…an expanding list. In no particular order, here are some books that I think are important, have hugely influenced my thinking, or I just think are worthwhile reading. I will try and get around to fuller reviews at some point. Links are to Goodreads pages. This will be an ongoing and growing list as time permits, so maybe return here Read more…
This is a rather incomplete set of photos showing my recent chairmaking adventure using using some logs acquired many years ago. Most of them had degraded and some rotted due to poor storage, but I managed to work around the weaknesses and pull together a completely improvised, no power tool at all, chair. This will need a bit of unpacking, Read more…
Okay, so I asked Bard, the Google AI/large language model, to summarise my blog posts, and also reference my LinkedIn profile. I am suitably amused by the result, and it made a couple of errors, one understandable given the web-site context, one slightly less obvious. The first is my that the summary stated that I had taught at universities in Read more…
Making and turning. The process of making a Windsor chair in the course I was in was literally from greenwood: we split or reeved timber lengths from Tasmanian Blackwood logs. These were the first and primary pieces that we worked, and they would form the legs and stretchers of the final chair.Once we had split the logs, usually with some Read more…
Photos from a trip to the Poor Knights Marine reserve with New Zealand freedivers from around the country. As usual, I have tended to get enamoured with light, geology, bodies in space, as well as the organisms. All photos on breath hold.
Some photos from my 2022 trip to Roatan, one of the Bay Island of Honduras. I was in Roatan to be on the jury for the AIDA World Depth Freediving Championships. I was slightly undercooked as a judge, but I learnt a great deal in the process. Afterwards I hung around in Roatan and did quite a bit of scuba Read more…
Craft, Making, and Depression. (Some rather disconnected initial thoughts.)
I have wanted to make a chair for some time. And, when I say sometime, I suspect it’s been lurking as a potential project since I was very young. The reason I say this is that when I was young, I used to go to exhibitions and a few other things with my father…
On treenails, drawknives, and the first experiment with a new tool.
Green woodworking part two. As we have cleared around the section, we have taken out some awkward branches, and in one case, a tree; a ribbon wood (I will edit this later with the species). I’ve been using the ribbon wood branches and logs as trials as I learn to use new tools and new ways of doing things. Given Read more…