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The issue is learning to sharpen them. Can you get auger files?

One thing I haven’t seen you fellows mention is the ability to put a tiny bit of pinch in the wood jaws. It makes everyday work so much easier. American hard maple on maple. About thirty years on it.

I wish we had kids around that were interested. I recently went through a spate of carpenter’s bench/stool making. I’d had a salvage pile of pine/ cedar etc torn out of wife’s family cabin near Lake Tahoe here in California. I used last of the scrap to make a scaled down model. The excuse I used...

Good on you ! I firmly believe in the trad recipe at this point although a lemon or two couldn’t hurt. I go to Costco where I can get ten pounds of organic sugar. Nice stuff. I ended up right on one to one on sugar and it’s plenty sweet as far as I’m concerned. I’ve returned mine to the pots...

I suspect that we aren’t far off in our finished product. The main difference I see is in boiling. When I first started researching the boil water was always listed as an integral Part I believe it ends up with a lot of flavor. These oranges came from my pal Michael’s tree and are ordinarily...

Well, I’ve gotten them in the jars. Seventeen pints and eight halves. I tasted as I went yesterday, it's difficult because the orange is so extreme. I ended up using ten and a half pounds of sugar for twelve and a half fruit. Tart ain’t in it, it’s too sour. Everything else is about right. I’ll...

There are large numbers of Seville orange trees in Sacramento. The photo is my wife with the pick pole. As we were picking in front of St John’s Lutheran an oldish church lady stopped to tell us,“Oh dear, those oranges aren’t any good, they’re sour and bitter.” Most of those oranges also end up...

The house becomes infused with the smell. The Seville have a distinct aroma.

It looks great. What are the oranges and where do you get them?

Well I did get the oranges chopped and into pots and pans yesterday. It came out to twelve and two thirds pounds. I had simmered the seeds, or pips, in boil water for several hours then worked them through a kitchen strainer to get as much of the remaining pectin off, though I don’t know why I...

Thanks Phil, as I said I’ve been doing this for a number of years. I’ve used lemons, Meyer lemons, Valencia oranges, all sorts of stuff. In the last few years I’ve returned to the absolutely pure original. If you like it there’s nothing better.

Thanks F, I wonder if anyone has actually made marmalade using two to one sugar. For years I’ve picked oranges from street trees in Sacramento. Nobody bothers with spraying them but they don’t get a lot of water. Tha marmalade required close to an even hundred percent sugar. For the last few...

I’m sitting here in California up to my elbows in Seville oranges, making marmalade. I would like to know if there are others who are experienced in making the rough old Scottish type. It consists of Seville Oranges, the same weight in sugar and the same weight again of the water used to boil...

Well, there you go. When I said well thought out I was referring specifically to things like the saws ability to hold a blade without requiring fiddling, consistent tracking, steadiness and efficiency in clearing sawdust. I’m hardly an expert but I’ve followed discussions since before I...

All of these photos look very familiar. I bought an 18” saw from Laguna tools, back when it was just a single store in Laguna Canyon, in Southern California. This was mid 90s as I remember. They upgraded the guides soon after. Turns out it was made in Italy. When I had to replace a couple of...

My knife of choice, for the last fifty years, has been the old Stanley fixed blade 198 or 199. I’ve always had a blade dispenser screwed to the wall for when a blade is so buggered that I don’t want to fool with sharpening it any further. The difference for me is the proliferation of Amazon and...

As far as I’m concerned building stringed instruments is about the most fun a person can have. Keep it up Clive. Here’s a uke I’m finishing up, along with the original. I recently had my seventy fifth birthday so I suspect you’ve got time.

This is a subject that I have some experience with. Here are two recent guitars, number 104 and 105. First of all, congratulations are in order. Getting a first guitar built and strung up is a real accomplishment. Two resources that helped me a lot were Robbie O Brien’s online photo montage...

You know, shooting boards aren’t necessarily fancy, they’re a bench fixture and are just something we do. I’ve got a ply job I use with an old #8 Stanley Bailey to join guitar plates but most of the time it’s just grab a board to get the piece being planed off the bench so I can plane the edge...

Working on lacquer finish on a couple of guitars I am building. I’d had a couple of days in the mid sixties and got about nine coats sprayed, waiting for the weekend when it’ll be warm again. Both are Martin 00 pattern. Front is Dalbergia Nigra, rear is local Clark Walnut. The necks are drying...