Paul Sellers
Published Jul 19, 2024Why are we making another Wallclock? Find out here: https://woodworkingmasterclasses.com/…
The basis for everything Paul has taught in woodworking to woodworkers around the world has been that with three joints and ten hand tools, you can make just about anything from wood. Each of these joints is irreplaceable and so each one stands alone in its importance of use.
The variations on the joints can triple, and in the case of the housing dado, there are but two additional versions. In this project, we take the most complex of the three versions to make our clock.
By the time you have made this joint and the clock, you will be fully equipped to make the other two versions. The tools you will use for all three variations are the same. We walk you through each step to bring total clarity to the tools, the joinery, and the methods and techniques. You will love making this oak wallclock project as much as Paul has in the dozens he has made since he designed it.
Remember, all the methods used will be adopted for dozens upon dozens of other projects throughout your life.
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December 18, 2024
How to Make a Wallclock | Episode 1
December 14, 2024
I Tried All The Cheap Bench Grinders … Here’s what happened
Rex Krueger
Published Aug 14, 2024GRINDERS!!!
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December 1, 2024
Retrofitting Aluminium Clamps | Paul Sellers
Paul Sellers
Published Jul 26, 2024Aluminium clamps are lightweight and ideal for 99% of woodworking.
I have tried almost all of them and been disappointed because they can look the same on the outside, but it’s the thickness of the walls of the box section that counts. This is how I retrofit all of my ‘U’ shaped rectangular bar sash clamps.
It takes only a few minutes to do each one, but what a difference it makes when you do. Lightweight but with great strength; once done, my clamps are up there with the best of the best.
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November 20, 2024
What on earth is a Buck Board Bench?
Rex Krueger
Published Jul 25, 2024Furniture Forensics returns thanks to the mysterious Buck Board bench.
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November 15, 2024
Three Ways to Cut a Housing Dado | Paul Sellers
Paul Sellers
Published Jul 5, 2024At least half of my woodworking life has been dedicated to demystifying the art of hand tool woodworking, and this video proves the truth of it.
The simplicity is this though; with just a handful of hand tools, I create three housing dadoes in 4″ wide hard maple, and the watch strapped to my wrist tells it all. I hope you enjoy seeing this video as much as we had making it.
We wanted to show you exactly how hand tools are still current technology at its best, and it’s available for everyone, including your kids!
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November 6, 2024
You Don’t Need Plans for Woodworking
Rex Krueger
Published Jul 11, 2024Doing it yourself? All part of the plan.
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November 2, 2024
I’m only buying tools HERE
Rex Krueger
Published 1 Nov 2024The new platform for buying and selling woodworking tools.
Use the code: STARTNOW to save $5 off ANY first purchase.
To celebrate our launch, we’re running No Fee November! For the entire month of November, sell unlimited tools. NO MARKETPLACE FEES!
October 25, 2024
How to Make a Simple Picture Frame | Episode 2
Paul Sellers
Published Jun 21, 2024This is a uniquely different way to make a picture frame, but Paul designed it specifically to work with hand tools.
Sizing the eight components with the level of precision needed can be tricky, but two guides make the whole process quick and simple. We have dispensed with the mitres normally associated with picture frames altogether, giving these frames an assembly process and look you’ve never seen before.
It’s a step-by-step process with accuracy and we walk you through every step.
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October 23, 2024
QotD: Sheep shearing in the ancient and medieval world
Of course you have to get the wool off of the sheep and this is a process that seems to have changed significantly with the dawn of the iron age. The earliest breeds of sheep didn’t grow their coats continuously, but rather stopped growing their fleece in the spring and thus in the late spring the fleece begins to shed and peel away from the body. This seems to be how most sheep “shearing” (I use the term loosely, as no shearing is taking place) was done prior to the iron age. This technique is still used, particularly in the Shetlands, where it is called rooing, but it also occasionally known as “plucking”. It has been surmised that regular knives (typically of bone) or perhaps flint scrapers sometimes found archaeologically might have assisted with this process, but such objects are multi-purpose and difficult to distinguish as being attached to a particular purpose. It has also been suggested that flint scrapers might have been used eventually in the early bronze age shearing of sheep with continuously growing coats, but Breniquet and Michel express doubts (Wool Economy in the Ancient Near East and the Aegean (2014)). Another quirk of this early process and sheep that shed on their own is that unlike with modern sheep shearing, one cannot wash the sheep before removing the wool – since it is already being shed, you would simply wash it away. Plucking or rooing stuck around for certain breeds of sheep in the Roman sphere at least until the first century, but in most places not much further.
