• Hi all and welcome to TheWoodHaven2 brought into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming! We all have Alasdair to thank for the vast bulk of the heavy lifting to get us here, no more so than me because he's taken away a huge burden of responsibility from my shoulders and brought us to this new shiny home, with all your previous content (hopefully) still intact! Please peruse and feed back. There is still plenty to do, like changing the colour scheme, adding the banner graphic, tweaking the odd setting here and there so I have added a new thread in the 'Technical Issues, Bugs and Feature Requests' forum for you to add any issues you find, any missing settings or just anything you'd like to see added/removed from the feature set that Xenforo offers. We will get to everything over the coming weeks so please be patient, but add anything at all to the thread I mention above and we promise to get to them over the next few days/weeks/months. In the meantime, please enjoy!

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  1. AndyT

    The Shetack Saw

    Way back over a century ago in 1924, one Edward Oakley had a bright idea. Corrugated iron sheeting was a popular material for all sorts of roofing requirements, but it was difficult to cut. As far as I can tell, the standard tool was a cold chisel with a long curved edge, like this: (picture...
  2. AndyT

    Guaranteed Acorn!

    Here's a plane which belonged to my father in law. It's an ordinary sort of number 4, in rather scruffy condition, but I thought I'd tidy it up a bit. The name on the lever cap is GTL. This was "Guaranteed Tools Limited." They sold tools, made for them by established Sheffield firms...
  3. AndyT

    Reclaimed bookcase - finished

    I've been a bit quiet on actually doing any woodwork lately. But today, several things have lined up together. The obvious one is that it's far too hot to expose my pasty body to the outdoor sun, with the record-breaking temperatures across Europe, the Red Alert from the Met Office, etc...
  4. AndyT

    UK makers of hand tools

    @Andy Kev. 's thread about hand tools you can't buy new - https://www.thewoodhaven2.co.uk/threads/if-there-was-one-hand-tool-which-you-would-like-to-see-made-again.11481/ - has set me thinking about the handful of companies that we do still have in the UK who make hand tools and I thought we...
  5. AndyT

    Threading like Grandad

    One of my grandfathers was an engineer. He died when I was only 13, so my memories of him are limited. But I do remember him saying that he used to stand at a bench filing commutators, and that fits with census records of employment in the 1920s at a central London company that made electrical...
  6. AndyT

    Quick and easy round table

    This isn't going to be fine woodworking and it will only include three simple joints, but I've not posted any projects for quite a while, so here goes. Some years ago, long enough ago for me to have forgotten how many, I was walking home when I spotted that someone in our street had left some...
  7. AndyT

    Wall cupboards in a cold garage

    A friend has moved house and is setting up his new workshop in a detached garage. I've offered to help fitting some repurposed kitchen cabinets onto the walls. I'm pretty sure the walls are brick, with no cavity, and I think are probably a single skin, ie half a brick thick. What's a good way...
  8. AndyT

    A tool to make a tool to decorate a tool

    The Hawley Trust have just added another digitised film of Ken Hawley talking, made back in 2008. I only met him a couple of times but it was clear that the staff there had a challenge, to record as much of possible of the detailed knowledge of tools and tool making that was in Ken's head but...
  9. AndyT

    Playing about with wooden threads again

    Like many other people, I've been fascinated by wooden threads and how to cut them. Over the years I've read quite a few chapters of books, magazine articles and online discussions. I've watched videos. But nothing beats getting the tools and trying them for yourself. I've made one or two bits...
  10. AndyT

    Three letter searches

    The current forum search facility ignores words of three letters or less. This is a bit of a disadvantage if you want to search for words such as oak, ash elm or yew. Is the restriction still needed, or could it be relaxed please?
  11. AndyT

    Restoring an electric drilling machine

    I was able to chat with @toolsntat in person this week, and was very pleased when he showed me something he'd picked up recently. Inspired by this shot of the corner of my workshop where several bench drills / drill stands squeeze in together beside the miniature bandsaw, he thought that...
  12. AndyT

    Playing about with a big tap holder part 2

    For the screw to go into the hole I needed something round and the right diameter. I already had this bit of old, very dry birch that I had turned for some reason, long forgotten. It was almost the right size. Rather than tidy up enough to use the lathe, I reduced it in size with this...
  13. AndyT

    Playing about with a big tap holder part 1

    Quite some time ago, I bought this nice old thread box and tap. It's bigger than my others - 1¼" diameter - and if I am ever going to use it, I need something to hold the tap with. The top of the tap is tapered one way and slightly rounded so my metalwork tap wrenches won't do. I don't...
  14. AndyT

    Restoring a rusty sewing machine

    Some time ago, (it's over 50 years so I needn't go into the circumstances in detail, even if I could) my wife was somewhat disappointed when, expecting a modern, working, toy sewing machine as a present, she was palmed off by a well meaning but misguided adult who gave her an unwanted, old...
  15. AndyT

    My oldest power tool

    I don't often wander over into this section of the forum, but yesterday I was using what must be my oldest power tool. I realised I didn't know much about it, so I did a bit of searching. I think I have answered my own questions, but I'll share the story here in case anyone can add any more...
  16. AndyT

    Cutting big coarse threads in wood

    From time to time, the question of how to cut big coarse threads in wood comes up in discussion. People want to make "Moxon" vices, or special clamps, or an all-wooden bench vice, or an end vice. Over a decade ago, I did some experiments and wrote them up on a forum, but my pictures aren't there...
  17. AndyT

    Information on wooden planes

    To some people this will be old news, but I've not known about it for very long and I thought it might be worth a mention. If you start to get interested in the history of planes and how they were used, all sorts of intriguing questions are likely to pop into your head. - Why are some old...
  18. AndyT

    Victorian MDF?

    Some time ago, there was a little antiquarian discussion about a fine old Encyclopaedia of Carpentry and Joinery, edited by Edward Lance Tarbuck and published between 1857 and 1859. Here's my copy as a reminder Looking in it for something else, as you do, I came across this intriguing...
  19. AndyT

    Scalpel safety sheath

    A scalpel is a useful sort of tool, to anyone who makes or mends things and needs a reliably sharp edge from time to time. But they are not easy to store safely. Some time ago, on the online woodwork chat Benchtalk 101, Scott Anderson showed us a simple but elegant solution - a slip of wood...
  20. AndyT

    A guide to hard wax finishes which might be useful

    I've no wish to re-open discussion about the exact composition or marketing of any particular brand, but I've just watched a YouTube video about hard wax oils which struck me as carefully researched and clearly presented, so I thought I'd give it a mention. It's by Nick Engler on his Workshop...
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