Doing it by the book...

Had an excellent couple of days at the beginning of the week with everyone in good spirits and much laughter in the UB. And by the week's end, the bookends were finally done (bar a final tidy up). They're made from oak dovetailed together and with chamfered edges. Can't say it was easy though. In fact, getting the dovetails to fit was a bloody nightmare - it's a very fine line between getting the joints to fit snugly and taking out too much, thus leaving a nasty gap. My tendency is to go: slowly, slowly, slowly, oh sod it, a bit quicker.... shit! Lots of helpful tips from Sue and Mark got me there in the end though. And a comedy glue-up to finish off!

Next task - the mallet. And then it's on to the machine room for trestles and then the big one: the work bench.

I also got a nifty little machine last week to help with the tool sharpening - and hopefully save my Carpet Funnel, which has been playing up again this week. The ingeniously named Tool Sharp. You can't re-grind big plane irons on it but for everything else it does the job in seconds rather than hours. A bit expensive but worth every penny if it keeps the pins and needles at bay.