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Sam’s Basket Upholstered
A woodwork project with children led me to revisit Sam’s basket as an Easter project. Here it is with a bit of upholstery and a few eggs in side. Modifications Making this with dexterous children allowed a few modifications to the original method.The skewers that we laboriously drilled for and hammered in could be simple…
Wooden Train
This project was perfect for batch production; the pieces are simple and can be cut in multiples. BUT, the coolest part of all is that when it was done we put our carriages together and created a train of inspiring proportions. We used our usual techniques of dowel hammered into holes that are 0.5mm too small….
Sam’s Baskets Finished
Everything my friends make begins with best laid plans. But they do go astray! In this case there were aspects of the construction process that were so difficult that I needed to invent some extra help. Here is little bench clamp that holds up the basket end. At the beginning stage the unsupported end won’t…
More Workbenches
Another rescued lathe stand. This steel construction makes a rigid scaffold on which to mount a work top. The surface is an oregon timber beam removed from a house during renovation. There are splits and twists, but to remove them would have lost 20mm in thickness and 70mm in width. After judicious machining, the bench…
Back Scratcher
Here are the parts of our back scratcher. As with most of our work, fixing is achieved by belting 6mm dowels into 5.5mm holes. The handle is well suited to batch production but the body of the scratchy bit took a while. Each had to be individually marked out. It was the least efficient part…
Fire Engines
My friends were impressed by the notion that our train’s carriages could be hooked together and towed around. It failed, however, in that each woodworker could only take home a single carriage; they had nothing to tow. At the end of the train project, and experiencing a flush of overconfidence, I asked staff for inspiration. They requested a fire…


