As a kid I played in its branches. As a woodworker I wondered at its immensity. Then one day it blew down…

This weeks video is about using the home made chainsaw mill on this absolutely epic Oak tree. Considering its age (400 years maybe!), it’s a bit surprising that it was blown …Continue reading »

I have been fiddling with this steel framed bandsaw ever since I got it, second hand, about ten years ago. Some of the things have made a big difference, some very little.

The most innocuous, but time saving has been the quick release blade tension handle. This simple cam mechanism makes it super easy to …Continue reading »

This week we are finishing off the breakfast bar with some up-cycled car parts!  I’ll not pretend I knew I was going to use scrap car parts for this project – the idea occurred to me as I was dismantling this old Citroën BX car to harvest aluminium to make cnc castings with (see here for more on my experiments with that). I’ll say it again and again, if you want to learn to make cool stuff, take shit apart! It’s incredibly enlightening to get hands on knowledge of what previous designers have built, and suss out how things go together and work.

If you do take a car apart, be ready – it’s a lot of super interesting but very greasy, oily fun. Below is just a few of the parts rescued – and at the time of dismantling my mind was being blown by …Continue reading »

Unusual things I do in this little ‘woodworking’ instalment: remove a radiator, make a guide fence for the the 18V planer, create a big-ass wooden hinge, talk about wood glue spreading, cut down a twist drill and re-grind a super long carbide insert masonry drill for use in wood, make a rudimentary drill guide, etc etc…

So what I am ostensibly doing is making a breakfast bar for our living room. The room has a really great view, and we wanted to make the most of it by replacing our current grotty windowsill, with a nice oak one. Something that had a fold up bar bit so we can sit on stools (which will give a better view out) to eat, drink and think.

What makes this project interesting, is the fold up mechanism. It is an integrated wooden hinge. Although the hinge pin itself is …Continue reading »

Lets make a cool little stove top ecofan. A fan that uses the warmth of the wood burner to power itself, and blows that heat about the place, essentially aiding in the exchange of heat from the fire to the room. Ok so that’s the sales line anyway, I must admit to being a bit of a sceptic about just how much these things help, but we can get to that later.

Click the above pic to watch the video and read on for more. Shown below is the way most of our projects start – with …Continue reading »

It was time to do a bit of maintenance on the shop stove, so I thought, why not make something of an assessment video. It was always very experimental after all, and its been a while since the last Stove update. If your interested in making a wood burning stove, or are ‘fire-nerd’ inclined, get yourself a drink, sit back and enjoy.

Basically the video involves checking …Continue reading »

This is the concluding video of the wall mounted camera phone tripod I made. First impressions are that it works well, but could do with a few tweaks.

If I was to do over, the most serious change would be to make it somewhat shorter. At the moment it’s a bit longer than necessary and that puts undue leverage on the wall mount (and indeed the mdf wall panel it’s screwed to). This would hopefully reduce flex and therefore unwanted movement at the camera head. Anyway, I have written an instructable about the build process, so if your thinking you might like to make one yourself, or are interested in any other elements of this articulated tripod monster, you can check that out here: Camera Phone Lathe Crocodile.

There have been a number of things happening recently, that have kept me from doing much on the FE blog. Primary among these has been the building of an epic CNC router. It’s not done yet but well on the way, as you know if you follow along on the FE Facebook page. In other news, I’m tentatively making a commitment to making new videos once a week.

Here’s the latest:

We’ll see how this goes. I still think there is loads to be gained from a detailed written blog post, long and packed with techniques and information. That’s what I have been aiming for in the past, but that all takes a lot of time. So lets jump into the video world a bit more: roll up and subscribe – here’s the link to our channel!

Another recent one is to do   …Continue reading »

I published an instructable, with a video, detailing a little-talked of method for removing twist from big wooden slabs or boards. I haven’t seen this anywhere on line, or even in old school woodworking magazines, so I thought I’d share. The instructable goes into a fair bit of detail but the basic gist is to strategically weaken the board and then force it flat. This can be done with either a permanent frame to which it gets fixed; or with temporary clamps, then rout in splines to hold it in the new flattened shape. It’s harder to put in words than to show in pictures, so check it out.