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Planing can be, as we all know, a sweaty business. Whenever I notice a drop fall on a plane I wipe it away with shavings or a bit of tissue but inevitably bits get missed. This results in surface flecks of the black variant of iron oxide marking the surface of e.g. plane sides and even the...

Having read through the thread I wonder if this boils down to a question of innocence vs. experience. The vast majority of people these days are consumers of mass produced goods. As such they are used to receiving cosmetic perfection while perhaps not being knowledgeable enough to judge...

Both you and Bugbear have mentioned the round bottomed spokeshave which just goes to show how everybody is different. While I think it can be difficult to learn how to adjust a spokeshave, in operation I find them to be the ultimate hand and eye tool i.e. you can't "think" your way into using...

Derek, I had previously cut some rebates with the grain and so had not used the nicker. My inward tilt happened here also, so that's definitely a tendency I have and has nothing to do with the tool. Then I moved on to the 3/8" deep cross grain cuts and forgot to engage the nicker. Luckily I...

I've just had to cut some rebates and so used my Veritas skewed rebate plane. It gets my nomination as the most difficult tool to become proficient with. This is no reflection on the plane itself as it is a precisely and well engineered bit of kit. The reason I find it a challenge is that...

Hello Paddy, that makes absolute sense: one of those things that seems so obvious you end up saying, "How come I didn't think of that?" I can see the sense of using a plane as well but I suspect that I would want to give the very last touch with the router plane, just to know it's bang on...

Your Korean man has got the skill, hasn't he? He could probably do it with a log and a piece of flint. As for the lid, it is, unbelievably about 97.5% done and it was a really useful learning process. I found that because the tenons were about 4" long, the splitting method didn't work as at...

Further to the general discussion, here's the Renaissance Woodworker showing how he chops a mortice which is wider than his morticing chisel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD2vSgtHsUc

Stick with it Zed. You're still there where lesser men would have given up.

Hello Graham, by pre-Machine Age, I meant in the times before the average householder would have owned power tools. It's difficult to think of a term for it ("pre-DIY Boom" or even "pre-WW2" perhaps?) It's refreshing to see that the tin of odd nuts, bolts and screws seems to be an eternal...

I wouldn't have thought of that in a million years. I also forgot to put an oil stone on the original list.

The main reason that there is such a wealth of hand tools available on the second hand market is clearly the switch from manual to electrical devices during the latter half of the last century. The simultaneous rise of consumerism has also probably meant that the average householder is now...

Thanks for the tip about waiting a while. For what it's worth, the problem is not at the timber yard. The lads there let me choose my own boards and they are in fact very helpful. I think this was just a case of bad luck.

Good Morning All, yesterday I had a look at some American poplar which I've had stacked in my workshop for about six weeks and was shocked to see how much wind it has developed. I put this down to it having come from the shed of a timber yard in January into a relatively warm workshop i.e...

Thanks for the replies chaps. I can see another minor delay coming on while I make some of those Barnsley Buttons!

My Christmas project (a computer desk) has dragged on a bit longer than planned but the end may be in sight. The next job is the buttons holding the top to the rails. The top is about 1" thick. Is there any particular recommendation for the thickness of the tenons of the buttons? I'm...

Would the Veritas apron plane (last one on this page) be small enough? https://www.classichandtools.com/acatal ... ritas.html

It will be a through mortice and although my practice run was not a disaster, I obviously want to do it as well as I can. That said, I can live with a bit of raggedness as it will be painted in hat end.

Jacob, yep, it's from Wearing and I find it very helpful indeed. Yes I'm using a motice chisel and it is my imperfect use of it (allowing in one or two places a slight deviation from square around the axix of the chisel) which led to unevenness in one or two spots on the sides, although I was...

Right then, I've had practice go through 4" of pine as follows: mark up 3/8" mortice at both ends and pare in the start (not a million miles away from using a groove as a jig), then standing at the end and concentrating greatly on achieving verticality and not allowing the chisel to turn about...