Complete diary · 5 entries
Workshop diary
Everything written up since the diary started, newest first. Entries are corrected by adding a dated line at the end rather than by quietly editing what turned out to be wrong.
- Workshop
- Diss, the Waveney valley, on the Norfolk and Suffolk border ยท since 2021
- Tools
- Hand tools, one drill, a small bandsaw
- Write to
- hello@cedarplaneworks.com
No. 05 · Finishing
Oil, wax and a damp winter: six months spent chasing gloss
A 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.
Cut 15 June 2026Logged 4 September 2026Stock Air-dried oakReading 7 min
No. 04 · Workholding
Workholding: one vice, four dog holes and two holdfasts
Why 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.
Cut 1 December 2025Logged 22 April 2026Stock ElmReading 6 min
No. 03 · Timber
The oak boards that moved, and what I allow for now
Air-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.
Cut 13 April 2025Logged 18 January 2026Stock Air-dried oakReading 8 min
No. 02 · Joints
Dovetails by hand in a cold shop: marking, sawing, paring
How 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.
Cut 6 October 2024Logged 30 March 2025Stock ElmReading 8 min
No. 01 · Sharpening
A sharpening routine that stuck, after three that did not
Three sharpening methods I abandoned, the one that stuck, and why flattening the back of a chisel once is the part that cannot be skipped.
Cut 9 April 2024Logged 17 February 2025Stock AshReading 7 min
Dimensions in the entries are the ones I actually worked to, in millimetres, taken off the piece rather than off the drawing. Where the two disagreed, the entry says so.