Offcuts - the general chat thread

Any of ye catch that program tonight on BBC2 'Mastercrafts - Greenwood furniture', bloody good program! They got 3 ordinary Joe's and brough them out into a remote greenwood craft shop, in the middle of a forest and thought them the necessary skills to make chairs using traditional methods! I wanna go do that, I sort of feel like chopping a tree down now! :P

Have a look in the guide, it'll be repeated at some stage soon I guess.

I've wanted to make one of those shaving horses for a while now! Nothing fancy, just something that I could knock together, not worry about appearance and leave the fecker outside!

Anyway, any of you guys see this guys Youtube channel? 'TheLumberJackass', he's based in Galway. Some good reviews, project and well put together vids!

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheLumberjackass


And, on a side note, a little article on misé.....:o
http://www.montecarlow.com/2010/02/carlow-business-spotlight-1-peter-heary-woodcraft/

Thats some good stuff, cheers DB!

Was in the local hardware a while back and chanced upon a Stanley No5 JP, not having seen that particular plane all that often in hardware stores (usually its No4's) I picked it up to have a look. What a pitiful, low grade make Stanley has become!! Jesus the thing was a mess! It was new out of the box so undamaged, the handles were poorly fitted, bad countersinking and ill fitting, there was a thick shellac/varnish material slawmed onto them. The machining was third grade, infact, its like something that was made and assembled in the third world by a junior infacts class!

Needless to say it didnt bare the proud title of 'MADE IN ENGLAND'

Let that be a warning to anyone thinking of buying a plane DO NOT buy any of those modern Stanleys or Record, go online and pick up a decent 40's-early 80's Record or Stanley, when they did have some pride in their work and offered some quality pieces.


On a more upbeat note, I've learned how to sharpen my own handsaws! Got an Elipse No77 set, a few files, a saw vice and a few hours and I've brought a few old saws back to life! So damn satisfying!! No more el cheapo, disposable handsaws for me! :P

Its an odd one JOA, I've been giving it some thought as to why Stanley/Record/Irwin would let there standards drop so much. I think the reason being is that it simply wouldnt be worth there time or effort to produce a quality plane anymore! Sure who'd use them?! Once upon a time almost every house had a tool kit of some description which would have contained a hand plane, they were a household necessity and no man could call himself a man unless he could mend a sticking door or get that drawer closing smoothly again!

Who buys them now though? Perhaps the very odd householder, but I'd imagine very few now adays would know how to shapen and use a handplane! Why would they when you can pick up an electric one (and of course electric is SO much better than muscle power loike! ) out of Aldi/Lidl for 20 squids. The only quality plane makers I can see now adays are Veritas, Lie-Nielson etc, tool makers that make tools as they should be made for dedicated woodworkers as this seems to be the only market. That general handman/DIY market for good branded tools seems to have dried up for good hand tools.

Made a trip to a car boot sale today and came away with 3 nice saws for the pricely sum of €10! . Got a nice little brass backed dovetail saw for 7, then on the way out I stopped to look at two steel backed tenon saws that were lying on the ground at a stall, no sooner had I picked one up to look at it then the seller shouted 'you can have the two of them for €3!', I was like 'ermm, ok mate I'm not even gonna bother haggling with you!', result! The two of them have light surface rust and the handles look a bit hungry, but have all there teeth and straight blades, they'll clean up nice, especially the 'Wm Marples & Sons Ltd' one!! The other is unbranded, but not bad for 1.50 a piece!! I'll sharpen them up and get them back into service over the next few days!

Here's the three latest edition to the family . The bottom one is the Marples and is currently getting a new handle, its still in the 'shaping' process and is made of Walnut.





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I've sharpened the dovetail saw, it was a b%$£h to do, the teeth are so fine! But she's cutting nice and cleanly now!



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This lil' beaut arrived in the post this morning! This one cost me €8 (including postage) from the UK, it was a flea-bay buy. Its a 'Columbian', USA made rip saw. 26" blade, 7tpi. Gave her a sharpen and re-set tonight and she's flying now. There is etching on the blade but its faded sadly . Something about being made in the USA, warranted, quality steel........the usual stuff! Judging by the font of the text I'd reckon its from about 1900-1920. Its been sharpened a lot in its life, it came to me with a pretty poor attempt at being sharpened :rolleyes: