Table of contents for January - February 2023 in Quercus

I started my Hardwood Craftsman woodworking business two years ago as a second career, having retired from 27 years in law enforcement. I had already been a woodworking hobbyist, using mostly hand-tools. But when I started building cabinetry and simple furniture professionally I rented a 1500sq.ft shop with a friend and we started outfitting it with a few power-tools (tablesaw, jointer, planer, etc...). I thought that efficiency was the primary route to success. But I quickly realised that there are plenty of people out there who value quality furniture, and doing nice work (on time) is what makes my business profitable. Hand-tools permit me to do the nice work, and using them efficiently allows me to produce results in about the same amount of time as power-tools. I’m not a…

Many, if not most, woodworking books start with a section on tools, often sharpening and sometimes safety. Woodworking Joinery by Hand may not sound innovative, nor even unusual, but it is, and its introductory chapters are, lessons in themselves. Some readers my blanche at the suggestion of embracing a Japanese adaptation of their woodworking techniques and tools, but this one, written by Toyohisa Sugita, is, as it suggests “a gamer-changer”. We are fortunate in QM16 to be reviewing such significant launches as this and Craft Britain. The tools section hardly touches the kit you will need, though there are two spreads illustrating some basics, and an introduction to Japanese saws. Thereby hangs the rub. Toyohisa’s contribution to woodworking skills is about making a few of your own cutting and holding…

As long as one can recall there has been a debate searching for the defining distinction between Craft & Art, notably asking when Craft becomes Art rather than the other way round. If the A&C Movement set a benchmark at the turn of the last century, then one might argue that the pairing has been lost in time. Heritage Crafts (previously the Heritage Crafts Association) was founded in 2009 to protect traditional vocations or skills, perhaps because that wasn’t being done notably by the Crafts Council. Now HC has a Red List of crafts at risk of extinction, on which craftspeople like skein basket weaver Monica Cass who was featured in QM10 and John Williamson who makes stave baskets and was on the cover of QM05 are included. So a…

While the British autumn progressed into the British winter, I started to think about how best to protect my nice woodworking tools from rust. Britain must at times rank with the wettest and dampest places on Earth. Many woodworkers and hobbyists will keep all their stuff in a simple shed, an unheated garage or outbuilding. Many lovely examples can be seen in Quercus and other woodwork magazine illustrations. And in many cases damp will be a problem. For my own shed I considered that dryness was probably more important than warmth. I found a small second-hand dehumidifier and have kept that running for the past year, during all seasons, the Ecoair, ECO DD122FW SIMPLE MK2. It is rated at 360W on the lower setting, which seems to be all I…

The Northern Woodworking Show (aka Harrogate) in November was a step forwards for so many exhibitors and visitors, a plethora of both. For most it was business as usual. For me it was a memory lane of events so many years ago, before the venue had been so significantly upgraded, being now so much lighter than before with standholders no longer having to pay extra for lighting. In my case it was to be amongst my Classic Hand Tools friends, who soon will be stocking Quercus for the first time. They were selling almost all of the remaining tools from David Charlesworth’s workshop, before putting the star pieces for sale online until early December, by which time they were largely sold. Amongst their Lie-Nielsen, Veritas and Japanese saw sections were…

I always enjoy reading Quercus, however I take issue slightly with Charles Mak’s article in the December 2022 issue (QM15) on using a digital inclinometer in the workshop to test his squares. I have one of these inclinometers and I agree that they are very useful gadgets. I use mine a lot, for setting up machines both in woodworking and in model engineering, but they do have their limitations for precise work. Many of these simple angle gauges have a stated resolution of 0.10 but usually a claimed accuracy of +/-0.10. This means that a reading of 90.00 could easily be 0.10 in error, either above or below 900. Some of them claim to read to 0.010. I would take this with a pinch of salt for a device with…

In 2019 I purchased this carpenter’s axe at an online auction, the shape really spoke to me and looked like a good candidate for a more documented restoration process. The axe is stamped with PNL Garanti, which was the stamp Per Nordlöw used. He was born in 1845 in Enånger, Sweden and moved in 1883 to Tallåsen, and died in 1923. The Nordlöw family was and are quite famous blacksmiths. The Nordlöws originate from a family from Boda village in Enånger, Hälsingland. In total, the 14 blacksmiths cover six generations through history. The first of them was Eric Ericsson, born 1736, blacksmith in Grängsjö, Enånger. Sweden’s family register The first time the name Nordlöw occurs is with Eric Ericsson’s son, Lars Ericsson Nordlöw, born in 1765, who was a parish…

Not ever yone wants to practice. Not ever yone has the discipline necessary for practice. If you are skilled or want to learn something, it is the only thing that allows you to get better and to develop your skills. Most people do not want to practice. They just want to be good right away. They want to skip the work part and just be great. It takes discipline to become skilled. My father taught me discipline. A Catholic high school education reinforced it. I was taught that if I do a job, do it well. To those two stern teachers I owe a debt of gratitude. I learned to work hard and that is the most valuable thing I ever learned at school. It wasn’t the biology or the…

SHARPENING & GLUING For a person just starting a craft, finding a mentor is paramount. I was lucky to find Elliot Driscoll as my first mentor to take me from hobby to passion. Elliot is a talented woodworker, an extremely skilled carver, and the founder of the Driscoll Woodshop based in Baltimore, Maryland. He is also the board chair of Recovery Capitol LLC, a non-profit organisation that funds the Driscoll Woodshop to provide a place for those in recovery from substance use disorders and veterans suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). I was diagnosed with PTSD a few years ago while serving with the US Army. At the time, I was self-medicating my depression and anxiety that accompanies PTSD with alcohol. The loss of friends and teammates to combat…

Every project requires a decision to be made about the species of wood that will be used. A decision might simply be based on what scrap wood you have lying around the shop that’s still big enough to be useful. It might be determined by what the plans recommend. Outdoor work calls for more rot-resistant wood than indoor projects. Maybe you’ve been given something exotic and planned the whole thing around its wild grain. Could be you’re one of the lucky ones who has a well-stocked supplier nearby, excess cash and can just pick any wood that suits your fancy. Or it could be you live in the near north of Canada and have just one option when it comes to hardwood. If that’s the case you’ll be glad your…

Roughly 2,000 years ago, a woodworker somewhere in the north of Scotland found and felled an uncommonly large alder tree and the resultant log was destined to become one of the largest and best-preserved wooden bowls from Iron Age Scotland. We can catch glimpses of the gravity this object would once have had in its exquisitely executed form and finish alongside the beautiful copper-alloy repairs that were made during the bowl’s enigmatic life. This article documents one small part of my journey to research and recreate this Iron Age wooden bowl, found by the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI) Arcaeology Institute in 2018 on Orkney. It begins with my initial encounter with this bowl online in the first 2020 Lockdown which led to my obsession with figuring out…

I first encountered the ‘Hack Scratch Stock’ when I met Garrett Hack at a woodworking event where we were both demonstrating. I took a moment to have a snoop around the show and came across a quietly-spoken American woodworker who was shaping the edge of a piece of wood effortlessly, with one hand, and, at first glance, without any obvious tool, so presumably using some sort of crafty North American hokum. A second glance revealed that Garrett was not in fact the next David Blaine, but was using a cunning, and very small, scratchstock which seemed to be just a small block of wood, but which either had some very special powers or was fitted with a cutter of some sort. You may have gathered from previous articles that I…