Journeyman's Journal

I came across a piece of furniture online recently that immediately caught my attention.

It was a French country style, hand painted three drawer chest. At first glance, it looked beautiful. The proportions were attractive, the painted decoration looked professionally hand done, the distressing on the drawer fronts and side panel gave it that old worn appearance, and the whole thing had the sort of character that makes you stop scrolling and have a second look.

https://www.shopfad.com/french-country-hand-painted-wood-accent-chest-3-drawer-distressed-storage-dresser-s-29252.html?currency=AUD

Then I started looking at it properly. And something didn’t feel right. The photographs looked fake, because they were fake. It was AI generated furniture.

Now, I’ve been working with wood for a very long time, and when you’ve spent thousands of hours looking at timber, joinery, paint, finishes, new and old furniture, you develop a certain instinct. You start noticing things that other people might not notice. To an untrained eye, like the one looking at the pictures in that link, it looks like the real deal. That’s exactly what my daughter, who sent me the link, thought. She wants me to make that and a million other things. If I had multiple customers like her I would be very comfortable.

This particular piece started bothering me because it had that strange quality that I’ve noticed in a lot of AI generated images. Everything looked right. But somehow, nothing looked quite real.

The wood grain looked painted. The painted decoration had the appearance of an illustration rather than brushwork. The distressing looked attractive rather than accidental. Even some of the construction details seemed more like an artist’s interpretation of furniture than a photograph of an actual cabinet.

That got me thinking about something much more important than whether the image was made with AI. Would I actually receive the furniture shown in the photograph? Because we’ve seen this sort of thing before. Think about McDonald’s. You see the advertisement and there’s this magnificent hamburger sitting there looking like the finest meal you’ve ever seen. The bun is perfect. The lettuce is perfectly positioned. The cheese hangs over the edge just so. Everything is beautiful. Then you order one. And when you open the box, you look at it and think, “Where the hell did that come from?” The photograph sold you the idea of the hamburger. It didn’t necessarily show you the hamburger you were going to eat. And I wonder whether we’re heading towards exactly the same situation with furniture.

Imagine you’re looking for a beautiful hand painted chest for your home. You find one online. The photographs show a gorgeous piece of furniture sitting in a beautifully decorated room. The timber looks wonderful. The painted flowers are perfectly arranged. The distressing is exactly where you would expect it to be.

You click “Buy.” A week or two later, a large cardboard box arrives at your door. You open it. And there it is. Except it isn’t. The proportions are slightly different. The paint doesn’t look anything like the photograph. The distressing is either almost nonexistent or looks like somebody attacked it with sandpaper. The timber doesn’t have the beautiful grain shown online. The painted decoration looks like it was printed rather than painted. And suddenly that beautiful photograph means absolutely nothing. This is where I think consumers need to start asking a very simple question before buying furniture online:

Is this photograph actually a photograph of the furniture I am going to receive?

A photograph can be heavily manipulated without being AI. Colours and lighting can be altered. Backgrounds can be replaced. Timber can be digitally enhanced. Imperfections can be removed. And of course, AI can now go much further. It can create an entire piece of furniture that doesn’t physically exist. It can create the room around it, the lighting, the wood grain, the decorative painting. It can create the scratches and distressed finish. And it can make the whole thing look absolutely convincing, at least to an untrained eye, and that’s most of the population. That’s what concerns me. Because furniture isn’t a hamburger.

If I spend $100 on a meal and it doesn’t look like the advertisement, I’m annoyed. If I spend $1,500 on a piece of furniture and the actual item bears little resemblance to the photograph that convinced me to buy it, that’s a completely different kettle of fish.

And there is another problem with hand painted furniture. Hand painted furniture is supposed to have variation. Every brush stroke is slightly different. The amount of paint varies. The distressing varies. Timber varies from board to board. Even two pieces made by the same person won’t be absolutely identical. That’s normal. But that shouldn’t become an excuse for showing consumers something that isn’t representative of the product.

If the photograph is an artistic representation, say so. If it is a computer rendering, say so. If it is AI generated, say so. If it is a photograph of a prototype and the furniture supplied will vary substantially, say so.

There is nothing wrong with using computer generated imagery to show what a product might look like, Lord knows the car industry has been doing that for decades. What bothers me, what I question, is whether you’ll get what you see. You’ve seen the billboards and picture advertisements for cars that look really flash, beautiful clean crisp interiors with super dark windows and flawless paint work.

Yeah it is fake, it was always fake. The car was modelled in 3ds max or Maya and rendered into real, true, photorealistic imagery. Those models were made by insanely talented human beings pulling and pushing individual vertices, applying real world textures, lighting, and shadows. But here is the thing, what you saw in the advert is what you got in real life.

What you think you will get today with this AI generated furniture might be the burger you get from McDonald’s. Personally, if I were spending serious money on a piece of furniture like this, I would contact the seller before ordering. I’d ask one simple question:

“Are these photographs of the actual furniture being supplied, or are they computer generated or rendered promotional images?”

Being a woodworker gives you an advantage. A beautiful photograph cannot fool your eyes. You know the difference between real wood and something that doesn’t look right. You look at the photo and instantly your trained eye says, hey, there’s something odd about this piece.

You can’t fake wood, we woodworkers have been trying for years to do just that and have never succeeded. Nature wins every time, hands down. At least for now.

The technology is getting remarkably good, though. That’s why I think this is going to become a bigger problem for people buying furniture online.

We’ve spent years learning not to trust real estate photographs of houses, where they famously use the fisheye lens to make the room look much bigger than what it actually is. Now we’re entering an era where the photograph itself may not have originated from a camera at all. And perhaps the most important lesson is this:

Trust your gut and don’t buy the photograph

Before spending serious money on something you found online, find out whether the photograph represents an actual physical product. If it doesn’t, ask to see photographs of the real thing. And if the seller won’t show you one? I’d walk away. Because when I’m buying furniture, I’m not paying the price of a burger. I want to know that what arrives in the truck is the same bloody thing I saw in the photo.

It’s 4am and again I wake to the sound of the alarm clock ringing, that same flat, monotonous drone. My body knows the drill before my brain does. My eyes open wide and fast, and instantly, without giving time for anything to process, I’m up and walking briskly towards the alarm to shut it off, the floor tiles are cold under my feet the whole way there. It’s too easy to reach over and shut the alarm off from the pillow, so I keep it far enough from the bed that I have to get up to silence it. If I lay there thinking should I get up or sleep another five minutes, I’d be snoring and falling straight back into a second, deeper sleep within minutes. When you wake properly, on your feet, that’s when you really feel how tired you are. It’s another cold morning, and the tiles are cold enough under my feet to wake me the rest of the way as I walk towards the shower.

I shower, get dressed and pour myself a hot cuppa, wrapping both hands around the mug the way I always do. I’m greeted again with those familiar morning songs from my feathered friends as they prepare for their day, a few calls, then more answering back. I often contemplate how they go out with empty bellies and come back with full ones by the end of the day, which reminds me a fair bit of us.

I enter my workshop and I’m greeted with that familiar aroma of freshly cut and old, well acclimated timber, the two smells sitting together in a way I’ve stopped noticing most mornings but catch again on a day like this one. It’s going to be an exciting day, I’m putting the bookshelf together for the first time. My son’s excited too, he comes into the workshop to get updates on the progress, hovering near the bench with that look he gets. I tell him he’d be more excited if he waited until the very end.

I look at my work. I run my eyes over the carving one more time, checking for anything I might have missed, any spot I left too shallow or a leaf I never quite finished rounding.

When I’m satisfied all is good, I do a dry fit up. It’s always a good idea to do a dry fit up before the actual glue up, a rehearsal, a chance to see if everything will actually sit together the way it’s meant to before there’s glue involved and no going back. I try to fit the first top shelf and, aargh, as expected, I’ve made the dadoes too tight. I now have to plane the shelves down to fit. I start by planing only a small section near the end of each shelf, wanting to keep the thickness on most of the material, taking the shaving off in thin, careful passes so I don’t overshoot and end up with a sloppy fit instead of a tight one. After planing only two boards down, everything fits snugly and the bookcase comes together with a bit of gentle persuasion but no real fight. I’m confident the case is ready to glue. I gently pry it apart again, careful not to break anything in the process, and set the pieces out in order. I have my white glue ready and my clamps laid out within reach. I’m now ready to glue this case together.

I shake the glue bottle well. Sometimes I pour the glue onto a scrap piece and mix it by stirring, since it’s important to mix the glue properly, something I picked up from watching Japanese craftsmen. I squeeze the bottle gently, controlling the bead as it runs out onto the mating surface, and I’m met with that distinct smell of the glue I’ve relied on for the last two years or more. Before that I only used hide glue. I take a brush and spread the glue evenly through the dado, making sure to reach every part of it. Some people like to spread glue on both pieces. When I’m satisfied it’s done properly, I insert the shelf that corresponds to the number I marked on the dado, since that dado was cut to suit only that one shelf. I pick up a large 20oz rubber mallet, the kind you’d find in an automotive repair shop, and hammer the end in, working quickly along the row, hammering each shelf until it’s fully seated, the mallet giving off a heavy, dull thud each time it lands.

