Drawn to the dark side

[Anonymous]

Hi all,
For my 50th this year my wife booked me on a David Charlesworth dovetail course. Having been mostly a power tool user before this has awakened my interest in hand tool working, and the first thing I needed was a place to keep my hand tools. Made the cabinet shown here with £10 worth of pine shelves from Ikea! Works for now though just fine.

The DC course was very interesting and I picked up no end of tips for tool usage and maintenance. His style is very relaxed and precise.

Anyway just thought I'd let you see my latest thing.

 

[ByronBlack]

Nice work!! Glad you liked the course, i've been thinking about getting to one myself. I went to a Bruce Luckhurst course last year and really enjoyed that.

 

[Paul Chapman]

Very nice - from the look of the contents of the cabinet you are already well on your way down the slope :wink:

Paul

 

[MikeW]

Nice cabinet, WM! I like the swing out portion as it makes a good use of space.

And I'm jealous about the course. Mr. C is one of the teachers I would enjoy spending some time with.

Take care, Mike

 

[PowerTool]

Excellent piece - looks great,as well as being immensely practical (I like the idea of being able to see instantly if something is missing - expanding your collection later can sometimes be a problem,though - DAMHIKT )

Andrew

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for all the positive comments.
I found it suprising how many tools I had when I came to put them all in one place.
Mind you, on the way home from the DC course I just had to stop off at APTC and buy a few essentials - you know LN dovetail saw, chisels and LA jack plane, plus a few other goodies. Kid in a sweetie shop I know.
The LN jack is absolutely fantastic - cuts anything I have tried it with and leaves a shiny surface. Got a spare blade with it to keep at a higher angle (york pitch). On the course we went into sharpening in detail and he advocates the use of waterstones. In order to maintain these a flat surface is needed to use some W&D paper for flattening. The best I found is a 12mm thick marble cutting plate from Marks & Spencer homeware - 20" x 10" with four rubber feet. Costs £15 and is great for this purpose, aswell as being perfectly flat.

 

[mailee]

That is a beautiful collection Woodmaster. I really like your cabinet very nice job indeed. I must say that that is the best use of anything from Ikea that I have seen too! I do envy you the course wouldn't mind doing that one myself.