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Totally understand - I am all for impatience. You really won't regret getting the sharpening jigs. If nothing else, they will pay for themselves by not grinding the tool away nearly so fast. If you want to practice getting used to the tools, it might be worth trying some green wood. It is...

It sounds as if you are making excellent progress - nothing like just trying things to get a feel of what works. Once you get over the hassle of sharpening you may find life easier with the traditional tools. You have a lot more control of the depth of cut and it takes less power to slice than...

The piece has been drying indoors for a couple of years and has been in a centrally heated room for a several months- weight change has stabilised so reasonably certain it is dry. I don't particularly want the pith in, but is is only along the very surface. It has enough thickness that I will...

I have a decent sized piece of birch with some lively colours in I would like to use for an electric guitar body. It has some slightly punky bits and a few cracks / possible ring shake so it needs stabilising. (I had a piece from the same tree give way spectacularly on the lathe and you could...

For the wall mounted ones? That sounds as if it might be a good idea. They came with some ?pelmets? But they were very fussy so we ditched them. Now is the time to have a think about those finishing off bits - had invited people round last Saturday to give us a hard deadline and we're still...

Thanks. A bit of a relief to have our house back, as well as really nice to have tried new things. Spraying definitely the way to go for painting in future. I hope it can tempt others to have a go. I was really nervous about the granite, especially as there is so little about DIY stone handling...

Things I have learned: 1) Granite is heavy, but not too bad to move. Fortunately this country doesn't go in for the American trend of gluing worktops down. Upstands took some care to remove without snapping (we didn't end up breaking any pieces of granite in the whole procedure). Saws and...

So, a bit of an update, in case anyone who helped with advice earlier or might be wanting to try such a project in future is interested. Overall the project worked and where there was a very shabby kitchen with rotten laminate worktop and a strange patio door inside the house, there is...

Bit surprised noone has suggested shellac. Nothing quite makes the grain pop like an oil, but I quite like extra blond as a high gloss finish that shows off the figure and is less "plastic" looking than some.

What sort of variable speed is it? Is electronic, or a come drive? I used to have a come drive Axminster that could be turned significantly slower than the minimum 500 rpm by just moving the handle past the minimum speed and wedging it in place with some mole grips.

Does abranet fall into the "fine work only" category? I think it is brilliant and while expensive, lasts so much longer than cheap rubbish...

I think you will be fine. Don't over think it - anything that gives a bit of extra hold should be good enough!

Walnut oil probably the best of the food oils for not going rancid. Still takes an age to dry though. I would go for tung oil. If you look at the liberon quick drying tung oil datasheet it states that it is safe for childrens toys once dried. I think there is a lot of confusion about what is...

Not sure how good that rule of thumb is for anything apart from standard planks. End grain slices will dry much fast, so that should definitely be stable. I think over about 5 inches stuff gets very slow. A 7 inch thick plank would be almost impossible to air dry reliably.

Have you had a chance to try the ceramic coatings? They look intriguing, but I don't know if they are just a youtube gimmick

Which is why I was intrigued by this: Mains powered, water cooled less than £100. However a brand I had never heard of, and seemingly the only tool attempting to fill that niche. I am always a bit wary of buying random stuff that sounds a bit too good to be true off the internet! Only Amazon...

I don't know. One with a wet diamond blade would seem ideal. None of the hire shops I can find seem to have one. The choice is always one of the little table saws, or one of the manual snapping ones.

The worktops themselves were very lightly secured with silicone (and a lot of gravity). Just needed good coordination between lifters. The splashbacks needed a bit more preparation to make sure they could be prised off without damage.

Tempting! Just spraying the blade rather than having it flooding everywhere?

So - stage 1 went pretty well. Worktops are safely removed and sat in the back garden. In the end I bought suction cups, but didn't trust them so we just went for lifting by hand, with a well disciplined team. The ones with cut outs had metal reinforcing bars inserted underneath, so perhaps made...