I spread glue as fast as I can through the rest of the dadoes on the other timber, then pick the whole thing up, a low grunt escaping me as my back muscles start to strain under the weight. I line up all the dadoes to the shelves, tap each one part way home with the side of my fist, then hammer them fully in. I grab the clamps, working quickly, I don’t want the glue setting on me, even though I’ve got longer working time with white glue than I ever had with hide glue. I position the clamps carefully, checking their alignment, making sure they sit straight and not crooked, so I don’t end up pulling any twist into the case as they draw down. I hear the familiar creak of the joints as I tighten the clamps and everything seats fully into the dadoes. There’s some bowing along the side boards, but the clamps take care of that as they close in. The worst of it is over, and I let out a breath, the bookshelf finally starting to look like a bookshelf and not just a pile of parts held together by hope. I check for square with a tape measure, comparing the diagonal from corner to corner against its opposite, since a case is only square when both diagonals match. Both come back the same. I let out one more breath, and a smile spreads across my ageing, weathered face. Everything is square, and the job’s a good’un, but the day is young, far from over. Then again, it is over for now, there’s nothing more I can do until the glue’s fully cured. Just as well. I could use a break from it all.

Disclaimer: I changed the title to encompass all three traditions. We all know Konjic carving is specifically Bosnian, grew out of Ottoman influence, and carries genuine Islamic geometric and arabesque motifs. It makes sense why the title includes all three.

The alarm goes off at 4am.

My eyes snap open and for a moment the room is completely still. Like a soldier waking to the sharp sound of a bugle, I’m out of bed and heading for the shower before I’ve properly thought about it. The floor is cold under my feet the whole way there. There is no hesitation. I’ve been doing this long enough that my body seems to know what comes next before I do.

Early morning is my favourite part of the day. There is something special about being awake while the rest of the world is still asleep. The house is quiet, the streets are quiet. My workshop patiently waits for me in silence, somewhere out there in the dark.

Outside, I can hear the birds beginning their morning songs, a few thin notes at first, then more of them answering each other. To me, it is better than music. I stand there listening while the kettle rattles and starts to hiss, steam curling up past my face when I pour it. I wrap both hands around the mug to kick start the day, feeling the heat move into my fingers, then step outside and breathe in the cool morning air before heading into the workshop.

As soon as I open the workshop door, the fresh morning air begins to mix with the aroma of timber, that particular smell of sawdust and shavings that’s sat in there overnight, faintly sweet, a bit like standing inside a freshly cut tree. It’s still dark outside. There is something about walking into a workshop at that hour, when the rest of the world is asleep, with nothing but the smell of wood and the task ahead. That’s the part of the day I look forward to most.

I know there is a long road ahead of me, and I don’t want to waste the day.

Most cabinetmaking shops start around 6:30 in the morning. But in a hand tool woodworking world, that’s too late unless you’re retired. Every board has to be prepared by hand. Every joint has to be cut, grooved and planed to fit precisely. There is no machine waiting to do the work for you.

My motto is simple: every detail takes as long as it takes.

So I start early.

Usually I’m in the workshop somewhere around 4:30 in the morning, and I’ll keep working until around 5pm. Seven days a week is not unusual when I have a project like this in front of me. There is a certain rhythm to it. The early morning, the quiet workshop, the sound of hand tools in use, steel on wood, the small grunt of effort you don’t even notice you’re making anymore. Long hours await me as I work my way through one part of the bookcase after another.

Today, however, the work is going to be a little different.

I’m going to carve both sides of the bookcase.

I had spent some time previously looking at antique bookshelves and noticed something interesting. The sides were generally quite plain. The decorative carving was usually concentrated on the front, and even then it was often quite restrained, a flower perhaps, with a few petals and some foliage worked around it. Nothing too elaborate.

That makes sense when you think about how these pieces were made. Carving is slow work. The more detail you add, the more hours disappear into it. Most antique bookcases didn’t need much more than that.

But this isn’t an ordinary bookcase. This one is being made for my son.

I stood at the bench with that thought for a while before I picked up a tool, one hand flat on the cold, unplaned side panel, feeling the grain run under my palm. I’m not making this piece to satisfy a customer, or to get it finished as quickly as possible. I’m making it because I want him to have something that was made by his father, something that can sit in his home for decades, and maybe get passed on again after that, still carrying a little piece of the person who made it. So although the antique examples might have left the sides plain, I decided that mine would not be. I was going to carve them. And this is where the real work begins.

My son and wife had recently returned from a trip through Bosnia and Herzegovina. They’d travelled all over the country, but there was one place in particular I’d asked them to visit for me: Konjic, a small town on the Neretva River, tucked in among mountains and dense green forest. I didn’t care about the scenery. I wanted to see the woodcarving the town is known for.

Konjic has a long tradition of hand carved furniture, with patterns that are immediately recognisable. Geometric shapes combined with stylised flowers, leaves and interwoven forms, filling panels and borders with a rhythm that almost makes the wood look woven. Triangles become diamonds, diamonds become stars, and simple cuts repeated over and over create patterns far more intricate than any one cut would suggest. They found the museum where some of the old furniture is kept, and were surprised to learn the tradition is still alive, some of it modernised, but a lot of the old patterns still being carved the same way they always were.

When they got home, my son showed me the photos he’d taken, dozens of them, patterns from every panel and border he could find. I sat at the computer that evening, the room dark except for the screen, and went through them one by one until I’d found the ones I wanted.

Once I’d settled on the patterns, there was only one thing left to do. I opened QCAD and started drawing, the mouse clicking under my hand while lines built up on the screen, curve by curve, until the photographs had disappeared and I was looking at clean geometric lines I could print out and transfer to the timber. When I carve, I don’t redraw the pattern onto the wood. I glue the printed drawing straight onto the board. There’s little point spending an hour transferring every line by hand when the drawing’s already accurate on the computer. The paper becomes my carving pattern, and from there the real work begins.

I start by gluing the paper to the timber with spray adhesive, the smell of it sharp in the air for a second before it fades, working it down carefully from the centre out with the flat of my hand so there’s no wrinkle or bubble trapped underneath. The paper goes slightly tacky and cool under my fingers as it sets. When it’s smooth, I stand back for a second and look at the pattern sitting there on the raw wood, waiting, and then I pick up the V tool.

The V tool is the one that outlines the design, the irregular curves of the floral pattern, the veins running through each leaf. I set the edge against the paper, rest the corner of my palm on the timber for control, and swing the mallet. Each blow is slow and steady, cut deep, because this will be a relief carving and the depth I put in now is the depth I’ll have to work with later. The mallet makes a flat, dull knock against the chisel handle, over and over, a small jolt travelling up through my wrist each time, and by the time I’ve worked my way around the first flower there’s a fine skin of pale shavings gathering at my feet and a faint ring in my ears from the knocking.

Once the outline’s cut, I switch to a #7, 20mm fishtail gouge and start establishing the background, cutting away the timber around the design so the flowers and leaves begin to stand proud of the surface. Curls of wood peel off with each pass and drift down onto the bench, catching the light from the window as the morning brightens outside. It doesn’t have to be that particular gouge. Any size or shape that suits the carving in front of you will do. The main thing is you take your time and let the shape tell you where to cut next, rather than forcing a shape onto the wood that isn’t there yet.

With the background roughed out, I round over the arrises and start shaping the leaves and flowers as best I know how, running my thumb along each edge as I go to feel where it’s still sharp and where it’s started to soften into a curve. There’s no formula for this part, no measurement to follow. You look at what’s in front of you and use your judgement, a little more taken off here, a curve eased there, until the petals start to look like they’re actually resting against each other instead of just sitting flat. By the middle of the afternoon my forearm has a low, steady ache running through it and there’s a warm patch on my palm where the mallet’s handle sits, but it’s the kind of ache that tells you the work is going somewhere.

The last thing is the background itself. I texture it with short, close strokes, so the surface around the carving catches the light differently to the smooth, shaped timber of the flowers and leaves. Run a finger across it and you can feel the difference before you can see it, rough against smooth. Without that contrast the whole design goes flat and the eye can’t find its way through it.

When it’s finished, I brush mineral turps over the paper, the smell of it sharp and clean, and watch it curl and lift away on its own, no scraping, no risk of scuffing the carved surface the way I’ve seen people do it on YouTube. A wipe with a paper towel clears whatever adhesive is left behind, the wood underneath pale and slightly damp where the turps has been. One thing worth knowing: turps won’t stop the finish from taking later, but if you’re going to glue that area afterwards, either keep the turps off it or let it dry fully first, otherwise it can interfere with the glue. Denatured alcohol is what I reach for instead, when I need to clean an area before gluing, since it won’t touch the spray adhesive enough to lift the paper but it will clean a surface without leaving anything behind.

Now that both sides are carved, I’m ready to glue the bookcase together.

I know you’re itching to know how long it all took, and I’ll be honest with you because there’s nothing shameful about taking your time when you’re making something by hand. Everything took about a week for this first stage. That included planing both sides, though I only needed to flatten one face of each board completely, since that was the face where the dadoes were cut. Then there was chopping out the dadoes, followed by carving both sides.

A full week of work. I stand back at the end of it with my hands still smelling faintly of turps and timber, shoulders loose for the first time all day, and picture him running a hand along that carved edge one day without knowing exactly how many hours went into it, just knowing his old man made it.

I’d say the job’s a good’un.

It’s now ready for the glue up.

I haven’t written an article for a build project since the days of the magazine. Where’s Matt when I need him? Well, here goes.

The first thing I’d like to get off my chest is that I really don’t know the correct name for this style of bookshelf. I’ve seen them in antique shops and furniture stores described as Indian, Moroccan and Egyptian. So who is right? I have no idea. Perhaps someone reading this can enlighten me. What I do know is that my boy likes them and wanted one, and I like them too, so that was good enough reason for me to build one.

I devoured the internet looking for a style I could reproduce and, to be honest, Pinterest is still one of my go-to websites when I’m looking for gorgeous clocks and furniture. It didn’t take long to find what I was looking for. Once I had found a design I liked, I showed it to my boy and, after getting his approval, I wasted no time getting to work. There is something satisfying about having an idea in your head, finding a piece that comes close to what you imagined and then deciding, right, let’s build it.

You might be wondering about the drawing. Surely I would draw the whole thing up in CAD before cutting any timber? Well, not this time. All I needed to get started was a printed photograph of the bookshelf I wanted to use for inspiration. I’m not trying to reproduce an existing antique piece exactly, so I don’t need its original measurements. I’m building this bookshelf for my son, which means I can make it to suit his needs, the space he has available and, just as importantly, the material I have sitting in my workshop. The photograph gives me the design and proportions I like, while the actual dimensions are mine to decide.

I pulled out a couple of durian boards from the workshop. I think durian is going to work particularly well for this project because of the character of the timber and the appearance it will have once it has been worked and carved. I measured the boards and started working out the dimensions from there. I decided on a finished height of 65 inches (1650mm) and a width of 8 inches (200mm), with the shelves being 7/8 inch (22mm) thick. I deliberately went a little heavier than the modern industry standard of 3/4 inch (19mm). I like the additional substance, and for a piece that is intended to have an antique appearance, I don’t think the extra thickness will look out of place.

The trouble is that my boards are 1 1/4 inches (32mm) thick, so I have a considerable amount of hand planing ahead of me to bring them down to 7/8 inch (19mm). This is one of those jobs where a bandsaw would really shine. When I owned a bandsaw, I would resaw the stock as close as possible to the finished thickness and then plane it smooth to the required dimension. That removed a tremendous amount of unnecessary timber before I even picked up a handplane. Without a bandsaw, however, I’m back to removing all that material with muscle, a plane and a fair amount of patience.

I’ve started writing down how long some of these jobs actually take in the workshop, because it is very easy to underestimate the amount of time involved in preparing timber by hand. It took several hours just to thickness the boards and flatten one side. Once I had one true surface, I didn’t waste time trying to make the other side look as though it had come out of a thicknesser. I only needed to plane the surface that would eventually become the show face, and that is where I concentrated my effort.

This is one of those areas where traditional hand-tool woodworking differs considerably from the way timber is normally prepared today. In modern woodworking, we tend to surface all four sides of a board so that everything is flat, smooth and consistent. Machines make this relatively quick and easy, so there is little reason not to do it. When working entirely with hand tools, however, every surface you prepare is time and effort. I don’t see the point in spending hours making a hidden surface perfectly flat and smooth when it doesn’t need to be.

In the old world of hand-tool woodworking, you true the side that matters and then surface plane the show face with a smoother. The show face doesn’t necessarily have to be perfectly flat and machine smooth either. It needs to be good enough for the job it has to perform. In this case, that surface is particularly important because it is going to become the face of the bookshelf and will eventually receive the carving. That’s where my attention belongs. There is little sense in spending half a day making a surface that will never be seen as perfect as the one that will become the centrepiece of the finished piece. I don’t have any photographs of the boards after they were planed because, at the time, I had no intention of writing about this build. You’ll have to take my word for it and picture the process in your head. I also don’t have any photographs of me chopping out the dadoes, so I’ll explain what I did as clearly as I can. I’m sure most of you already know how to chop a dado, but there is a little trick I use that makes getting the opposite end accurately positioned much easier.

I set out five dadoes, spacing them as equally as I could along the board. I knifed one side of each dado but deliberately didn’t mark the opposite side yet. I then chopped down to roughly 1/4 inch (6mm) on the first line. Once I had established that wall, I took the shelf that would eventually fit into that dado and placed one end against the wall I had just chopped. I could then use the shelf itself to mark exactly where the opposite wall needed to be. I marked that with a knife, scribed the line and then proceeded to chop out the rest of the dado. This way I wasn’t relying on measurements and hoping that the shelf would fit. The actual shelf became my reference, so I knew the dado was being made specifically for that piece.

With the boundaries established, I used a chisel bevel side down to remove as much of the waste as I could. Once I had removed the bulk of the material, I brought the dado down to its prescribed depth with my router plane. When it was finished, I numbered both the board and the dado so I would know exactly which shelf belonged in which position. This might seem unnecessary, but it is an important part of working this way.

In a machine woodworking environment, the idea is generally that one shelf should fit every dado. The machinery allows you to produce a consistent dado and consistent shelves to very close tolerances. In the hand-tool world, no two boards are identical. Each dado corresponds to the particular shelf it was made for. The fit is established individually, and once everything is numbered, there is no confusion about where each piece belongs. It is a different way of thinking about furniture making, and one that I actually enjoy.

At the top of the board I made a 1/4 inch (6mm) groove, and on the top section I made a rabbet, or rebate, with a corresponding 1/4 inch (6mm) tongue. This gives the top a positive location rather than simply having it sit on the end of the board. Once I had completed the first dado, I worked my way through the remaining four, using the same process for each one. By the end of the day, the dadoes were finished, the parts were numbered and the job was a good’un”.

There was a price to pay for all that work, though. I had spent the entire day hand planing timber and then chopping out the dadoes, and it put a massive strain on my back and neck. By the end of it I was in so much pain that I could barely walk. You would think that might have been enough to keep me out of the workshop the following day, but that’s not how it works when you love what you do. The next morning I was up bright and early at 4am, ready to get back into the workshop.

I’ve always said that if you want the nation working, give people jobs they love to do. Nobody will want to take a sick day, and nobody will be unemployed. I suppose my back might disagree with that statement, but when you’re doing something you genuinely enjoy, getting up at four in the morning to do it doesn’t feel like work.

BTW I do have photos for everything else.

There’s no doubt that QCAD is my go-to 2D CAD software. I turn to it for virtually all of my design work. I do enjoy working with 3D software packages such as FreeCAD, but I always seem to find myself coming back to 2D. Perhaps that’s because I started out with AutoCAD, where I spent years drawing all sorts of things. One example is this drawing of Bedford, QLB, which I created for a company in the Netherlands. It was drawn accurately to real-world scale.

I love drawing, and I love the accuracy I can achieve with CAD software. Before I go any further, I want to make it clear that I am not sponsored by QCAD. In fact, they don’t even know I’m writing this, which, I think, says a lot. Over the years, I’ve tried many different 2D CAD software packages. The first one I ever used was AutoCAD, and there’s no denying that it’s an excellent program. But bloody expensive, and for us woodworkers, I think it’s completely unnecessary.

We don’t need all the bells and whistles that come with professional engineering and architectural CAD software. What we need is something that allows us to draw accurately, work to real-world dimensions, make changes easily and, most importantly, get on with designing our projects.

So, what is QCAD?

QCAD is an open source 2D CAD software package. No, it doesn’t do 3D, but you can draw in isometric mode and create the illusion of 3D, just like we used to do back in high school. I still do that sometimes, just for fun. There are two versions of QCAD: a free version and a paid version called QCAD Professional. The Professional version has some additional features that aren’t available in the free version, and you also get 12 months of free upgrades. In addition this a one off payment, not a subscription.

Is it worth paying for?

Everyone is different, but for me, absolutely. It’s only $72, and you get free upgrades for the first 12 months. Renewals are discounted as well, so you really do get a lot of bang for your buck. When you compare that with what other 2D CAD packages cost, QCAD is very affordable.

If you’re interested in having a look for yourself, click here to visit QCAD.

