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Hackney History London Machinery People

East End Canal Heritage


In the relatively short time I’ve lived in Hackney myself, I’ve seen a radical shift in the use of the canals in the area. For one, more and more people are living on them, with the costs of a barge and berthing being preferable to living in a minute flat with sky-high rent attached.
The Regent’s and Hertford Union Canals were of course mainly used for trade and transport, with the timber trade featuring heavily. Carolyn Clark has just produced a wonderful booklet, which you can download here, in the form of a quiz.
East End Canal Heritage Quiz
There is some great information there, my favourite being a quote about Vic Veneers which reads:

‘Places like Vic Veneers…just inside Ducketts, you could actually look under the wharf, it was built above the water and they used to take the veneer timber into soak, and when they were nice and wet, soft as anything, they put them to the knife….they’d lift it out, put it on the shaver which was like a flaming great pencil sharpener and spin it up. You’d get a great long strip of veneer like flipping toilet paper, it might be 50-60 foot in length and 10 foot wide.’

Categories
Bill Carter Jim Hendricks Richard Arnold

The Brits!

Richard Arnold
Richard Maguire & Shane Skelton
Bill Carter
There are some really lovely videos over on Jimi Hendricks’ Youtube channel from Richard Arnold’s charity sale day this year. The videos feature, amongst others, Richard Arnold showing us some plough plane technique, Shane Skelton with his new panel plane (being checked out by Richard Maguire of ‘The English Woodworker‘ fame). There’s also another video where the excellent platemaker Bill Carter shows his favourite plane and one of his most-used tools. Newcomer Ollie Sparks pops up in one of the videos also, definitely a very talented maker to watch for now and the future. A great set of videos showing lots of British tool talent!

Categories
Hand Tools Paul Sellers Practical techniques Saws

Paul Sellers on crosscut saw sharpening

Paul Seller crosscut saw sharpening
Paul Sellers is always worth a watch in my book and slowly I’m finding more and more reasons to sign up for his Woodworking Masterclasses. My lack of available space to put anything into practice is the only thing that holds me back. I know once I have watched his Tool Cupboard series I would be dying to make it.
Ho-hum.
For the time being, the free video about sharpening crosscut saws is of interest, especially the idea of using a paper template for the sharpening angle.
It’s worth scrolling through Paul’s videos, because he done a lot and a good proportion are free.

Categories
Jim Hendricks Planes

How to adjust a plane with Jim Hendricks

Jim Hendricks 1
You may have already seen my post about Jim Hendricks. Here’s a link to a video by Jim about how to adjust a wooden plane, something I get asked about a lot.

Categories
Hand Tools History Jim Hendricks Practical techniques

Jim Hendricks

You may have seen Jim’s name pop up sporadically when Wictor Kuc, (the owner of the website WK Fine Tools), announces a new post from him via Twitter. I think Jim must have some arrangement with Wiktor as a regular contributor. That is a very good thing, if like me, you have a love of traditional woodworking and the tools that are used.
I first met Jim very briefly at Richard Arnold’s Open Day last year. The day was so interesting, I got a bit carried away photographing all the fine tools and blogging some technique from Richard, that I didn’t put two and two together until I returned home and I realised I’ve read many a post from Jim on the UK Workshop forum for hand tools.
It’s very clear that Jim has some rare skills not only in retaining knowledge about the older tools and their makers, but he also excels in making those tools himself.
Take a glance at the page Wiktor has put up, showing Jim’s projects.
One of my favourites is the project showing how Jim recreates an original design for the classic 19thc English brace. Superb work.

Jim as led a very interesting life as you will see from the brief bio, but I’m sure we will now see a lot more woodworking now that he has decided to retire. (On the same project you will also see Douglas Coates’ ‘Ad-Vice’, which I blogged about earlier. (I have no affiliation with Jim or Douglas, I just want people to know these guys are out there.)
If you would like to contact Jim directly to ask him about his projects, you can get hold of him as his own website, www.ktproductions.co.uk.