Lovely Swedish Dining Table

My friend Leif Karlsson sent me these pictures of a recently completed project in Swedish ash, a favourite wood of James Krenov when he lived there.
I love the way he has highlighted the dark (olive) centre.
Leif makes wonderful traditional work benches
http://www.workbenches.se/en/index.php

The base has a very sturdy Scandinavian look and is nicely proportioned to the heavy top.
It is also a very practical table with little to get in the way of diners legs.

Customer Miniature Chest

Here's a couple of pictures of a very nice miniature chest inspired by my recent article in Furniture and Cabinetmaking magazine. It's always nice to see customer projects, especially done this well.

Workshop Hazzards

When it comes to hazards in the workshop you've think it would be the same the world over, table saws, planers, routers etc but in some countries they have one or two more to contend with.........

 Michael from Queensland Australia sent me these photos, looking on the bright side at least he doesn't have mice in his shop any more!

Customer Dovetail Alignment Boards

This first one is from Jason in Texas, he thanked me for taking so much stress out the dovetail joint. He turned this one out the same day the guide and saw arrived, that's what I like to see!

Another nice job this time in quarter sawn oak and from Marty in Maine. He said he was stunned with the results using his 1:6 dovetail guide and Lie Nielsen tapered cross cut saw.

Yoga Chair.

My wife is doing a Yoga teacher training course which involves 5 hours of sitting. Some manage it cross legged on the floor but many need to use the low chairs at the school, my wife included. She liked it so much she brought one of the MDF chairs home for me to copy in something a bit nicer!

Due to the width of the seat I had to book match all the parts, machine jointing them first and then cleaning up with my jointer plane and fence. I flipped the second board so that any slight deviation from 90 degrees was cancelled out to give a truly flat board.

This is the result, these two boards above aren't glued or clamped, they just fit together.

The joinery was a bit more complex than I first thought with compound angles. After messing around with my table saw trying to set it up, I decided it was easier, having marked out the cuts, to just do it by hand. All fitted well after a little pairing on one of them.

And here is the result, my version in olive ash and finished with three coats of Devon Wood Oil.

It reminds me a bit of a Nakashima low chair.

I chose to book match the seat this way so that the curve in the wood matched the angles on the seat. That olive ash is lovely stuff.

E Bay Planes for Sale this Week.

A fine and rare Norris A6
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/152004771234?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

A steel soled gunmetal shoulder plane by H Slater
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/152004792840?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

A very attractive gunmetal user made plane
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/152004799550?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

An HNT Gordon block plane
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/152004808745?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

  An HNT Gordon jack plane.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/152004831764?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

An HNTGordon shoulder plane.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/152004816097?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

An HNT Gordon curved sole shave
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/152004885274?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

An HNT Gordon flat shave.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/152004835253?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

And there are lots more including some Norris and Spiers blades.

Scandinavian Workbench Made Easy.Customer Project.

Tim from the US sent me some pictures of his fine new bench made after the article I wrote for Furniture and Cabinetmaking magazine a little while back.
Here is his comprehensive post on Lumberjocks http://lumberjocks.com/projects/228698
Using solid timber with the grain all in one direction makes the building of this very useful shoulder vice easy. No floating cross grain, no large dovetails and no end cap to worry about, easy to make and solid as a rock. I may have tried to shorten that screw by a few inches.

Oliver Sparks Slipper Plane Has Arrived!

My slipper plane from Ollie Sparks arrived last week in very neat packaging, full of protective pine shavings.

I buffed up the plane and degreased the blade and it was ready to admire. The discreet logo on the blade and at the rear of the infill are all that's needed.

My harsh workshop lights don't do the wood justice so here it is in the natural daylight.
Oliver believes it to be Honduran rosewood, whatever it is it's lovely.

After spending some time fondling and admiring my new plane, the attention to detail was apparent. The finish of the metal, the invisible dovetails and the wood was perfection. The fit of the wedge likewise. The mouth is incredibly tight, even difficult to see light through. Everything is perfectly symmetrical, not easy with so many curves. Eye-balling the front infill with the wedge showed them to be in perfect alignment as well as sharing the same curvature. The angle on the wedge is perfect for taping it out, this angle is repeated on the rear of the plane, a nice touch.

Of course it works superbly, I expected nothing less. Is it a match my favourite Bill Carter plane?
I'm not sure yet, only time will tell.
If you want to see more shots Ollie has posted them on his website. http://oliversparks.co.uk/gallery-collection/slipper-planehonduran-rosew/

Nice Planes on E Bay, Finishing Sunday.

First is a lovely little burr boxwood smoother by the great Bill Carter
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/151997834218?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

A full sized mitre plane by Bob Funnell with wood by Bill Carter (this one ends next Thursday, I pushed the wrong button!)
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/152003017448?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

A rare Norris A4 http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/151997821298?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

A steel soled gunmetal shoulder plane by Buck.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/151998127862?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

A classic Spiers shoulder plane.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/151998098536?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

An H Slater shoulder plane with wonderful Rio rosewood infill
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/151998108084?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

and lastly a Mathieson smoother
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/151997814501?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

Dovetail Guides on YouTube, Jay Bates

Four days ago all hell let loose here!
Jay Bates bought two of my dovetail guides recently and posted a video on YouTube. He has a massive following and this video has had 66,000 views in that short time. He has a very good manor and the way he speeds up the video on the boring bits is great, you can still see what he's doing without having to watch it all in real time. A channel well worth subscribing to!