I haven’t said a great deal about QCAD, but I think you get the gist of why I like it. It’s accurate, capable and, most importantly for me, it’s a pleasure to draw with.

What I want to briefly touch on now is a new project I’m currently working on.

My son commissioned me to make him a bookshelf. He wanted something special that he could, God willing, one day pass on to his own children. So I’ve chosen a traditional design and taken it a step further by adding floral carving and chip carving to both sides. As far as I know, this particular style of bookshelf was never made with this type of carving historically. The patterns I’ve used are based on a Bosnian cabinet I came across in a photograph from a museum in Konjic, Hercegovina. I don’t know the exact date the cabinet was made, but I believe it could date from somewhere between 1901 and 1923. The style of bookshelf itself goes back much further, however. By combining that traditional form with the carving patterns from the Bosnian cabinet, I believe I may be creating something that is genuinely unique. As far as I know, this particular combination doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world. There won’t be any videos of this build. I’m tired of competing with the algorithm, so this one will be strictly for the blog.

I hope you enjoy following along as the project takes shape.

I’ve been thinking about something that’s always puzzled me in woodworking. How can one craftsman build something beautiful and functional and sell it for an astronomical price, while another builds something just as good, sometimes the exact same piece, and can’t get near that price? Or can’t sell it at all?

How does that happen? A teacher can teach someone to build a chair, carve it beautifully, and the thing never sells, even though the teacher has been selling that same chair for $1,600 for years.

This is a hard thing for a craftsman to accept, because we spend our lives believing the object is what matters. We’re raised on the idea that if you make something useful and beautiful, it should sell. We spend years learning, then refining, then learning more, all so we can produce work that speaks for itself. Naturally, we believe that if two people make the same object to the same standard, the market should value them the same. History says otherwise.

Paul Sellers makes a rocking chair and sells it for $3,000. Peter Follansbee makes a ladder back chair and sells it for $1,600. You take Paul’s class and learn to build that rocking chair. Time passes, your skills sharpen, and eventually you’re producing chairs that match his quality. But you can’t sell yours for $3,000. You can’t sell it at all. You end up giving it away.

That doesn’t sit right with any woodworker. We want to believe that if the work is good enough, someone will recognise it. We want quality to be the thing that decides value. But it isn’t.

A lot of people have tried to make a living copying what other craftsmen already do, then wondered why it didn’t work. Peter and Paul both teach classes. They show you exactly how they build what they build. Magazines run their articles, video crews film their process, and somewhere in all that exposure, it starts to feel like you could sell what they sell too.

But you only learned how to make the object. You didn’t acquire what makes the object valuable to the person who made it. This is what I call the illusion of the classroom. They’d already built something that can’t be taught in a class. They built a name.

A piece of furniture isn’t just mortises and tenons, dovetails and rabbets fitted together. It carries the story of the person who made it, the years spent behind the bench earning the skill to make it well. There’s a story in every piece, but not everyone tells it. The ones who do, and do it well, become known over time, until their name and their work become the same thing in people’s minds.

This isn’t an invention of the internet age. Long before algorithms, it was magazines, newspapers, and word of mouth.

George Nakashima is one of the clearest examples of this. He became one of the most recognised furniture makers of the twentieth century. His tables, chairs and cabinets were admired, but his work represented something much deeper. His approach to timber, his respect for natural forms, and his philosophy of allowing the wood to influence the design became part of his identity as a craftsman.

People were not simply buying a table made from a piece of beautiful timber. They were buying a George Nakashima table. That distinction is extremely important.

After George Nakashima passed away in 1990, his daughter Mira continued the family workshop. Mira had learned directly from her father and understood the methods, designs and philosophy that made the Nakashima name famous. She was not an outsider copying his work. She had spent years working alongside him and was fully capable of continuing the tradition. But it wasn’t her they wanted. It was her father.

While George was alive, his furniture was in high demand and business was booming. After he passed away, business plummeted. Customers were afraid the value of their investment would drop without him. I remember reading about it in Fine Woodworking back in the early 2000s.

Many customers were looking for the work of George Nakashima himself. They wanted the connection to the man whose name had become synonymous with his work. The furniture remained beautifully made, but it wasn’t George Nakashima who built it. It was someone different.

This is not a criticism of Mira Nakashima. It demonstrates something much larger about craftsmanship. The reputation of a maker becomes part of the value of the object.

The same lesson can be seen in the work of Sam Maloof. He became famous for his sculptural rocking chairs. His designs were instantly recognisable, and his name became almost synonymous with the form. Many skilled woodworkers can make a beautiful rocking chair. Many can study his methods, understand the joinery and produce a piece inspired by his work. But they are not Sam Maloof.

The buyer who wanted a Maloof rocker was not simply looking for a comfortable chair. They wanted the chair made by the man whose life’s work had become associated with that design.

This is the same reason an original piece of historical furniture carries a meaning that a reproduction, no matter how accurate, cannot completely replace. A modern craftsman can study Thomas Chippendale’s work, understand his designs and produce a remarkable reproduction. It may demonstrate extraordinary skill and dedication. But it is not a Chippendale.

An original Chippendale piece carries the history of his workshop, the customers who commissioned it, the period in which it was made and the hands that created it. The maker’s name has become part of the object itself.

This brings us back to Peter Follansbee, the man from the opening of this piece. His work at Plimoth Patuxet Museums, his research, his books, his teaching and his writing have all contributed to the meaning attached to his name. When someone buys one of his chairs, they are not simply buying a ladder back chair. They are buying a chair made by Peter Follansbee.

That is where many talented craftsmen struggle. They look at another maker’s work and think, “I can make that just as well.” Sometimes they are absolutely correct. Their craftsmanship may be equal. Their attention to detail may be equal, if not better. Their understanding of the techniques may be equal. But in the eyes of the market it is not the same.

Take myself as another example. I was selling wholesale. In truth, I was selling myself short for a sure thing.

The shops had the customers. The shops had the reputations. I made the work and they sold it.

There was nothing wrong with that. It was a living. But looking back, I can see what I gave up by doing it that way. I spent thirty years making things without building a name for myself among the people who might have wanted to buy them directly from me at a much, much higher price. After all, it was truly handmade.

Peter Follansbee worked for the museum and honed his skills there. He appeared on the shows, which gave him free advertising, and over time people got to know and trust him. He went on to produce videos through Lie-Nielsen, ran classes and built a genuinely respectable name in the industry. He was vouched for by Christopher Schwarz, and today he can sell whatever he wants at a hefty price tag.

You cannot live in the shadows for thirty years and expect people to know who you are. A craftsman can spend thirty years or fifty years mastering the craft and still remain unknown if they never build a connection with the people who value that craft. Knowledge, skill and dedication are essential, but they do not automatically create recognition. Communication opens those doors.

This is not to say that an unknown maker cannot produce work of equal quality. They absolutely can. There are countless craftsmen producing extraordinary work who will never receive the recognition they deserve. That is one of the great frustrations of craftsmanship. The world does not always discover the most talented maker. It often discovers the maker who has successfully communicated their work with an audience that understands its value.

And that is an uncomfortable truth, because we like to think craftsmanship is a meritocracy. We like to think the best work rises to the top. Sometimes it does, but often it doesn’t.

The craftsman who spends his entire life under the radar producing excellent work is not necessarily going to be the one people remember. Someone else may be just as skilled, or even less skilled, but they wrote about their work, taught others, appeared in magazines, demonstrated their methods, built relationships and became known. It doesn’t necessarily make them a better craftsman. It makes them a known craftsman. There is a difference.

The truth is that making and selling are two different crafts. Many craftsmen dedicate their entire lives to the first and never consider the second. They believe the work should speak for itself. Unfortunately, the work cannot speak if nobody knows it exists.

And this is where the whole thing comes back around to that chair. You can make the chair. You can make it beautifully. You can use better timber, make tighter joints, carve it better and finish it better. You can spend twice as long making it as the person you’re comparing yourself to.

And you can still have trouble selling it. Because nobody knows you. That is the difference between selling a chair for $1,600 and giving one away.

The painful part is that the craftsman often discovers this only after spending years becoming good enough to make the thing in the first place. By then, it is too late to realise that making the object was only half of the job. You also had to make yourself known.

I know this one from the inside. Thirty years at the bench, and I never once asked myself who was going to know my name when I stopped making clocks for someone else’s shop window. I got the first half of the job right and skipped the second entirely. Nobody outside a handful of wholesale buyers ever had a reason to ask who made it.

So if there are any young people reading this, take the half of the job I missed. Learn and practice until you understand the craft better than the average woodworker. Then make every effort to get yourself known. Write articles for magazines, attend shows, go public, advertise yourself, and never stop until you no longer need to.

My ship has sailed, but your ship has just set sail. The journey is long, but it’s adventurous. Make the most of it, enjoy the journey, and remember, you only get one shot at this.

