Bill Carter Plane Maker

Furniture and Cabinet Making magazine recently did an excellent article on pioneer plane maker Bill Carter. He has been an inspiration directly or indirectly to most, if not all, of the infill makers around today.

At 77 he is still making wonderful planes and coming up with new ideas, although his output is understandably a bit less these days. He currently has a few planes for sale on his website
http://www.billcarterwoodworkingplanemaker.co.uk/metal-planes-for-sale/

Cupids bow dovetails above.

He's made infill planes from 2" up to these massive 36" jointers.

I'm lucky enough to have a few of his planes and this one is possibly my favourite, in all bronze with antique boxwood infill and a mouth so tight you can barely see through it! It is 6" long with a 1 1/2" iron and not surprising works rather well!

New Book on Box Making

Although this book has recently come out, it's not strictly new as it's a rerun of 25 box making articles from Furniture and Cabinet Making magazine from the last 10 years or so. I like this format as it brings together common projects in one 156 page volume. They have taken the time to drop in new backgrounds and harmonise the text layout which gives a nice continuity to the book.

Each project comes with excellent exploded drawings as well as detailed dimensions which is great if you want to have a go yourself. I was pleased to see four of my articles had been included, a blanket chest above and unusual cufflink box below.

 ...........as well as a jewellery box and a Japanese style box.

Great box maker Robert Ingham has three chapters on his fine precision boxes.
 

Australian Andrew Potocnik with a lovely box below.

 ...and a couple of projects by perfectionist Ian Hawthorne, one of them a Royal wedding gift!
Talking of gifts this book would make a great Christmas present and is available at bargain prices on Amazon both here and in the US.

Dansel Gallery

Today I dropped some more boxes off to Dansel Gallery in beautiful West Dorset. This gallery is dedicated to wood and really worth a visit http://www.danselgallery.co.uk/index.html
It's in the same small coastal town as the Abbotsbury Swannery and gardens which is also a fantastic place to visit. http://abbotsbury-tourism.co.uk/swannery/prices-opening-times/

As always I had a good look around as there's always plenty of new and inspirational work on display.

German Work Bench on E Bay

For anyone in the market for a nice quality medium sized work bench here is a nice example from German manufacturer Hoffman and Hammer. It's on for Buy it Now of £295 (or best offer) plus £50 delivery if you can't collect, which seems pretty reasonable.
You can see the advert here. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/282261481964?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

For those of you in the US, Highland Woodworking have a similar new bench from Hoffman and Hammer on special offer at the moment http://www.highlandwoodworking.com/new-hofmann-hammer-all-round-workbench.aspx

Angled Dovetail Boxes

I got a chance to squeeze in a bit more work on the angled dovetail boxes, this time shooting the mitred linings. The linings are much less straight forward than for rectangular boxes, with lots of angles and it demands concentration. The Veritas shooting plane was an absolute pleasure to use, with the high carbon blade holding a great edge.
I tried different coloured pig suede for each box, the bottle green and burgundy are a safe bet, but the 'Milk Tray' purple is a bit more risky!

Antique Mitre Planes

A customer expressed an interest in the mitre planes I own, so I took these shots for him.
The group above are all by Spiers and the ones below are all by Robert Towell.

These last two are early bi metal planes by Gabriel, one is stamped the other one not.

Alan Peters Dovetail Chest.

A few years ago I was lucky to buy this chest by the late Alan Peters. There were a few other items of his in that sale and I regret not bidding for them as well.

In total there were 168 hand cut dovetails and they are all perfect, believe me I've looked!
The drawers are all a 'trademark' piston fit and each can be opening with one finger from either side without binding.

The drawers have thin (8 mm) sides of quartered oak and the drawer bases are all cedar of Lebanon

Here are the dual drawers stops, mounted on the front so as the drawer protrusion in the carcass remains the same throughout the seasons.

The elm all came from the same tree as it matches very well and the curved horizontal frames allow the drawers to be opened without the need to add handles.

The sides are tapered from top to bottom in their thickness, and are from single 18" wide boards.
the overall dimensions are 48" high x 35" wide x 18" deep. A lovely thing.

Highland Woodworking Dovetail Guide Review

Highland Woodworking are the exclusive distributor of my magnetic guides in the US and they are doing a fine job. They have just produced a nice video on the dovetail guides. Their YouTube channel has loads of other great videos showing products as well as interviewing well known woodworkers.

Skelton Long Stroke Saw in Action.

It's been very busy making my dovetail guides just recently, but I managed to steal a day for a bit of woodworking. It was a great opportunity to put my new Skelton Long Stroke dovetail saw through it's paces.

I made a couple of angled dovetail boxes and the saw worked a treat. The handle is a snug fit and it's the easiest starting English style saw I've ever used. The shot below shows the dovetails before cleaning up, all were fitted straight from the saw and without a magnetic guide!

Here's a couple of shots showing the exquisite detailing that Shane puts into these saws.

And here's a picture of what these boxes will look like when they're finished.

Nice Walnut Tables

Joe from the UK sent me some pictures of his latest project, an enjoyable change to his normal windows and doors.

                                                           Nice half blind dovetails!