Search results

I looked in detail at the Axminster bench saws but was put off them by user reviews and the fact you'll end up replacing or modifying fences etc. Speaking with someone from Axminster they also advised me that the motors are not trade rated and not designed for daily use and may well not last the...

Great stuff...it's not the cheapest but it is good.

They don't just have to be in drawing form as I often make templates for my speaker jobs whereby full size drawings are made with any alterations done and transferred to a template which is then cut and stacked for future use. The cutting lists are also pre-done from the drawings and filed...

That’s a very good point. I rarely see any marking up and producing detailed drawings from a rod. Come to think of it, having visited a fair few workshops over the past few years I don’t remember seeing a trammel or other instruments often used to mark up from a rod. A lot of workshops seem to...

That's all true but there are Japanese saw designs which are backed such as the Dovetail Dozuki made for export markets. I almost exclusively use Japanese saws now because I find them more comfortable to use and they stay razor sharp for a very long time. Their other advantage is the thin...

I mark out initially in fine pencil lines, double check all my measurements and always from a reference edge and then scribe them with a marking knife. It is the way I was taught and ensures absolute precision so stick by it. Mistakes do happen but can be avoided by paying heed to the old...

I think a lot of links back to historical methods and traditional tools have their place but the over-riding consideration for me anyway, is what the timber species is, what the joints intended are and what tools or methods best fit the making from a purely practical standpoint. I am the first...

Yes, I agree. We’ve been going almost 12 years now and it was touch and go for at least the first 4 years. We soon found that in order to compete as a small business you have to have a niche and quality has to be very high. Touch wood (literally!) we are fortunate to have a healthy order book...

I remember doing my first veneering 40 years ago using fish glue for some delicate rosewood veneer that a shotgun case commission was to have for the main panels, and remember well sitting there with a pot of glue heating up, a veneer hammer and iron and being taught the traditional way of...

I thought you sliced them and strung them into a necklace to keep vampires at bay?

3 to 4mm may not work with in iron as it's quite a thickness of timber to transmit much heat to the glue joint. You can avoid a lot of creep issues using PVA by coating both the substrate and the individual strips with a thin coat. I've done a reasonable amount of veneer pressing and use PVA...

Nice find scholar. Not sure which Rutlands one you mean but their premium one is not flimsy at all. It's quite well made and rock solid. In the past I have found that simply using an inexpensive little bubble level temporally to the top of my drill allowed for precise horizontal drilling.

I must admit to being a big fan of Japanese philosophy and work ethic when it comes to such things. I gambled on a used GS300 V6 Lexus some years back, for me, the high point in their manufacture being the mid 2000's. Modern ones aren't quite on a par but still very good. After a good few...

The same's happened in all fields of manufacture and it's way too late to be worrying about us being in for trouble due to reliance on cheap labour costs in the Far East, as it's already been dominating world markets for decades. The whole work ethic is very different in the Far East. Japan...

The lowest vibration one is now meant to be the new 3M Xtract sander but it's one I haven't tried. Festool are pretty good as are Metabo and Mirka. If in the market now, I'd plump for the 3M purely on the rave reviews I've so far read about both performance, low noise and low vibration.

I've a few Bosch blue tools and tbh, they're pretty good for the money. The older Bosch professional range could be a bit of a mixed bag depending on the tool but by and large, pretty decent. I currently have a Bosch 80mm electric planer (GH 26-82 corded) and it's an excellent bit of kit and...

Never had a single issue with my dewalts and have a lot of dewalt gear. Both my drivers run perfectly concentricly but switching off impact setting could be handy if it’s the only tool to hand. I’m still wary of the new Milwaukee kit given the very mixed reviews but guess most people stick...

In what way, power, build or ergonomics?

An inexpensive solution would be the Scheppach HA1000 (screwfix £119) which is the same in performance to the Axminster version but cheaper, used with a cyclone up front discharging into a separate bucket with 100mm hose connections. Works really well. I use a Scheppach with my Charnwood W650...

Milwaukee impact drivers seem to have changed their design of the latest models and are coming in for a lot of stick over breakdowns so personally I would avoid. There's a recent youtube vid (can't remember who) explaining they've cheapened the impact mechanism and in tests they managed to...