I learned this too late. You don’t have to.

One of the reasons this subject causes so much confusion is because there are actually two different questions being asked. One is, what produces the strongest bond? The other is, what is the most practical way to apply glue in the workshop? They are not always the same question.

For modern PVA wood glues, such as white and yellow woodworking glues, manufacturers generally recommend applying a thin, even coat to one mating surface. Once the joint is assembled and clamped, the pressure spreads the glue across both surfaces, producing a continuous glue line.

This method uses less glue, creates less squeeze out and is quicker, while producing a bond that is every bit as strong as coating both surfaces when the joint fits properly.

Applying PVA to both surfaces is not wrong. It simply uses more glue, increases squeeze out and rarely produces a stronger joint. In some cases, it can even leave a thicker glue line than necessary.

Hot hide glue is a different story. Historically, many cabinetmakers brushed glue onto both mating surfaces, although it was by no means an absolute rule. Hide glue has a much shorter open time than modern PVA and begins to gel quickly as it cools. Coating both surfaces helped ensure complete wetting of the joint before assembly.

Historical woodworking texts vary in their instructions, with some simply advising that the joint be coated generously before bringing the parts together. The important thing was achieving complete coverage before the glue gelled.

This is why you will hear experienced woodworkers give different answers. The disagreement is not because one person understands glue and the other does not. The difference comes from their experience, the adhesives they have used and the reasoning behind their approach.

Paul Sellers, who has spent decades teaching traditional hand tool woodworking, recommends applying modern PVA glue to one surface only. His reasoning is simple. A properly fitted joint does not need excessive glue, and when the parts are brought together under clamp pressure, the glue spreads across both surfaces and creates the bond.

Applying glue to one surface reduces waste, creates less squeeze out, is cleaner and is quicker. His approach is based on the understanding that the strength of a glue joint comes from good fitting surfaces and a thin glue line, not from applying more adhesive.

On the other hand, Marc Spagnuolo from The Wood Whisperer prefers applying glue to both mating surfaces and considers it a best practice in many situations.

His reasoning is that coating both surfaces guarantees complete wetting before assembly. Timber is porous, and by applying glue to both faces, there is less reliance on the glue transferring from one surface to the other. For him, the small amount of extra glue used is a worthwhile trade off for ensuring complete coverage.

Both approaches have merit. Neither woodworker is simply spreading glue without thought. Both methods come from years of experience and an understanding of how joints behave.

There are, however, a few situations where applying glue to both surfaces makes good sense. Very porous end grain is one example. End grain behaves like a bundle of drinking straws and can absorb glue surprisingly quickly. Some woodworkers apply a light sizing coat first, allow it to soak in for a few minutes and then apply fresh glue before assembly. This helps prevent the wood from starving the joint of adhesive.

Large or complex glue ups can also benefit from coating both surfaces, particularly if assembly takes longer than normal or there are many parts to position before clamping.

Over the years, mostly from watching YouTube as I work alone, I’ve seen some woodworkers take pride in applying far more glue than necessary. Their justification is that they don’t want to starve the joint and that glue is cheap. They would rather have glue dripping everywhere than a small, consistent bead of squeeze out. Unfortunately, this demonstrates a misunderstanding of how modern PVA glue works and teaches beginners that more glue somehow means a stronger joint.

It doesn’t. A glue joint does not become stronger because you use more glue. It becomes stronger because there is a thin, continuous film of adhesive between two well fitted surfaces. Excess glue simply squeezes out around the edges, making more mess, requiring more clean up and wasting glue. In some cases, too much glue can even make it harder for the joint to close completely.

You want enough glue to completely wet the mating surfaces, but not so much that it pools or runs. When clamped correctly, you should see a small, consistent bead of squeeze out along the joint. That tells you the joint has adequate glue coverage without excessive waste.

So what about my own approach? For many years I worked with hot hide glue, where applying glue to both mating surfaces was common practice. Hide glue behaves differently from modern PVA. It has a shorter working time and begins to gel quickly, so complete coverage before assembly was extremely important.

When I changed to white glue about two years ago, I carried that habit with me. Recently, while edge gluing boards, I applied a thin coat of glue to both mating surfaces without even thinking about it.

Technically, for PVA, applying glue to one surface is generally the accepted method. However, because I applied a thin, even coat rather than flooding the joint with excess glue, the joint will be perfectly sound.

Why did I apply glue to both mating surfaces today? The answer is quite simple. After years of working with hide glue, muscle memory kicked in and I repeated an age old habit without giving it much thought. It is a habit I will eventually change, but in my defence, because I only applied a thin coat to both surfaces, the job’s a good’un.

This is perhaps the most important lesson. Good woodworking is not about blindly following a rule. It is about understanding why the rule exists.

One woodworker may apply glue to one surface because they understand modern PVA and want speed and efficiency. Another may apply glue to both surfaces because they value guaranteed coverage. Both can produce excellent results.

The mistake is not choosing one method over the other. The mistake is applying glue without understanding what you are trying to achieve.

A good strop is one of the simplest and most useful tools a woodworker can make. A strop is simply a flat piece of wood with leather attached to the surface. Its purpose is not to replace sharpening stones, but to refine the edge after sharpening. A properly prepared strop removes the final traces of the burr and polishes the edge, leaving a razor sharp cutting tool ready for use.

The leather used for a strop is one of the most important factors in its performance. The best leather is firm, stable and has a consistent surface that will not allow the cutting edge to sink into it. A good strop can be made from the flesh side of quality vegetable tanned cowhide, where the fibres are dense and even. This surface holds honing compounds well and provides a controlled abrasive action.

Horse butt leather is considered by many to be one of the finest choices because it comes from a dense, strong area of the hide. It has a tight fibre structure and resists stretching, making it excellent for fine sharpening work.

Avoid soft upholstery leather or thin stretchy leather because it can deform under pressure and encourage rounding of the edge. A firm piece of leather around 3 millimetres thick, attached securely to a rigid wooden base, is all that is required to make a high quality workshop strop. The ideal wood for a strop is something stable, flat and resistant to movement. Traditionally, hardwoods such as beech, maple, or other close grained timbers are excellent choices because they are dense and remain flat over time. A strop does not need to be made from an expensive exotic timber. The most important factor is not the species of wood, but the stability and thickness of the board. A thick piece of wood provides a solid foundation for the leather. A strop made from thin material can flex, and this can introduce unwanted rounding of the cutting edge. A thicker base keeps the leather supported and allows the blade to remain consistent during stropping.

There is a common belief that a strop must be made from hardwood, but this is not true. Pine can make an excellent strop if it is prepared correctly. The key is thickness. A piece of pine over 1 inch thick will provide plenty of support and will not flex under normal hand pressure. Pine is also easy to obtain and simple to work with using hand tools.

The surface should be flattened carefully before attaching the leather. A soft timber like pine only becomes a problem when the board is too thin or uneven. The leather follows the surface underneath it, so a poorly prepared base will affect the final result regardless of the timber used. For a workshop strop, a straight piece of pine, properly flattened and over an inch thick, will perform just as well as many more expensive alternatives. The leather should be flat, clean and free from excessive stretch. Both smooth grain leather and suede can be used. The suede side is often preferred when using honing compounds because it holds the abrasive material well. The smooth side can be used for final polishing with a very fine abrasive or even without compound. The leather does not need to be thick. A quality piece of leather around 3 millimetres thick is more than adequate.

There are several ways to attach leather to the wooden base. Contact cement is one of the most common choices because it creates a strong bond and keeps the leather firmly attached. It is quick and practical for a workshop strop.

PVA woodworking glue can also work well. Apply a thin, even layer, place the leather carefully, and clamp it flat until fully cured. Allowing it to dry overnight gives the best results.

Traditional woodworkers may prefer hide glue, which is also suitable and keeps with historical methods. However, modern adhesives are usually more convenient for a tool that may eventually need its leather replaced.

Do not use double sided tape. Depending on the thickness of the leather, the tape can create an uneven surface.

The most important thing is not the type of glue but the preparation. Too much glue can create uneven areas beneath the leather, so a thin, consistent layer is best. Once the leather is attached, the edges can be trimmed neatly with a sharp knife. The surface can then be charged with honing compound if desired. A strop should be used with light pressure. Heavy pressure can compress the leather and round over the edge. The blade should be drawn away from the cutting edge, keeping the bevel flat against the surface. On the back of the blade, keep it completely flat and use the strop to remove the remaining wire edge. This process is sometimes called chasing the burr.

A well made strop does not need to be complicated. A flat board, a piece of leather and a suitable adhesive are all that is required.

The beauty of making your own strop is that it can be built from materials already found in the workshop. The leather on the other hand, depending on size and quality, can be quite expensive. So my suggestion would be to visit upholstery shops and see if they are willing to sell you an off cut or two.

