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Two possible reasons. The glue introduces moisture and the wood moves. Or you've clamped it up with a slight bow, so it holds that after drying. I'd clamp to a flat stable surface, like a workbench, table top, or a 2 x 4 on edge and leave clamped up for 24 hours.

Oil will darken it somewhat - try on scrap to see if you like the effect. If not, a water based varnish shouldn't change the colour much, but I don't like the look of those varnishes - again, a trial pot to use on scrap is sensible, and cheap compared to the effort you're putting in to making...

If you do try recycling wood, make sure you're not buying veneer over softwood. If in doubt try to lift a corner of the piece - solid sides/tops are a lot heavier.

I'd be up to my local auction house to see if any ugly Victorian mahogany wardrobes are in the cheap section (my local runs two in parallel, antiques and 'stuff'). If you find one, it might be under £20. A charity shop would also be worth a look, though they charge more! Of course you'll need to...

Possibly even BA screws - 3BA is close. When tracking down replacement tuner screws for an old British made banjo I eventually found they were 6BA - I have metric, UNF and BSF similar sizes as a by-product. Ebay vendors seem to have 6 or 10 packs of every possibility for a pound or two each.

I think that however you cut the veneer for those corners, you'll have visible lines where the pieces meet because the grain lines can't all run horizontal and meet up at the join(s). Your grain will be angled somewhere. Is an option to paint the corners and paint on grain lines, matching the...

Not quite. It's the seller who is liable as you describe. Manufacturer is liable to its buyer, and so on down the line, but not with the consumer protections in place except for the final consumer. The warranty is a separate contract which needs to be accepted by registering if that's the deal...

It seems to me you'll want some reinforcement under the joint, as you have no leg on the internal corner. If so, that would keep the two edges of a butt joint aligned. I suspect those who know tables will suggest some kind of frame and maybe thinner ply, so hold on for more expert views.

I suspect that meths in the UK contains little or no methyl alcohol, probably on safety grounds for those who still drink it. My local hardware store sells me Bird Brand meths, which I use successfully to mix shellac. According to its SMDS...

If the shaft is the same diameter as the hole then either file the flat inside the hole a bit deeper or file the flat on the shaft. I reckon the knob is softer, and a scrap of wood cut to size with sandpaper glued to it should do the job fairly easily. Of even a chisel, if it's plastic. If the...

I agree - if you want to give a new bench plane for that kind of budget, Quangshen/Luban/Wood River is your only choice. They usually work straight out of the box, though will improve with a blade sharpening and a little fettling. I'd recommend a No 4 over a No 3. When I began I started with a...

If you know a violin maker or guitar maker, they might have refined HHG which would give you more open time, though heating and added salt might still be helpful. You'd need a couple of teaspoonsful. The ordinary HHG I buy from eBay is a pale brown when hydrated and heated - I suspect it might...

Bone glues well with hide glue, so I'd expect ivory to also. Household gelatin is highly refined protein glue and could give an invisible glue line. It gels in seconds though, so you'd want to add salt and also warm the parts to give you working time. It reactivates with heat, so I'd get the...

I'd say you're planing in the right direction. So two things: Your workpiece has wide and soft grain, so it's going to be hard to work. Your test piece is much more even and straight grained. To succeed on that workpiece you'll need to be as sharp as you can (don't forget to remove the burr on...

At that thickness, and so nicely quartersawn, I'd be surprised if it moved much if at all (unless there were unrelieved stresses in the wood, in which case it would probably have moved already). I've successfully resawn 12 mm blanks in half to get fretboards, all quartersawn of course. Before I...

The spalted bits can be very soft. If the bowl has been slid across a rough surface several times (eg when dusting) that might wear those parts away. Wouldn't happen in my house, we do dusting here with a shovel.

I'm just finishing a guitar in shellac, using purple meths. Can't see any effect, nor on the 30 or 40 previous instruments I've done in shellac. It's a thin film finish and, as @robgul says, the purple dye fades fast in light.

Surprisingly, just screwing the threaded rod into the wood holds remarkably well. I'd guess a 9mm hole, lock two nuts together on the threads and then use those to screw it in, backing off from time to time - it cuts its own thread as it goes. But definitely find an offcut and try it first, in...

For years I've been using an old baby bottle warmer - turned to max it's just the right temperature. Cost me something like £2 in a charity shop. It'll only heat around a cup full of glue, but I rarely need more than a tablespoonful.

A search online for zinc sheet found quite a few suppliers - eg Natural Zinc Sheet - High Quality Sheet Metal (not recommended, just the first proper result).