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The Cheltenham Arts and Crafts museum Cheltenham’s Arts and Crafts Movement collection – The Wilson – Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum has an extremely fine table in Wenge with drawers under made by the superb Alan Peters (RIP) The Wilson Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum | Details

Looks like a preset mortise gauge. I have one in which the spacing is adjustable. I suspect the pictured one has been modified to do repetitive marking of mortises for door or window making. Looks like there are at least two preset distances, with brass pieces and spacers. What is the spacing...

I have three Clifton planes, 4, 5 1/2 and 7, which I bought before Clifton was part of Flinn-Garlick. Now the 7 has never cut quite as sweetly as the other two. When I surveyed the sole a week or so ago (against a certified straight edge), it falls away by four thou (0.1mm) at one side of the...

Clifton are owned (for the last 7 years) by Thomas Flinn & Co. and are still made in Sheffield. CLIFTON HAND PLANES I've bought mainly saws from them over the years, and they are both good guys and really responsive to queries.

Now Benzene really is nasty. It has carcinogenic properties. Back in the day this was not understood; we even used it in the school chemistry lab in about 1970 (holding the bottle up to our ears to listen to the benzene ring, ha ha). But iso propyl alcohol is benign. Structurally it is the same...

IPA (iso propyl alcohol) is easily and freely available. It is the main ingredient of hand sanitiser!

Use a hand scraper to do the finish rather than sanding. No dust to remove. And no solvents.

Cats are a marmite thing. You either love them or hate them!

My up and over has a brush seal at the bottom, and rubber seals up either side. It was that way when we moved into the house new around 30 years ago. Never had a mouse or rat problem in there as a result. We did have a rat problem at one point under the shed. Bought a rat trap - like a...

The biggest thing I tackled was rebuilding a Jaguar V12 engine. That had a LOT of parts!

You are going to need expansion gaps in the boards. You can figure on a couple of percent maximum between as-delivered seasoned and equilibrium outdoors. But it depends on moisture content now, and where you live (coastal, inland etc). In other words the boards should float. Even for indoor...

I've converted my three Clifton planes to Ron Hock A2 cryo blades and chipbreakers. I started with the 5 1/2 and was so impressed I've done the same thing with my 4 and 7. I know there is an argument that high carbon blades take a sharper edge than A2, but you can work for much longer with A2...

Well yes - but if you are doing long grain, and the grain is going up and down, nickers are not going to help. The blade either cuts sweetly on part of the board, and tears out on other parts.

Doing the geometry, suppose you are sharpening a chisel that is 5mm thick, and look at the concavity with a circular wheel as compared with a flat grind: 6" wheel - 40 microns 8" wheel - 31 microns 10" wheel - 25 microns So even with a fairly thick blade, the concavity is tiny. 25 microns is...

I have at least three of these, Record and Stanley - I'd have to look in the boxes to tell you which. And they do get used from time to time - quieter for sure than the screaming of the router. But they are really only useful for straight grained wood. If the grain changes direction you get...

I was born and brought up in Ryton - but left in 1974. Otherwise of course I'd help bonny lad.

Like Phil Pascoe I remember one of these at school. Only our woodwork teacher, Mr Rand, could use it. None of us oiks were allowed near. IIRC it had a wooden lid (probably made by Rand) to keep dust and shavings off it. Late 60's, so it must have been there well before that. I remember Rand...

The alternative is to screw some angle bracket to the legs of the bench, and screw in to the workshop floor. Forward Metals is the go to place Forward Metals | Online Metal | Custom cuts to your specification . Aluminium angle is cheap. 2" x 2" x 1/4" is £13.22 per metre. But there is lots of...

The Klausz is so hefty it just stays put. No rubber needed. But if you need some for yours I think I'd just select something that looks sensible from eBay or Amazon.

Result! I forget how I put the massive planks over the planer. But I have a pair of roller stands, so I probably set them up to support the timber as I fed it through. This attached image was not-quite finished. I replaced the front vice of the Klausz design with a monster old Record vice...