Few workshop tools are as simple as a leather strop, yet few are surrounded by as much misunderstanding. Some woodworkers swear by them, while others avoid them altogether. Some claim a strop “aligns the edge,” while others argue it merely rounds over a flat bevel.

Like many traditional tools, the truth lies somewhere between the extremes. A leather strop is neither a miracle tool nor a useless accessory. Used correctly, it is a refinement tool. It removes the last traces of a burr, polishes the very apex of the cutting edge and leaves a tool feeling smoother and more refined in use. Used carelessly, particularly with excessive pressure, it can gradually round over the edge you worked so hard to create.

Understanding the strop begins with the history of edged tools themselves.

Unlike the Bailey plane, the leather strop cannot be credited to a single inventor. It appears to have developed naturally wherever craftsmen worked with sharp edges.

Leather has been used for thousands of years for countless purposes because of its durability and flexibility. Although there is no archaeological evidence proving that prehistoric craftsmen deliberately stropped stone tools, leather was widely available and would have been familiar to early tool users. Those same qualities that made it useful for clothing, containers and equipment also made it well suited to refining cutting edges.

By the Roman period, whetstones were well established for sharpening iron tools and weapons. Surviving Roman writings discuss sharpening stones, but they do not provide clear evidence of dedicated leather strops. If leather was used for refining edges, it may simply have been considered an ordinary workshop practice rather than something requiring detailed explanation.

By the Middle Ages, stropping had become strongly associated with barbers, surgeons and cutlers. Straight razors required an extremely refined edge, and leather proved ideal for removing the final traces of a burr and producing a highly polished cutting edge.

Woodworkers likely adopted similar practices. Joiners, cabinetmakers, turners and other craftsmen depended on sharp edged tools that benefited from regular maintenance. However, surviving woodworking manuals mention sharpening stones far more often than they mention stropping, suggesting that stropping was probably a practical workshop habit rather than a formally documented procedure. The repeated use of the word probably is deliberate because the historical evidence is limited.

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, leather strops became increasingly common. Cabinetmakers and joiners used leather attached to wooden boards, while barbers often preferred hanging strops. Polishing compounds such as jeweller’s rouge were introduced to increase the polishing ability of the leather and produce an even finer edge.

The nineteenth century saw the mass production of strops. Manufacturers offered hanging strops, paddle strops, bench strops and combination strops with leather and canvas surfaces. Advertising often claimed that strops would renew, refresh or align an edge, marketing that continues to influence how people describe them today.

Modern craftsmen have expanded the idea further. Leather has been joined by materials such as MDF, hardwood, denim and cardboard, often charged with modern abrasives such as diamond paste or the familiar green polishing compound, commonly called green rouge. Some craftsmen even use the palm of their hand as a strop. I know I still do on occasion. Whatever method is used, the principle remains the same. A strop is a finishing tool, not a replacement for proper sharpening.

To understand what a strop does, we first need to understand what happens during sharpening.

Even after working through progressively finer stones, a cutting edge is rarely perfect. Under magnification several features may still be present. There may be a microscopic burr, a thin flap of steel created as the abrasive removes material at the edge. Although extremely small, it can affect cutting performance. The very apex of the edge also contains microscopic scratches left by the abrasive. Even the finest stones leave a surface pattern, although those marks may be almost invisible. Finally, the steel at the very tip has experienced considerable stress during sharpening. The last few microns of steel are the most delicate part of the tool.

A leather strop works almost exclusively on this tiny region.

When charged with an abrasive compound, a strop removes the remaining burr, reduces microscopic irregularities and polishes the apex of the edge. The result is not a dramatic change in the bevel geometry but a refinement of the final cutting surface.

This explains why a properly sharpened plane iron can feel noticeably sharper after just a few light strokes on a strop. The edge has become cleaner and more consistent, allowing it to pass through the wood with less resistance.

Woodworkers who polish beyond the finest bench stones, whether with sub micron abrasives or leather strops, are not correcting a defective edge. They are simply refining the microscopic scratches left by the stone in an effort to maximise keenness and prolong the life of the apex before it begins to wear.

One of the most misunderstood descriptions of stropping is the phrase “aligning the edge.”

If a cutting edge has rolled during use, the steel has undergone plastic deformation. A strop cannot restore the original strength of that steel. At best, it may temporarily improve how the edge feels, but it has not repaired the damage.

A more accurate explanation is that stropping removes weak material at the apex, reduces microscopic irregularities and refines the cutting edge.

If an edge has genuinely rolled, chipped or become damaged, the only correct solution is to return to the sharpening stones and remove enough material to reach sound steel once again. A strop is the final stage of sharpening. It is not a substitute for sharpening. This is where many woodworkers become confused.

A plane iron can be carefully sharpened on a fine stone, followed by just a few light strokes on a strop, and immediately feel noticeably better. It may slice more easily, glide through the wood with less resistance and appear sharper in simple cutting tests.

The reason is that cutting performance depends heavily on the condition of the very apex of the edge. A freshly sharpened edge may still contain tiny remnants of burr material, microscopic irregularities, a slightly uneven apex and a thin layer of weakened steel created during sharpening. A strop refines this final region. The abrasive removes and polishes the weakest material at the apex, leaving a cleaner, more uniform cutting edge that feels noticeably keener. However, that does not necessarily mean the edge is stronger.

A heavily stropped edge may feel exceptionally sharp because the apex has been highly refined. Yet excessive pressure can also round the edge slightly and remove support behind the cutting edge. The result may be an edge that feels incredibly keen but loses that initial performance more quickly.

This is the difference between initial keenness and long term durability. One edge may feel sharper immediately but lose that sensation sooner. Another may feel slightly less impressive at first, yet maintain its cutting performance for considerably longer.

A carefully finished stone edge may feel slightly less razor-like, but it retains a crisp, well supported apex that generally lasts longer in use. An aggressively stropped edge may feel extraordinarily sharp at first, yet lose that refined feeling sooner. Neither edge is necessarily sharper than the other. The difference lies in how the final few microns of steel have been prepared.

Excessive stropping removes support behind the cutting edge because the flexible leather compresses and conforms around the apex, abrading the steel at the very tip and effectively steepening the final cutting angle.

Mechanically, the process is straightforward. Unlike a rigid sharpening stone, leather compresses under pressure. As the blade is drawn across the surface, the leather rises around the edge, allowing the abrasive to contact not only the bevel but also the very apex. Repeated stropping gradually produces a slight convex shape at the tip of the bevel. As this happens, steel is removed from the area immediately behind the cutting edge, reducing the amount of material supporting the apex.

The result is a microscopically thin cutting edge with less structural support. In light work it can feel exceptionally keen, but when driven into hard timber or subjected to impact, the unsupported apex is more likely to roll, chip or collapse. The edge may excel in a paper slicing test while proving less durable in demanding woodworking.

For this reason, a strop works best when mounted on a hard, flat backing, such as leather glued to a wooden block, and used with the lightest possible pressure. The goal is simply to remove the remaining burr and polish the apex without allowing the leather to deform around the edge.

The ideal sharpening method ultimately depends on the tool and the work it performs. Carving tools generally benefit from regular stropping because they are used with light cutting forces where maximum keenness is often more important than durability. Paring chisels can also benefit from occasional stropping because they are designed for controlled slicing cuts.

Chopping chisels and heavy bench chisels, however, are subjected to repeated impact. For these tools, a strong, well supported apex is often more valuable than pursuing the highest possible polish.

Plane irons occupy a similar position. Many experienced woodworkers prefer finishing on a very fine stone with little or no stropping because the edge is expected to work continuously against the timber. A crisp, durable apex often proves more valuable than the additional refinement produced by excessive stropping.

A leather strop is neither magic nor unnecessary. It is simply a finishing tool.

Used correctly, it removes the last traces of a burr, polishes the cutting edge and produces a noticeable improvement in how a tool feels and performs. Used incorrectly, it can gradually reduce the strength of the very edge it is intended to refine.

The best results come from understanding exactly what the strop is doing. It is refining the final few microns of an already sharp edge. Those few microscopic microns may seem insignificant, but they are exactly where every cut begins.

I know this is a lot to take in, so I’m going to explain it one more time in plain English.

The reason I’m spending so much time on this is that there is so much rubbish written about stropping. People copy one another without understanding what is actually happening at the cutting edge. Then someone turns it into a YouTube video or a blog article, and before long everyone is repeating the same misinformation as though it were fact.

So forget what you’ve heard for a moment and let’s look at what is actually happening. Imagine sharpening a pencil with a knife. At first, the pencil has a strong, well-supported point. The wood behind the graphite holds everything together.

Now imagine you keep shaving away the wood around the very tip while leaving the graphite sticking out further and further. The point becomes incredibly sharp, but it also becomes fragile because there isn’t enough wood supporting it.

