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What you need is something very abrasive, with a thick hide, capable of a good strop. Suggest you ask Jacob.

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Put the frame on a stand and apply some green compound to the back tyre, and you've got a pedal-powered strop as well.

In a word - balance. Among my collection of chisels, I have two 1/8" bevel-edged chisel. The first is a (fairly) modern Marples (late 1990's modern). It has a long, thin blade - not paring chisel long, but long enough. It also has a handle the same size as the 1" Marples I bought at the same...

Don't .... give .... him .... ideas!

Hmmm ..... bikes. eh? A bit of minor modification, and you could have a pedal-powered grindstone. Just sayin' ...

Breasted handsaws are still available. Thomas Flinn offer their Pax and Roberts and Lee Dorchester ranges with breasting. Pax Handsaws available as Rip, Panel and Handsaw from Thomas Flinn & Co., Sheffield saw and hand tool manufacturers (flinn-garlick-saws.co.uk) I have a Roberts and Lee...

A quick tip on saw blade refurbishment; having cleaned off the worst of the rust and dirt, obtain some aluminium kitchen foil, and scrumple a piece into a ball. Dot a few blobs of Solvol Autosol on the blade, then polish the blade surface well with the paste and foil. Clean off the residue with...

A couple of other possibilities are cheese head machine screws, or Allen screws (aka Socket Cap Head screws) with a washer under the head.

Any thin non-drying oil will do. 3-in-1 is one such, but quite pricy over the long term. Baby oil (any supermarket) is usually based on mineral oil, with sometimes a perfume additive. Another source is to google 'white mineral oil' sold for masseurs and aromatherapists, sometimes in 5 litre...

I'm so old fashioned that I still use the safety razor my Dad gave me when I started shaving. I'm also far too much of a tightwad to use these high-cost multi-bladed fancy razors, and have found by experience that electric shavers just don't do a very good job, as well costing good money. Thus...

Nice one - that'll teach me to read the thread before diving in!

As far as I can recall, the only cabinetmaker to earn a living using only hand tools is Tony Konovaloff; | "The things I make might be for others, how I make them is for me" (tonykonovaloff.com) . I'm fairly sure there are a few 'green' woodworkers (Robin Wood, Jojo Wood, Sean Hellman for...

Holtzappfel is fascinating, isn't it? Reprints of the books are available new, and worth their price. The first three volumes deal with materials, processes and tools, and are possibly one of the best repositories of knowledge on those matters in the mid to late 19th century that we have...

Graham, I'm rather inclined to the view that once you've practiced keeping tools sharp for long enough that it becomes a fairly quick activity you do without having to think much about it, you can touch up a tool that feels it's dulling whenever you want. Also, once you've worked with your tools...

Holtzappfel, "Turning and Mechanical Manipulation" Volume 2 (pub. London, 1847), page 699. :) Turning and mechanical manipulation intended as a work of general reference and practical instruction on the lathe, and the various mechanical pursuits followed by amateurs : Holtzapffel, Charles ...

I've found that the old designations of 'dovetail', 'carcass', 'sash' and 'tenon' do make a lot of sense for someone doing hand only work. For furniture scale work, the small (say 8" or 10") fine-toothed dovetail saw filed rip, the mecium (12") carcass filed crosscut, and the larger (14") sash...

There are all sorts of complications once you get into high spec, high load, high speed, special equipment - but the OP said he wanted low tech, so I stopped at just past that!

The tooth profile of a rack for involute gears is straight-sided; rack teeth look like triangles with the pointy top lopped off. That should make filing one a bit simpler. Cycloidal profile, as used in clocks and some small mechanisms - not quite so simple, unfortunately. Speaking of reading...

Volume of manufacture could be one factor. There must be far more basic and mid-range drill-drivers sold around the world than top-quality £40 hammers. Could also be an element of marketing - a small range of loss-leader or low-margin power tools with high turnover, or a high profit margin on...