) and the inch (pouce). It amused me to discover when learning French that "I have five feet and eight thumbs", which describes me to a T. The French foot was, of course, different from all the other feet...

It does, but if you look carefully you can see just a hint of the table leg to the left of the stool leg. Either that, or it's one of those impossible constructions you can find on the internet. Les

And they crop up at charity shops, PAT tested too. Les

What they celebrate in Scotland, a week after Christmas.

Not a lot. Les

I'm glad you mentioned that - a lot of people haven't yet twigged that WD40 these days is actually a whole range of specialised products for different purposes. Dad had a can of Plus-gas which he kept topped up with 50/50 paraffin and light oil. It worked a treat, but eventually the spout...

I've never tried it, but I have read about making fitted tool storage using expanding foam and an old t-shirt (obviously there's a bit more to it than that). Would this suit your purposes? This gives the general idea...

Surely that's back-to-front? As we used to tell it, it went: "Who's the only Formula 1 driver to win the World Championship for both McLaren and Ferrari?" "Lauda." "Who's the only Formula 1 driver to..." followed by a swift exit. Les

I don't think I've ever tried it with this style of drill brace, but a trick which works with the old-fashioned carpenter's brace-and-bit is to put a loose-fitting washer over the drill bit. If you are too high the washer works its way towards the workpiece as you drill; if you are too low it...

That style of drill bit [cue discussion and eventual argument about whether it's called a drill bit or just a drill...] is called a lip-and-spur type by some, and a brad-point type by others [cue another discussion...] It cuts a cleaner hole in soft wood than a conventional jobber's drill...

I realise that it's only a concept drawing, but your cabinet sketch doesn't show any joints. Without joints in the wood the only strength would be given by whatever fasteners you use. If you use something as simple as a halving joint, the load on the horizontal members will be directly passed...

I bought the Titan one from Screwfix to fix D-line trunking. It's perfectly fine on flat surfaces, but the head is so bulky that I couldn't get it into the quarter-round trunkng without a struggle, and even then I couldn't get it straight. The upshot was that the staples didn't really penetrate...

The Myford ML1, ML2, ML3 and ML4 are very closely related and there's a huge amount of information and practical experience available on the Model Engineer website : Model Engineer Start with a search for ML4 (the commonest model), and then ML3, then... and read, read, read. It will help...