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Chris Schwarz may well be no Tage Frid, but he is a damn good publisher, who has brought the words of writers like Andre Roubo, Charles Hayward, the anonymous author of 'Doormaking and Window-Making' among others to a wider audience. Those writers, for the most part, had all forgotten more...

I'd keep both, mainly for the family connection, but also because a second smoothing plane can be useful. The advice most experienced woodworkers give is to keep your working kit of tools as small as possible, so you become thoroughly familiar with each tool, and there's fewer to store and...

I'm not sure that going by maker is the best way to obtain a good saw - well, not in the UK anyway. Saw manufacture in North America was dominated by about four companies, of which one, Disston, eventually hoovered up the opposition and effectively became a monopoly supplier. In the UK, there...

Sundeala might be worth a try. It's a sheet material made from recycled paper, and often used in pinboards and the like. It doesn't like getting wet (swells and falls apart) but otherwise seems to fit your specifications. Not necessarily cheap, though. Here's one source -...

I think it depends on the type of work you plan to do. If you aim to make furniture and similar case work, or joinery work such as windows and doors, by hand methods from rough sawn stock, that's very sound advice. If you plan to do that sort of work but doing your stock preparation by machine...

Hmm. Home made or interweb auction Old Woman's Tooth would solve most hand router problems. I think I paid about a tenner including postage for mine, and it came with a free plough iron into the bargain! In fairness, it's not as refined a tool as the Stanley, Record or Preston - but it works if...

Bristol Design used to issue postal listings of their better stock about once every couple of months. If you saw something you wanted, you rang up and reserved it. First come, first served. That worked well - but oh boy, did you have to be quick off the mark reserving something! I did read...

From my machine shop experience, it's normal in the metalworking world to sharpen HSS cutters by grinding, sometimes on offhand grinders (lathe and shaper tools, generally) but more usually on complex and expensive specialist tool grinding machines. I think specialist grinding machines were...

As Andy said, basically. It must be pretty good - it's not even got a smidgen of rust on it! Worth a quick check around the sole and mouth for burrs that might scratch the workpiece. The blade will need filing back to remove the battered 1/2mm or so at the edge, then some attention with a...

Airless paint sprayer? I've always used a brush. Never had a problem with one of those priming. Darn sight cheaper, too.

There are many bespoke cabinetmakers that sell more than just furniture, as well - training courses, for example. The point is that the economic scale of of one type of furniture supply somewhat exceeds another. My original point was not just limited to mass market vs. bespoke, but included...

Have you had a problem with your bottom falling off, then?

To avoid dubbing the ends of a board, apply pressure to the toe and heel of the plane appropriately. At the start of the cut, place the plane with its toe on the board, and use full weight on the toe to press the plane down - apply NO downward pressure with the heel hand, just forward push. As...

A good start would be snaffling a copy of 'Making Traditional Wooden Planes' by John M Whelan. It's regarded as the classic text on the subject; so much so, that when it went out of print, used copies fetched huge sums. Happily, it's been reprinted, and Classic Hand Tools can oblige - scroll...

Ha! You may all scoff, but a feller in Mexico became a millionaire back in 1975 selling 'Pet Rocks'. They came in a box with breathing holes, and a bed of straw. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_Rock Weird old world, innit?

Not sure that moist air would be much of a problem given modern glues. Back in the day when all they had for glue was boiled Dobbin, the sort of fancy mechanical joints you see between body and boxing of moulding planes made a lot of sense. Especially in unheated UK workshops! One advantage of...

I think that's right. There are a quite a few of the 'pro' members here engaged in 'fitted' work, mainly bedrooms and kitchens, but bathrooms and alcove storage crops up too.

Fitted bedroom furniture seems to be pretty much the norm, these days. It's the only way to get a lot of storage space in a modern small-sized bedroom. Quality varies between abysmal and pretty damn good, but it's all 'fitted'.

Sure, but without trying to be rude, when the combined turnover of all the bespoke cabinetmakers in the country rivals that of IKEA, it'll be economically significant. Until then, not so much. Also - who gave him permission to engage a bespoke cabinetmaker in the first place?

You're asking the wrong people. One thing I've noticed about this forum is that the membership is mostly male. Domestic furnishing decisions are pretty much the exclusive preserve of the female of the species. Us fellas just agree, If We Know What's Good For Us. On a more positive note, how...