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On the other hand - I am sometimes asked how much I'd make a chair or stool for. Now, I normally answer that I don't make for sale, but if pressed I give them a sensible answer - there is a long day's work to get to a stool from an ash log and a pile of seagrass, and a very good 2-3 days in a...

For completeness - if you are willing to glue bits on temporarily, glue a triangular block on each side of the joint, so you can clamp across the blocks and get your pressure perfectly perpendicular to the joint surface. Saw/plane the blocks away when done. No, I can't be bothered either, I...

IMHO - the best way to retain crispness, and retain the most life from the wood, is not to sand anything. Well, maybe just to break a sharp corner. But otherwise stick to plane and scrapers. But as has been said, a round over looks good and is more practical.

Not at all - it gives the rest of us chance to have wild guesses what they could possibly do, before you fill us in with the exact name, function, vintage and part number ;) Ever astonished by your knowledge !

I see what Cabinetman means. I made a tall stool with a reuleaux triangle top, which I have just been using in the kitchen, and I always find myself sitting on it with the pointy corner forwards, between my legs, and the opposite side of the triangle behind me. But whether it would work with...

I sometimes do alcohol assisted planing. I have a handy shelf behind the bench to keep my glass. This is a big advantage of hand working - don't try it with power tools !

Cracking first job ! Your dowels may not slide smoothly if worn, or they swell in a more humid environment. They look to be decent beech dowel - I would wax them and the groove they run in (if you haven't already) for smooth action and reduced wear.

The hooks kind of remind me of fencing pliers, the crimps maybe for applying those lead meter seals. Wire cutters too - something to do with cable / wire.

I had a cheap Ferm one from Screwfix long ago. The blades stopped cutting because the bearings seized and melted their way back through the plastic case until the blades no longer touched the wood. I've always found them a bit scary though, so didn't replace it.

In which case you may just accept any cracks you do get as character. Beech isn't all that durable outdoors though, is it ? It is an apoealing shape. Sorry if I assumed too much, trying to make table or stool tops from endgrain slices is worth a FAQ entry I think, it comes up every now and again.

A slice that thin I would expect to have started to crack already by the time you read the answers. Those sort of slices are almost useless IMHO. The short grain has little strength, unless you have a very thick top-heavy table. There is a reason you don't see furniture made from cross-grain...

Has the butter come straight from the fridge or not ? ;) There are a few good ways to get scrapers of that ideal saw plate kind of hardness. Worn out hardpoint saws and a hacksaw. Or buy them from someone like Thomas Flynn who make mostly saws - then they are made out of saw plate.

:LOL: very good Phil. Not woodwork related. Just walking on a field path in the Chilterns on a slippery chalk clay. Slipped, landed badly on this foot. 3 fractures in my ankle. A month or so ago, I walked 74 miles over 4 days along the Pennine way from Horton in Ribblesdale to Appleby in...

Treating your amputated toes seems very dedicated but a bit of a waste of time - much better spent on what's still attached to the patient IMHO ;) A lovely girl I knew at school wanted to be a chiropodist. Still can't get my head round why, even without watching that video.

Oops. Looks like SS may be trickier this year. Still, inspired by Phil, if he can do it without legs, I should still do my best with one good one and one held together with self-tapping screws.

It's all a simulation anyway. We aren't real. This very idea that quantum states only become determined when we observe them - why else would the universe work by lazy evaluation ? And is the speed of light limit a bit like fear of the water in the Truman show - an artificial limit to stop us...

I have a big Henry Taylor sculptors gouge. Little used, but the first time given heavy use the cutting edge just bent over, like it was not nearly hard enough. I'm hoping it is just overheating of the edge or loss of carbon, and having ground it back a mm or so, it will be harder. But I haven't...

I'm a computer systems engineer. So I can can count to 1023 on my fingers. What's not to like about binary ?

Actually there is one good argument for imperial here. If you have the sort of rule that has some areas in 1/16s, some in 1/20s, some in 1/12s etc, the chances are anything you want to measure will be close enough to an integer number of one or the other of them, but the scales are not so fine...

No - they all have digital digits. Just some have decimated them.