A leather strop can do something similar to a steel edge. When you press a blade onto leather, the leather isn’t perfectly rigid. It compresses and wraps slightly around the very tip of the edge. Instead of polishing only the flat bevel, it also polishes the steel immediately behind the cutting edge. With very light pressure this isn’t a problem. It simply removes the last traces of the burr and polishes the edge. But if you press too hard or strop for too long, the leather keeps removing tiny amounts of steel from behind the edge. The edge becomes extremely thin and feels frighteningly sharp, but it also loses some of the steel that was supporting it. Like the sharpened point of a pencil with too much wood removed, it becomes more fragile. The edge can be incredibly thin, but because there’s so little material behind it, it bends or wears much more quickly.

So there is a trade-off:

a) A lightly stropped edge is polished while still retaining plenty of steel behind it, making it both sharp and durable.

b) An aggressively stropped edge may feel even sharper at first, but because some of its support has been removed, it can dull, roll or chip sooner.

That’s why many experienced woodworkers say, “Use the strop sparingly.” The goal isn’t to keep polishing forever. It’s simply to remove the burr, refine the edge and then stop before you begin weakening it.

In the next article, I’ll look at which types of leather make the best strops and what adhesive is best for attaching them to a backing. I’ve already covered the type of wood I recommend.

If you don’t have a leather strop, don’t let that stop you. The palm of your hand can work surprisingly well as a quick strop. I’ve used it for years and still do. Four or five light strokes are often enough to remove the last traces of the burr and leave the edge feeling noticeably keener.

For years I have looked at my website statistics and wondered how many of those numbers represented real people. Like many content creators, I have questioned whether the visitors were genuine readers or simply numbers generated by search engines, bots or people simply passing through. The recent poll has given me my first real glimpse behind those statistics.

The participation was very low and, at first glance, that might seem disappointing. But after reading the responses, I came away with a very different conclusion. The people who took the time to vote were not random visitors. They were genuine readers who have followed my work for years. Some told me they would rather hear my own voice than have AI narrate my articles. One reader even said they loved my work so much that they would never unsubscribe, but they would rather hear me than AI. Comments like that mean far more to me than hundreds of anonymous page views ever could.

What surprised me even more was that one of those readers had never left a comment before. That single fact speaks volumes. It confirms what I have suspected for a long time. Many people are reading, watching and following my work without ever interacting. They do not leave comments. They do not click Like. They do not send emails. They simply follow my work discreetly and move on.

As creators, we often judge the success of our work by visible engagement. We look at comments, likes, shares and subscriptions because those are the only things we can actually see. The silent majority remains invisible. This poll reminded me that the silent majority is very real. It also explains why website statistics and video views often feel disconnected from audience interaction. Thousands of people may read an article, but only a tiny fraction will ever say a word. That does not necessarily mean they did not enjoy it. It simply means they are observers rather than participants.

Would I have liked more people to vote? Absolutely. But the poll still achieved something valuable. It proved there are genuine people behind those numbers, people who have been following my work for years without ever making themselves known. Because of this, I will return to doing what I have always done. I will continue creating content in my own way, writing about the things I am passionate about and letting my work speak for itself rather than chasing engagement numbers.

So perhaps the lesson here is not that I have a small audience. Perhaps it is that I have a large audience that prefers to remain silent.

To everyone who took the time to vote, and especially to those who left thoughtful comments, thank you. Your few minutes of participation answered questions I have had for years and reminded me that even when the comments section is quiet, someone is still reading.

A quick note about the AI character used in my videos

Recently I introduced an AI generated character to present some of my videos. The scripts, ideas, research, and woodworking knowledge behind those videos are still my own and will always be my own. The character was simply a way of presenting my written work without appearing on camera.

I have received a small amount of feedback from some viewers who strongly dislike the use of an AI character and have said they will unsubscribe. I want to make it clear that I understand and respect that people have different opinions about AI.

However, I also want to point out that only a very small number of people have commented. Most readers and viewers do not leave feedback, so I honestly do not know whether the majority of people dislike this format or whether the comments I received represent only a small group of people who feel strongly about AI.

At this point, I can only make an educated guess.

What I find interesting is that the purpose of this experiment was never to replace my own knowledge or experience. The articles and videos are still created from my own decades of woodworking, research, and hands on experience. The AI character was simply a presentation tool.

I have always tried to share quality woodworking knowledge freely. I spend my own time researching, writing, photographing, and producing content because I believe traditional woodworking skills are worth preserving and sharing.

That said, I do listen to feedback. I would genuinely like to know what people think. Is the AI character distracting from the content, or is there another reason you prefer the previous style?

I cannot improve something if I do not know what people think.

Thank you to everyone who takes the time to read my work, watch my videos, and support traditional woodworking.

There is something deeply satisfying about bringing an old hammer back to life. Whether it is a family heirloom, a vintage tool rescued from a market stall, or a premium modern hammer, replacing a broken handle is one of those jobs every woodworker should know how to do.

One question comes up almost every time someone fits a new handle.

Should the hammer head be glued onto the handle?

The short answer is no.

That answer surprises many people because we live in an age where adhesives seem capable of fixing almost anything. Yet the humble hammer is one of those tools whose design has changed remarkably little because the original solution worked so well.

A properly fitted hammer handle is held in place by mechanical force, not adhesive.

Most quality hammer heads have a slightly tapered eye. The replacement handle is shaped to fit that taper, and in many cases the head will slide onto the handle without much resistance before the wedge is installed. For someone replacing a handle for the first time, that can feel wrong, but it is often exactly how the joint is meant to work.

Once the head is seated against the shoulder of the handle, a wooden wedge is driven into the kerf cut in the top. As the wedge enters, it forces the wood to expand outward until it presses tightly against the inside walls of the eye. That expansion locks the head firmly in place.

The strength comes from compressed wood bearing against steel.

Not from glue.

Before any of this works properly, the handle itself has to be right. Grain direction is critical. A hammer handle should have long straight grain running from end to end with as little run out as possible. The fibres should follow the length of the handle so the wood can absorb shock without snapping. If the grain dives across the handle or runs out toward the sides, the handle becomes much more likely to fail under repeated impact.

If everything is fitted correctly, the head should become completely immovable once wedged. If it still moves, no glue will turn a poorly fitting joint into a safe one. It simply masks the problem instead of solving it.

This is why experienced toolmakers and repairers usually avoid glue in hammer handles altogether. A hammer handle is a wear part. It will eventually break again. A dry wedged joint can be replaced cleanly and quickly without fighting old adhesive or damaging the head.

Modern adhesives like wood glue, epoxy, hide glue, and fish glue all have their place in the workshop. Each is excellent in the right context. Furniture making, joinery, instrument building, and decorative work all benefit from them.

A hammer is different.

It is subjected to repeated impact, vibration, and shock loading. The joint is not asked to resist a slow pull or a static load. It is asked to survive sudden force over and over again. That is exactly what the wedged mechanical system is designed for.

Epoxy can bond metal and wood very effectively, and in some non-structural or decorative contexts it can be useful. Hide glue and fish glue are remarkable traditional adhesives with centuries of use behind them. They remain valuable in restoration and fine woodworking.

But none of them replace the function of a correctly fitted wedge in a hammer handle.

Historically, this approach is not new. The idea of hafting tools is ancient, but it did not begin with wedges.

Long before metal tools existed, early humans were already attaching stone heads to wooden handles tens of thousands of years ago. In the Paleolithic period, tools were typically hafted using plant fibres, sinew, and natural resins such as birch tar. These materials acted as binders and adhesives, holding stone in place through wrapping and bonding rather than mechanical expansion.

In other words, early hafting was about binding and sticking rather than wedging.

The wedge-driven hammer handle as we recognise it today comes much later, alongside metalworking. Once tools began to be made from bronze and iron, smiths needed a reliable way to secure a metal head with an eye. The tapered eye and expanding wooden wedge became the dominant solution because it was simple, strong, and easy to repair.

That system proved so effective that it has barely changed in thousands of years.

By the time you reach historical blacksmithing traditions in Europe and beyond, the pattern is consistent. The head is fitted to the handle, the wedge is driven in, and sometimes a secondary metal wedge is added for extra expansion. The security still comes from compression of the wood inside the eye, not glue.

That is why when a modern replacement handle is fitted, it may slide into the head quite easily before wedging. That can feel wrong at first, but it is often exactly how the system is intended to work. The wedge is what creates the final tight fit.

Once assembled correctly, there should be no movement in any direction. A few light test strikes will confirm the fit before the tool is returned to use.

A hammer does not need glue when it is built correctly. It only needs a sound fit, a proper wedge, intact wood, and correct grain orientation.

The next time you fit a properly made hammer or axe, don’t use glue. Just a simple wedge in place and leave the rest to mechanics. This method has served us for thousands of years, it works perfectly, so why change it.

