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The hand takes the chisel, unites with the wood, the hammer strikes and the wood splits the waste from the wanted. The hammer withdraws, strikes again and more wood separates from what must remain to form the tenon and tail, the mortise and the housing. My hand twists, turns, twists

Some pine chests at a car-boot sale...   ...some people cheated even back then - nails in each tail..   ... or no tails at all here.               Well, some of you love pine as much as I do I see. I think it’s a lovely wood for tool chests. I have bought

Another friend leaves my workshop this weeks after nine months of intensive training and friendship; but more than that, service. In times past a man of 15 served his apprenticeship and at the end of 5-7 years, depending on the era, he was or became a time-served craftsman. But it

Here is a piece I will be making shortly - a tool chest for my next book. This one was made from Home Depot white pine. Pine like this is lightweight and strong. Oak would be twice the weight yet not twice as strong and too heavy to lift of

I am preparing wood for my next chest, which is my version of a Shaker-style hope chest. This one has similar features to the one in the blog, but dovetailed corners from top to bottom (to reinforce what everyone learned in the Shaker Candle Box in the Working Wood 1&

Some of you have asked for workshop dates for the New Legacy School in the USA and I am glad to see such interest. We are working on the schedule so that you can plan your calendar. We will be holding the first two foundational workshops in April 2012, but

... and 20 seconds by hand tool methods and by eye: Yesterday I made a simple dovetailed box in sapele mahogany and poplar. The actual dovetails themselves, cut and fully fitted and seated into the tail recesses, took me 8 minutes 20 seconds; 10 minutes including planing the outside faces flush