Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Hot Stuff


First up - West Dean Hand Tool Show. It was a great weekend - thanks to everyone who dropped by to make shavings and have a chat. It was a pleasure to meet so many of you in person! A fantastic event, many thanks to Mike Hancock for arranging and running such a successful weekend. I can tell next years event will be even better - don't miss it!!!
Meeting Garrett Hack and Brian Boggs was a real high point for me and it was great to chat with Dened Puchalski from Lie-Nielsen - a knowledgeable guy with the best job in the world ;)
I have some photo's of the event here...

Back to reality, I've been beavering away in the workshop. And man, is it hot! Having a fan blowing away makes life a lot easier in this heat - treat yourself if you don't have one :) I also came across some African Blackwood - very excited over this find! A full 3 inch thick plank, it is amazingly weighty. I've broken it down into manageable pieces and set it aside for later. See the picks for a taster.

It was a pleasant surprise to see one of my planes being used in an article in Good Woodworking magazine this month. And I was mentioned in the letters page - kinda made my day. Thanks Mike!

Just finished making a Travisher for a local chairmaker. I was supplied with an iron that was made by a local blacksmith - sadly it was not up to snuff and fell apart. So I made a "Philly replacement" complete with brass locking wheels and it works real sweet. Might have to make a few more of these - a nice change to planemaking!

Stay out of that sun,
Philly

5 comments:

Dorje said...

The Hand Tool Show looks like a fun event, seemed very low key. Is that true? Looks like a nice place to spend the day!

Philly said...

Dorje
The West Dean event was "hand tools only", so it was indeed a smaller than the usual woodworking show - but the quality was much higher! :)

Here's the link to West Dean....

http://www.westdean.org.uk/site/

Cheers
Philly

Unknown said...

Philly

Just a question I'm always hunting for brass knurled locking nuts like you have on your new travisher, where did you source them?

PS I'm building my toolcabinet number 2 at the moment and your plane is doing a wonderful job at making the drawer grooves - I am using my router less and less these days which pleases me (noisy things).

Looked like a great event it's times like this that I miss being so close, maybe I'll come over for the festival of the tree event, is it in the lanning - will you be there?

Andy Boyd

Philly said...

Andy
I make them myself on my metal lathe -sorry ;)
Glad you like your drawer bottom plane - can't beat that quite "swish" of a sharp plane. And no need for dust extraction, eye protection, ear protection, dust mask, etc.........
I'll be at the "Festival of the Tree" for the whole four days - well worth coming over for, huge event in beautiful surroundings.
Cheers
Phil

Anonymous said...

Pleasure was all mine, as it is every time I send the smoother into action.

Cheers Mike