If anyone would like my old Lie Nielsen small hammer handle, I will gift it to you provided you pay for the shipping. All you need to do is make a new tenon for it. And remember it was through the generosity of Lie Nielsen, who offers a lifetime warranty, that made this replacement possible, otherwise it would’ve been difficult for me to source the wood needed to get my little cross pein back into action. Only through confidence in their workmanship is Lie Nielsen able to afford to offer lifetime warranties on their tools.

Here are the links to the video of this post where I slightly had to change the wordings to suit the character and if the audio on spotify:

Youtube: https://youtu.be/AxeI4axRGDs

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/30TTCKLQHz4KUtPKJyShkz?si=xfPI_JorSNK_pH9oLh7ePw

For years I believed that if you made something with enough care, honesty and skill, people would eventually flock to it. It would command a high price, your reputation as a craftsman would be highly valued. That was the old way. A craftsman would build something beautiful, show it to people, build a reputation, and over time customers would appear. Today, the internet has replaced the old workshop doorway with a maze of algorithms, advertising systems and platforms that decide who gets seen. For a small maker, that can be a hard reality to accept. Let’s face it algorithms don’t care how good you dovetails are.

I have spent years learning traditional woodworking. Hand tools, old techniques, various joinery, making things slowly and steering clear from factory production work. Working the way I do makes my work have meaning because it carries the mark of the maker who made it. But making something and selling something are two completely different skills.

Everywhere you look, there are promises that AI will solve everything. Better titles, better descriptions, better SEO, better photographs, more customers. The idea sounds simple and promising. Use AI, optimise your listings, and buyers will come. But after putting those ideas into practice, the reality is different.

AI can help you present your work better. It can help write descriptions, organise ideas, improve wording and save time. What AI cannot do is create customers out of thin air. It cannot force a marketplace to show your work. It cannot replace trust that you can only gain through years of dealing with the public. And it cannot make people suddenly want something they were never searching for. It’s like not so long ago when website developers all promised the same thing: “to make you number 1 on Google’s search engine.” That pitch was everywhere in the early 2000s and it was almost always nonsense. There is only one number 1 spot for any given search term, it changes constantly, and it is largely controlled by factors most small businesses have no power over. The people making that promise knew it was hollow. They were selling hope to people who didn’t yet understand how search worked. The AI marketing promises of today are no different. Same structure, different technology. Promise big results, collect the fee, and move on when it doesn’t deliver. The person left holding nothing is always the small operator who believed it. A perfectly written listing can still sit on Etsy, eBay, Marketplace or a Facebook shop and go completely unnoticed.

One of the biggest lessons a craftsman learns is that the people who appreciate your work are not always the people who buy it. Many of the people interested in traditional woodworking are other woodworkers. They love seeing hand cut dovetails. They enjoy learning techniques. They appreciate the process and slowing down. But many of them are not customers because they can either make it themselves or they are armchair woodworkers. They are not looking for someone to build them a wooden item. They are looking for knowledge or entertainment. That audience is valuable, but it is a different audience from the person who wants to buy a finished piece. A person who buys handmade work is often someone who admires the craft but does not have the time, tools or skills to create it themselves. They are buying the story as much as the object.

Many makers build their entire business on platforms they do not control. Facebook, Instagram, Etsy, eBay.

These platforms are powerful, but they are not yours. You can spend years building followers and still be at the mercy of a decision made by a company, an algorithm or a moderation system. That is a frightening position for a small creator. One day your work can be visible. The next day it can disappear. A following is not the same as ownership, and a follower on a platform is not the same as a paying customer.

The obvious answer is always: “Build a website.” But for many craftspeople, that is not easy. Money is not unlimited. A website costs money. Hosting, Software, Marketing all costs money. When you are trying to sell handmade work, every dollar matters. The answer is not necessarily an expensive website. The important thing is having a platform that belongs to you. Even a simple page, a basic portfolio or a small email list. Because an email address from someone who genuinely cares about your work is worth more than thousands of random followers who scroll past. It is old school, but it still works better than most of what is being sold today.

The world does not need another mass produced wooden object. Factories can make things cheaper and faster. A great example of that would be in my neck of the woods the Carrara markets. Why is it failing? Because the sellers sell imported mass produced goods that you can buy in any shop on the Gold Coast. Forty years ago sellers were selling trash and treasure, stuff they had from home and stuff they made themselves. Somewhere along the way sellers started importing goods from China. It was profitable for a while until it wasn’t. In other words, short term gain for a long term loss.

The future of handmade work may not be about chasing every platform. It may be about finding the small number of people who truly value what you do, and sadly not everyone will care. Most people are busy with their own lives and that is normal. The goal is not to reach everyone, the goal is to find the few who care. A craftsman does not need millions of people watching unless you are a content creator. What they do need is the right people watching.

The hardest part of being an independent maker today is not making the object. It is getting it seen. The internet promised to connect creators with the world, but it also created new barriers. Algorithms and platforms decide who will be seen. And Facebook advertising systems decide who will advertise with them or not. They will ban you in a heartbeat without giving you a reason for it, even if you have never advertised once. I know many people who have suffered the same fate just for merely speaking up against political figures. This is now a common worldwide problem. This is their way of silencing you. For some it has proven effective, but for others it has not. The damage caused in the process runs into the millions, and just like the imported Chinese goods, a short term gain will eventually become a long term loss.

For the small craftsman, the challenge is learning how to survive in that environment without losing the reason they started making things in the first place. Because at the end of the day, the value of handmade work was never created by an algorithm. It was created by a person.

I was looking for videos on YT on how to film woodworking videos. I’m curious how they get all those close up angle shots without themselves or their hands being in the way. As always on YT I get everything else, but what I want. Amongst all those unwanted videos I came across this one “What Woodworking Youtube Videos Sounds Like” and I tell you what, it was actually funny and made me laugh. I thought I would share this with you and hopefully will make you laugh. Lord knows how much we need a laugh in these uncertain times.

https://youtu.be/LCyzfXZ8An4?si=d8UOVIKHJtBtOa_P

There are a few well known tricks in woodworking, such as using a deliberately blunt chisel as a scraper, using a slightly dulled chisel for hinge mortises to reduce tear out, the old cabinetmaker’s trick of burnishing end grain with the back of a chisel, and various tricks popularised by people like Paul Sellers and Rex Krueger.

But the one I’m particularly thinking of is one nobody really knows who invented.

Using a chisel sharpened to a square 90 degree edge so it acts as a scraper rather than a cutting tool is an old workshop technique. It appears to have been known by toolmakers and cabinetmakers long before it became popular on YouTube. There is no documented inventor that historians attribute it to. I actually wrote about it extensively in the magazine on planemaking and demonstrated it on YouTube eight years ago before my account was hacked.

The person I learned it from, and most responsible for popularising it among modern hand tool woodworkers, is probably Bill Carter. He demonstrated grinding a chisel square and using it as a scraper, particularly for planemaking and fine fitting work. Modern references to the blunt chisel technique often trace back to him.

Bill Carter is a British hand tool woodworker and master planemaker who builds traditional wooden and metal hand planes by hand.

The idea itself is not unique to woodworking. Metalworkers have used scraping tools with blunt cutting angles for centuries to remove tiny amounts of material with great control.

At first glance it sounds ridiculous. Why would anyone intentionally ruin a perfectly good edge? The answer becomes obvious the first time you use one. A sharp chisel wants to dig. Even with careful control it can suddenly follow the grain and remove more material than intended, which can be a costly mistake. A blunt chisel behaves differently. Because it cannot slice into the wood, it removes material slowly and predictably. Instead of taking shavings, it scrapes away fine dust and tiny fragments. You can work right up to a line with a level of control that is difficult to achieve with a sharp edge.

This makes the technique especially useful for planemakers. Bill Carter used blunt chisels when fitting plane beds and mouths where removing even a fraction too much material could ruin the geometry of the tool. The technique also works well for cleaning up difficult grain, removing small high spots, and fitting parts that require absolute precision.

If you want to try it yourself, take an old chisel that is no longer your favourite. Grind the bevel away until the edge is square to the back. There is no need to hone it. Hold it almost upright and push it forward like a scraper. You’ll notice immediately that it behaves very differently from a normal chisel.

If you’re not sure what I mean, I’ll leave some video links below. Bill demonstrates his quick method of blunting the edge and raising a burr, and Richard Maguire from the English Woodworker goes into considerable detail about it, though in good jest I’d say he does somewhat overcomplicate the sharpening side of things. Richard is one of the most knowledgeable and pleasingly pedantic woodworkers I watch, and I trust that what he tells you is accurate and properly researched. That matters more than it might seem. Far too many content creators have jumped on YouTube hoping to make money without giving much thought to the misinformation they spread, particularly around history. The claim that carrots were purple and genetically modified in the 16th century to become orange springs to mind.

http://www.billcarterwoodworkingplanemaker.co.uk/select-a-technique-below/1-using-a-ground-off-chisel/