Recently got back from Cornwall after the last stint on a mammoth of a peg wagon.... 

and here she is.

Ben is currently working on some more shelves.. one handedly, of which I'm sure

he'll elaborate on later!

I thought I should probably elaborate on Sarahs'  comments in the last blog: Whilst working on the previously mentioned coffee table (pics below), I was cleaning up some large tenon joints that fit the cross brace to the sides, the chisel slipped, went into my thumb, and severed the tendon, ligament and (I later found out) slicing the knuckle cap. The doctors did a wonderful job stitching it all back together and it only hurt like hell the first 2 weeks! but it means I'm out of action for the next 2 months or so. Well.......

  ..........thats the doctors orders anyway.....

1st thing I did (after lying in bed feeling sorry for myself) was to go and sharpen all my chisels. I recently bought some cheap, but very good chisels from Ebay. As I now have a few double sizes I decided to regrind some into stone chisels - the main difference between wood and stone chisels is the bevel/angle at the cutting end, wood chisels have a bevel on only 1 side with a flat back to produce a sharp cutting edge whereas stone chisels are bevelled on both sides to produce a stronger chipping edge. This wouldn't work as well if I was using a hard stone like marble but on softer stone like Alabaster or even limestone they work quite well.

    So; here's a pic of the table in it's early stages being laid out for height and width........

Close up of the beautiful burr top, not very clear pic but you can get an idea of the grain pattern waiting to be revealed.

I had to strip all the bark from the underneath as there was evidence of large beetle larvae (perfectly normal for the Sapwood in Oak)....... Doing so left this large hole in the middle of the top - maybe 8x5 cm. I feel it just adds to the interest of the wood though........

And here is the large beasties that were hiding in the bark and chewing away at the softwood. I'm pretty sure that these are the dreaded Death Watch Beetle larvae. Possibly a woodsmans most hated enemy.....

The ones in this picture we found in just a very small piece of bark and as we went on we picked a great deal more from the debris and dust. It's no wonder these things can spread so rapidly if not treated properly.

We took great pleasure in feeding them to the chickens!

Sarah's reconstruction of the accident.........

The most important chisel I made was this "bull-nosed" chisel (rounded end) for working the inside of a bowl or dish without leaving deep grooves. I'd estimate that this could save me up to an hour of sanding time when smoothing off the inside.

And here's a couple of pics of the reclaimed oak stool I mentioned last time.....

These little wedges that hold thee sides on are the tiniest little wedges I've made. So cute!