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I just spotted this on the Lee Valley website: https://www.leevalley.com/en-gb/shop/tools/hand-tools/drills/110669-lee-valley-replica-egg-beater-drill?item=15N1001 It continues Lee Valley's policy of producing copies of classic old tools. Given that I've got a weakness for egg beater drills, I...

I bought one of those Italian chrome coffee machines about twelve years ago. It's all pressure dials and hissing steam and I love it. Due to the fact that I live in an area with very hard water, I started buying bottles of distilled water which I use exclusively with the machine. This is for...

I suppose they'll be censoring or just not playing Brown Sugar next. Apparently the Stones have taken to self-censoring it for some years. Come to think of it, much of the Stones stuff is censorable, a fact which makes them so much fun. You have to feel sorry for Keith and the lads. When they...

DW, your data on the various steels is exhaustive and remarkable, especially the microscope images. However, I can imagine that the subject in general could be a bit daunting to a beginner who has perhaps never given much thought to the different types of steel - maybe he/she just thought there...

So it's not just me then! Having done that, I preceded to mark and make the corresponding cut on what was supposed to have been the the tail board. Then I glued the two pieces up and cut the boards down to about 4". The resulting right-angled bit of joinery has served as a reminder and a...

I've been thinking a bit about this and have come up with the following:* Take a 3/8" mortice as an example because it is a fairly common size. The square profiled cutter piece which surrounds the borer has on one side, running most of its length its a bar 1/4" wide and with a dovetail profile...

@Boringgeoff Thanks Geoff. What an amazing looking device! I see what you mean about needing somebody to assist in using it but it seems to me that if some sort of G-clamp arrangement could be made (by a manufacturer, I mean), it might be possible to just get on with turning the brace. It...

That sounds feasible. I'll do a bit of digging myself about this but I'll be surprised if I come up with anything.

Do you mean with the square bit simply slicing its way through the wood, being pulled downwards by the boring part?

This is a bit of a rum one, so bear with me. This morning I was having a chat with a colleague. who in a previous life had worked as a carpenter. I showed him a 1 foot, four fold ruler and he couldn't get over how small it was when folded down, and, being German, he'd never seen such a thing...

One Friday night a couple of years ago at about 10 pm, I managed to lock myself out of my flat. The door has an automatic latch and I'd not taken my key with me - as I always do. So after failing to kick the door in and after much cursing I wandered off through the rain to the police station in...

See the thread above by Custard: „How to edge joint“ because that is what you need to do as per Droogs‘ tip.

Derek, thanks for the clarity of the pictures and that is precisely the method I use for tails and pins. But, with shoulders, what I had always done, because it seems to be the "official" way, was to put the tail board in the vice to pare the shoulders from the narrow sides towards the outer...

The swastika is an ancient symbol, mostly associated with India and Buddhism. As far as I am aware the Nazis adopted it principally as a snappy logo.

IMO speed is OK if the conditions allow it. For instance a more or less empty motorway could have a relatively high speed limit. In the rush hour, it could be optimal to have the limit at less than 70. I remember reading some years ago that there should always be at least a two second gap...

Brilliant! Get that published in a letter to a newspaper which has reported this. It's a good way to point out the state of the Emperor's New Clothes.

Isn't that the point? None of us actually know if he was "playing nice" or if he is a genuinely decent bloke. He's been hung, drawn and quartered by a virtual mob which is accountable to no-one. That is not a desirable state of affairs.

That is a very good point. According to two American friends of mine (one a confirmed Republican, the other a confirmed Democrat) the reason that a country the size of the USA cannot produce a half decent candidate for President is that most people are not prepared to have their past lives...

If you're not too sure about how to go about building one, you might want to watch/buy Richard Maguire's series on making a traditional English workbench on the English Woodworker website.

Phew! Am I excused photography practice now?