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I think the best biofuel schemes are the ones that use a waste product. Sugar production waste powers much of Mauritius. Bio-ethanol from sugar beet can make sense; after most of the sugar has been washed out for food use, the remaining pulp can be fermented and the alcohol distilled off for...

Does Hitachi have a good name for tools ? I've had consumer electronic items from them, and they have all been unreliable. A name on my "avoid" list.

Groups of 3 doing a circular swap should be enough to make the sender unknown, but let you get things underway before the joining deadline ? Sorry to complicate things Phil, and well done for keeping this tradition going :D

Pairing people so that they exchange gifts is not a good idea - in fact it is not a Secret Santa because you know your gift came from the person you sent one to ! Or have I misunderstood ? Better is to get a list of names, then set up a round-robin, each name you draw gives to the next person...

You might just have found a contemporary use for a pattern maker's plane ? Edited to add: Hah, beaten to it. I have a pattern maker's plane - being from a steelworking family I was drawn to it, but have never found need for such gentle curves. It has IIRC 4 or 5 different convex soles with...

I suppose the water can get messy, but on the other hand, with dry grinding all that steel and grindstone dust becomes airborne, so the sludge ends up in your lungs instead of the bottom of the trough. Growing up in Sheffield, we studied our local history in school, including a visit to a water...

Argh - I only just managed stop myself buying yet another plane I don't really need from eBay because of this thread ! I like the idea though.

I have the Tiger 2000. It produces a good result, if very slowly. If you are a toolmaker, it can produce a very nice ground finish on the edges of irons, etc too. A thing to watch out for is that the spindle is steel, not stainless, so corrodes with the wet from the stone, eventually cracking...

Wow, that is really rather nicely done. I love the colours in the elm in the second photo.

That's what happens with ageing. It's a b****r, isn't it. We need tighter controls on immigrant pies !

What did you use for the metalwork Pete ? Any special devices to prevent the problem of the blade / handles twisting in the frame when you don't want it to ? My frame saw had a tendency for the blade/handles to rotate relative to the frame - or perhaps more accurately the other way around -...

I would go with the sole markings being possibly remains of cleaned up corrosion from storage sitting on something. The iron looks like the result of someone struggling to sharpen without a suitable grinder or talent. If removing a lot of material by hand (as a result of damage say), easy to...

Very nice job Pete =D>

An oddity of the Record StaySet is that - IIRC - they were made as a fitted pair. So the ones you see on Ebay with the toe piece missing really are useless, and it is important not to muddle them up if you have, say, a #4 and a #5 which look on the face if it the same. I do like them. Even if...

Even further - make sure your e-mail client doesn't auto load images. In doing so it confirms the email reached someone, your IP and MAC address, etc etc. Even an invisibly small embedded image can do the trick.

I like that it is "made to order in 6-8 weeks". To fix two legs to a board. Someone works even more slowly than me.

Yes, ok to eat, but try to avoid making the same mistake again, volunteer potatoes can provide a host to overwinter blight. But you can compost the tops, blight needs living potato matter to survive. Don't listen to anyone who says to burn them - they are 90% water, so don't burn !

Oh, I've definitely seen them before. They come up on Ebay from time to time. I don't think they are particularly sought after. But I can't help on who made them, or where.

Looks good, I thought wonky labels were traditional on all best tools, like the old wonky Clifton plane iron stamps ! My combination square is a franken-square - the rule was a decent steel rule, but came with a horrible cheap stock with some sort of cast alloy screws. The screw is a brass one...

I built our wardrobes in a hurry too. I had no idea of any standard dimensions so proceeded in ignorance to do what seemed to hold our clothes. For my own bloke's wardrobe, I don't have any long coats (or dresses !), so I found I had room for an upper, jacket and shirt rail, and a lower...