Diss, EnglandHand tools only, two evenings a weekDiary open since 2021
Cedar Plane WorksA hand-tool diary from a brick shed on the Waveney

Workshop diary · Diss

One bench, a wall of hand tools, and timber that keeps moving.

A hand-tool woodworking diary from the Waveney valley: sharpening, dovetails cut in a cold shop, and the oak boards that moved after I glued them up.

Written in an unheated brick outbuilding in the Waveney valley, on the Norfolk and Suffolk border, England, since 2021.

The end of a board, read before anything is cut. The rings run flatter towards one face, and that is the face the board will cup away from once the shop dries out in spring.

The ledger

Entries in the order the work happened. Each one names what went wrong first, because that is the part I go back to read.

  1. 05FinishingOil, wax and a damp winter: six months spent chasing glossA winter of cloudy varnish in a cold shed, then thinned oil, warmed wax, and choosing a finish by what the piece will actually have to survive.Cut15 Jun 2026Logged4 Sept 2026Reading7 min
  2. 04WorkholdingWorkholding: one vice, four dog holes and two holdfastsWhy I stripped the shelves and racks off my bench, how the top gets flattened each spring, and what a pair of holdfasts holds better than a vice.Cut1 Dec 2025Logged22 Apr 2026Reading6 min
  3. 03TimberThe oak boards that moved, and what I allow for nowAir-dried oak at sixteen per cent, a shop at eighty per cent humidity and a tabletop that cupped in February: what now goes on the drawing before I cut.Cut13 Apr 2025Logged18 Jan 2026Reading8 min
  4. 02JointsDovetails by hand in a cold shop: marking, sawing, paringHow one gauge setting, a knifed baseline and a guide block turned my third set of hand-cut drawer dovetails into the first worth leaving bare.Cut6 Oct 2024Logged30 Mar 2025Reading8 min
  5. 01SharpeningA sharpening routine that stuck, after three that did notThree sharpening methods I abandoned, the one that stuck, and why flattening the back of a chisel once is the part that cannot be skipped.Cut9 Apr 2024Logged17 Feb 2025Reading7 min

What is in the rack

Boards are bought without a project in mind, stickered with air all round them, and taken oldest first. The label on the end goes on the day the board comes home.

Air-dried oak38 mm × 165 mmFinishingElm32 mm × 165 mmWorkholdingAir-dried oak20 mm × 165 mmTimberElm20 mm × 190 mmJointsAsh38 mm × 165 mmSharpening

Thicknesses are as sawn, not as dressed; a board loses three or four millimetres by the time it is flat on both faces.

Pencilled on the shop wall

Four lines I keep having to reread

I keep a dated diary of one small hand-tool workshop on the Norfolk and Suffolk border, recording what I cut, what the timber did afterwards, and which of my own habits was responsible.

  1. Sharpen before you are certain the edge has gone.
  2. Mark once, then cut to the line you marked.
  3. Timber moves; design so that it can.
  4. Write down the mistake while it still stings.