Kid’s Chair


Wooden hand plane aficionados (ambiguity intentional) make much of the fact that they can use words like “frog, cutting angle and throat” with confidence. That confidence is proof that they must be experts! If you add complexity to the activity then great reverence must be assumed. Much is made of achieving chisel cuts at particular…
Candle Sticks These candle sticks are my response to a gig at a conference for intellectually disabled people, Having a Say.Our activity was to involve ten attendees and their helpers. There were no requests for my work to follow any themes. Attendees could be dexterous, or not. Helpers may be anything from ex-tradesmen to multi-thumbed…
An artist in my circle wanted to make a frame on which to stretch a canvas. The joint in the corner of such frames is a complex thing that is not to be tackled by a beginning woodworker. I needed to simplify it. In the hope that beginners will give it a go I have…
Simple Machines Blogging takes time and my recent past has involved a sick wife and a new grandchild. Suburban life is rich with texture. It can make blogging take a back seat. Following is a report of a nice afternoon in my shed with my son! My disabled friends haven’t been ignored, the next blog…
Pallet wood has challenges.If patina tells a story, this is a saga of neglect.The milling process was rushed, the drying stage left twists and warps, and nails fixed the stigma of an abusive past with rusty stains.With such baggage, construction needed to compensate by accepting skewed realities. All timber in this table was rescued from dumping…
Good Ideas Don’t Need to be Complicated Serving Tray For an object to complete the journey from initial musings to touchable reality requires a certain fidelity, on my part, to the original idea. Discouragements take the form of excessively complex prototypes. It is difficult to let simplicity rule. The journey of the serving tray couldn’t be shorter….