The availability of iron for tools represented a fairly major change. Iron, unlike bronze or copper, is springy which makes the standard design of sheep shears (two blades, connected by a u-shaped or w-shaped metal span called a “bow”) and the spring action (the bending and springing back into place of the metal span) possible. The basic design of these blade shears has remained almost entirely unchanged since at least the 8th century BC, with the only major difference I’ve seen being that modern blade shears tend to favor a “w-shape” to the hinge, while ancient shears are made with a simpler u-shape. Ancient iron shears generally varied between 10 to 15cm in length (generally closer to 15 than to 10) and modern shears … generally vary between 10cm and 18.5cm in length; roughly the same size. Sometimes – more often than you might think – the ideal form of an unpowered tool was developed fairly early and then subsequently changed very little.
Modern shearing, either bladed or mechanical, is likely to be done by a specialized sheep shearer, but the overall impression from my reading is that pre-modern sheep shearing was generally done by the shepherds themselves and so was often less of a specialized task with a pastoral community. There are interesting variations in what the evidence implies for the gender of those shearing sheep; shears for sheep are common burial goods in Iron Age Italy, but their gender associations vary by place. In the culturally Gallic regions of North Italy, it seems that shears were assumed to belong to men (based on associated grave goods; that’s a method with some pitfalls, but the consistency of the correlation is still striking), while in Sicily, shears were found in both male and female burials and more often in the latter (but again, based on associated grave goods). Shears also show up in the excavation of settlements in wool-producing regions in Italy.
That said, the process of shearing sheep in the ancient world wasn’t much different from blade shearing still occasionally performed today on modern sheep. Typically before shearing, the sheep are washed to try to get the wool as clean as possible (though further post-shearing cleaning is almost always done); typically this was done using natural bodies of moving water (like a stream or shallow river). The sheep’s legs are then restrained either by hand or being tied and the fleece is cut off; I can find, in looking at depictions of blade shearing in various periods, no consistency in terms of what is sheared first or in what order (save that – as well known to anyone familiar with sheep – that a sheep’s face and rear end are often sheared more often; this is because modern breeds of sheep have been selectively bred to produce so much wool that these areas must be cleared regularly to keep the fleece clean and to keep the sheep from being “wigged” – that is, having its wool block its eyes). Nevertheless, a skilled shearer can shear sheep extremely fast; individuals shearing 100-200 sheep a day is not an uncommon report for modern commercial shearers working with tools that, as noted, are not much different from ancient tools. That speed was important; sheep were generally sheared just once a year and usually in a fairly narrow time window (spring or very early summer; in medieval England this was generally in June and was often accompanied by a rural festival) so getting them all sheared and ready to go before they went up the mountain towards the summer pasture probably did need to be done in fairly short order.
Bret Devereaux, “Collections: Clothing, How Did They Make It? Part I: High Fiber”, A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, 2021-03-05.
October 9, 2024
How to Make a Simple Picture Frame | Episode 1
Paul Sellers
Published Jun 7, 2024This is a uniquely different way to make a picture frame, but Paul designed it specifically to work with hand tools.
Sizing the eight components with the level of precision needed can be tricky, but two guides make the whole process quick and simple. We have dispensed with the mitres normally associated with picture frames altogether, giving these frames an assembly process and look you’ve never seen before.
It’s a step-by-step process with accuracy and we walk you through every step.
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October 5, 2024
The Woodworker (1940) – Vocational training film
Charlie Dean Archives
Published Aug 10, 2013http://archive.org/details/Woodwork1940
Woodworking in mills, construction and cabinetmaking.
CharlieDeanArchives – Archive footage from the 20th century making history come alive!
September 28, 2024
How to Make a Ladle | Episode 3
Paul Sellers
Published May 24, 2024This is the last third of making a substantial kitchen utensil from solid hardwood. It’s a lifetime kitchen tool designed to develop your carving and shaping skills with substantive insight into how we must learn to work our wood according to the changing direction of the wood grain.
This last episode focuses on shaping the back of the bowl, and for this, we use different spokeshaves, saws, and rasps to get the shape we want for the best-looking ladle.
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September 9, 2024
How to Make a Ladle | Episode 2
Paul Sellers
Published May 10, 2024Shaping any wood has a therapeutic effect on all of us, and this ladle is no different. With the bowl scalloped, we now focus on shaping the handle using tools ranging from flat chisels, saws, card scrapers, and rasps.
Remember, when you’re shaping a handle, you use just the same tools and techniques as you would for the neck of cellos, violins, and guitars.
By the time you have shaped your handle, you will feel relaxed and satisfied.
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September 6, 2024
Saw Straight Every Time with These Simple Tricks
Rex Krueger
Published May 29, 2024Learn to use layout and body mechanics to saw straight and square.
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August 31, 2024
This Hand Plane Couldn’t Take a Single Shaving
Rex Krueger
Published May 22, 2024You never really know what to expect when it comes to tool restoration.
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