The Offcut

Between times over the last day or two I rescued a lump of holly which had been standing in the garden and found space between the knots to carve this deep-bowled spoon. The wood was drier than I would have liked which made excavating the bowl hard going, especially as I was using my home-made knives - made from old saw plate steel - which are not so rigid as bought tool blades would be. The Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12042650405946029324noreply@blogger.com0

This is a transverse section through a piece of hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) timber I picked up locally. It's a timber I have worked with several times over the last couple of years and I am always impressed by how well it carves - given that I can find a piece sufficiently clear of knots and splits. Around here hawthorn typically grows in a somewhat tortured state on windswept hills and Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12042650405946029324noreply@blogger.com0

Does anyone use a Stanley 130 block plane (or its Record or Marples or other make of equivalent)? For a while I have treated this old timer as my stand-by - the one I turn to when my bog-standard Stanley 9 1/2 needs sharpening - but I think the 130 actually has a lot going for it. What clearly differentiates it from the pack is the choice of blade positions it offers, one at each end, with theRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12042650405946029324noreply@blogger.com0

We can't quite run to installing a cask of ale in the kitchen but wooden drinking vessels are a feasible alternative. Once everyone drank and ate from wood and it is such warm, comfortable material that I wonder how metal and glass ever caught on - let alone plastic.  I finished these cherry wood pots with a mixture of walnut oil and beeswax. It's a leak-proof, food safe finish which also Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12042650405946029324noreply@blogger.com2

Owners of thick-topped workbenches may find this irrelevant but for anyone working at a lighter, leaner bench here is a method of installing a decent holdfast. This bench is about as cheap as they come with a 7/8 in top that is way too thin for a holdfast to cant and lock successfully in its mounting hole. The bench also has a drawer which precludes thickening the top with a block mounted Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12042650405946029324noreply@blogger.com0

While spring remains unseasonably cold the jack plane provides a useful way of keeping warm.  When I bought a bagful of old wooden planes a couple of years ago the seller threw in this one as an afterthought. It's a Master jack plane, 17 in long with 2 1/8 in iron by Hildick and although taking a thickish shaving it leaves the surface of this cherry as smooth as glass. On a day like today itRobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12042650405946029324noreply@blogger.com0

In a recent blog post Paul Sellers looked at how Plane soles reflect their use and their users. I must say I warm to Paul's enthusiasm for the Stanley No 4 bench plane, in particular, and other tools within the reach of the amateur woodworker. Paul's post prompted me to ask if sole wear is likely to be more or less of a problem with bronze planes - not that I have one, mine are old steel Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12042650405946029324noreply@blogger.com0

...err, maybe I could phrase that better but the gist of my thoughts while converting a cherry log into a couple of hefty beams today, using a carpenter's axe and a jack plane, concerned woodworking machinery. It might be the shock of the axe jarring my bones or that make-do dowel of a plane tote raising a blister on my palm but something makes me think of other ways of doing this. Not that I Robhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12042650405946029324noreply@blogger.com0