Paul Sellers
Published 19 May 2023We all need longer clamps from time to time, especially when it comes to long tables, beds, and the like. I love my lightweight aluminium clamps and they lend themselves to a simple option for creating longer clamps from shorter ones.
This video will take out the mystery and deliver a totally practical option for you at almost zero cost. Keeping life simple is always difficult but this option is doable in a matter of minutes.
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September 23, 2023
Sash Clamp Extension | Paul Sellers
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September 14, 2023
I Built a FOOT POWERED Lathe (Most requested video)
Rex Krueger
Published 13 Sep 2023How to make a hand tool spring pole lathe. Almost.
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Chip Carving with a Gouge | Paul Sellers
Paul Sellers
Published 5 May 2023Starting carving usually begins with a simple project, and this flower will get you started. Once you have done this, you can create a wide range of other decorative carvings and add them to your woodworking projects, pieces like box lids and picture frames. Enjoy!
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September 10, 2023
How to Make a Poor Man’s Toothing Plane | Paul Sellers
Paul Sellers
Published 23 May 2014In this video Paul Sellers shows you a cheap alternative to buying a toothing plane, using very common and readily available materials.
To find out more about Paul Sellers and the projects he is involved with visit http://paulsellers.com
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September 5, 2023
September 2, 2023
August 30, 2023
Making A Quick Rebate | Paul Sellers
Paul Sellers
Published 21 Apr 2023Life can be simple with a few hand skills and a handful of very ordinary woodworking hand tools. Watch me and see if you couldn’t do this yourself. We try to make everything as simple as we can, and I don’t think this could be simpler.
Enjoy, and start making for a better life!
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August 4, 2023
What Does A Smoothing Plane Do? | Paul Sellers
Paul Sellers
Published 7 Apr 2023We live in an age when fewer and fewer people will ever use a hand plane and may never even see one in use. This super-short video shows how and why we woodworkers still use and rely on hand planes today. They are fast and effective and they reduce the need for sandpaper too because the wood comes out super-smooth and level.
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August 3, 2023
QotD: Blacksmith forge techniques
Fundamentally, each stage of forging iron revolves around a basic cycle: by heating the metal, the smith makes it soft enough to work (that is, hammer into shape). Technically, it is possible to shape relatively thin masses of iron by hammering when cold (this is called cold-working) but in contrast to other metals (tin, copper and bronze all come to mind) nearly all serious iron-working was done “hot”. In smithing terminology, each of these cycles is referred to as a “heat” – the more heats a given project requires, the more fuel it is going to consume, the longer and more expensive it is going to be (but a skilled smith can often finish the work in fewer heats than an unskilled smith).
A modern blacksmith can gauge the temperature of a metal using sophisticated modern thermometers, but pre-modern smiths had no recourse to such things (and most traditional smiths I’ve met don’t use them anyway). Instead, the temperature of the metal is gauged by looking at its color: as things get hotter, they glow from brown to dark red through to a light red into yellow and then finally white. For iron heated in a forge, a blacksmith can control the temperature of the forge’s fire by controlling the air-input through the bellows (pushing in more air means more combustion, which means more heat, but also more fuel consumed). As we’ve seen, charcoal (and we will need to use charcoal, not wood, to hit the necessary heat required), while not cripplingly expensive, was not trivial to produce either. A skilled smith is thus going to try to do the work in as few heats as possible and not excessively hot either (there are, in fact, other reasons to avoid excessive heats, this is just one).
Once hot the metal can be shaped by hammering. The thickness of a bar of metal could be thickened by upsetting (heating the center of the bar and them hammering down on it like a nail to compress the center, causing it to thicken) or thinned by drawing (hammering out the metal to create a longer, thinner shape). If the required shape needed the metal to be bent it could be heated and bent either over the side of the anvil or against a tool; many anvils had (and still have) a notch in the back where such a tool could be fitted. A good example of this kind of thing would be hammering out a sheet of iron over a dome-shape to create the bowl of a helmet (a task known as “raising” or “sinking” depending on precisely how it is done). A mass of iron can also be divided by heating it at the intended cutting point and then using a hammer and chisel to cut through the hot, soft metal.
But for understanding the entire process, the most important of these operations is the fire weld. Much like bloomery furnaces, the forges available to pre-modern blacksmiths could not reach the temperatures necessary to melt or cast iron, but it was necessary to be able to join smaller bits of iron into larger ones which was done through a fire weld (sometimes called a forge weld). In this process, the iron is heated very hot, typically to a “yellow” or “white” heat (around 1100 °C). The temperature range for the operation is quite precise: too cold and the iron will not weld, too hot and it will “burn” making the weld brittle. Once at the right temperature, the two pieces of iron are put next to each other and hammered into each other with heavy blows. If done properly, the two pieces of metal join completely, leaving a weld that is as strong as every other part of the bar.
Bret Devereaux, “Collections: Iron, How Did They Make It, Part III: Hammer-time”, A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, 2020-10-02.
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July 27, 2023
“Harvesting” Green Wood from the Side of the Road
Rex Krueger
Published 26 Jul 2023It’s just cutting up wood. Right?
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July 26, 2023
Making & Using Drill Bit Guides | Paul Sellers
Paul Sellers
Published 24 Mar 2023Drilling perpendicular holes on a drill press or pillar drill are as easy as a wink, but when the project is too big or fixed in place, we sometimes need the same accuracy — otherwise, whatever we fit into the hole will not be aligned well at all.
Making a couple of drill guides could not be simpler. I designed two, which I use all the time for twist drills and auger bits. Try them yourself. You won’t be disappointed.
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July 13, 2023
This “simple” bench made me humble when I tried to build it
Rex Krueger
Published 12 Jul 2023It’s just nails and pine, but this piece was full of tricks.
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Praise for the #151 Flat-Bottomed Spokeshave | Paul Sellers
Paul Sellers
Published 10 Feb 2023It’s easy to underestimate the value of the #151 spokeshave, no matter the maker. But these simple tools work amazingly for a wide range of woodworking tasks, and you only need the flat-bottomed version as it will work equally well for both convex and concave surfaces.
With this video, see just how versatile the flat-bottomed spokeshave is and why you should own one for your woodworking tasks that need shaping.
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June 22, 2023
How & When to Hammer Tap a Plane | Paul Sellers
Paul Sellers
Published 10 Mar 2023We tend to think that modern makers of metal and wooden planes have given us planes that are better adjusted with fine adjusters and therefore dismiss hammer-tapping for setting the plane.
In reality, hammer tapping is non-detrimental and, at the same time, simplifies the setting on many planes.
I use this even on planes that have adjusters. Just because hammer tapping is so effective and immediate. Watch me and you will see what I mean.
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June 18, 2023
Don’t Drop your Tools in Space
Real Engineering
Published 11 Mar 2023
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