This week in the Daily Dispatch, old concrete gets ripped up, new foundations are laid, and filming begins for an upcoming project. Monday morning began with the sound of diesel engines idling. Our heavy equipment guy, Dave, came with his daughter to remove the old modular slab and begin trenching for the new granite-block foundation. They worked efficiently together and made loads of progress throughout the day. Next, some careful layout. There are plenty of metaphors in existence to demonstrate the necessity of laying a good foundation, so (needless to say) we re-checked every measurement multiple times. The foundation size is based on the top plates of the frame (since we don’t have any original sills), so this was careful,...
This week in the Daily Dispatch, Denis Diderot makes a cameo, Joshua hints at an upcoming project, and we discuss old timber treatments (or lack thereof). As I mentioned last week, we’re working hard on Issue Thirteen these days. In pulling together some information for a caption in one of this issue’s articles, I spent some time digging through Diderot’s Encyclopédie. And once again I realize, c'est fantastique. We received a very special gift from a friend for the House by Hand project. Since we have a number of scarf joints to cut and repairs to tackle, he generously sent this our way. An elegant tool, for a more civilized age. As is always the case around here, even...
In this roundup of the Daily Dispatch, a table leg snaps off, a beautiful workbench gets some attention, and a funny old photograph receives some colorful commentary. Things have been busy around here, as we’re into the crux of Issue Thirteen editing and design. Before we began announcing the Table of Contents on the blog, Joshua gave a first peek at Issue Thirteen on the Dispatch. This is the fun part. One of the articles in this issue features throwback, vintage-style photography with the look of those early 20th-century woodworking manuals. This kind of photography presents some interesting challenges. A friend forwarded along a Skinner auction listing for a beautiful, centuries-old workbench featuring a number of brilliant design details. Lots...
This week in the Daily Dispatch, a chisel gets a grip, the forum takes off, and we express our deepest regrets (or not). After last week’s exciting launch of the M&T Dispatch Forum, things started getting interesting. Our goal with the forum was to create a place for Dispatch subscribers to share tools, antiques, and information easily. And it is working swimmingly So far we’ve had book recommendations, tutorials, and videos shared – including one of a Chinese planemaker that was especially interesting. In yet another segment of “Ask M&T” (these just keep on coming), Joshua and I talked about our biggest regrets with starting the magazine and what kinds of pie-in-the-sky dreams we might have for the future. We looked back...
This week in the Daily Dispatch, a house vanished, a new forum opened up, and we talked about drawer bottoms. In a shift of gears, we did not cut any timber-frame joinery this week – but massive progress was made in the house project! In a flurry of activity that may have constituted the greatest degree of excitement around here since the 2019 CSF project, the old Klein modular home was hauled away early in the week. The moving crew had some serious skill in manipulating such a bulbous load down the narrow driveway. And the rental place was out of small cranes… so they brought in a HUGE one. We opened up a new resource for Daily Dispatch...
This week on the Daily Dispatch, Joshua celebrated Independence Day with a massive tug-o’-war, we sorted through piles of house timbers, and trees started coming down for building the floor framing. On Monday, as we in the U.S. celebrated our nation’s 246th birthday, Joshua shared some highlights from the festivities in rural Blue Hill, Maine. It was a beautiful thing to see friends and neighbors gathering face to face to commemorate the day and to have fun. And to eat blueberry pie. Is there a more perfect summer day? The sill timbers showed up bright and early the next day – some massive white pine 8"x8"s, some of them 36' long. Fortunately, the lumberyard sent a boom truck. After getting those...
M&T Daily Dispatch Weekly Roundup This week's Daily Dispatch featured some friendly dwarf Nigerian goats, a giant greenhouse full of 200-year-old timbers from two structures, and a video tour of the tool storage setup we have here in the M&T shop. Early in the week, Joshua shared several methods that we've been using to build new windows utilizing old sashes we've restored. Push-out casement windows are super simple and ideal for utility rooms and workspaces. We're huge proponents of keeping old windows out of the landfill – they look beautiful and hold up for much longer than modern replacements. You might also note that we still need to thoroughly sweep the shop floor – that fact is not likely to change. ...
Head’s up… I posted a free video tutorial this afternoon on the Daily Dispatch in which I walk through the grinding and freehand honing of a cambered plane iron. You do not need to be a Dispatch subscriber to view the video – this one’s gratis. As Mike and I discussed on our last podcast episode, we believe freehand honing is an important skill for every woodworker to develop. Watching our Apprenticeship students work to develop the feel of this technique, I’ve realized afresh how important practice is. By the end of that sharpening week, many of them described experiencing a “eureka” moment. To learn a new hand skill, you’ve got to watch someone do it and then do it...
The shortest day of the year seems designed to invite thoughtful reflection. Maybe it’s the long evening hours of darkness, or the cold outside that draws everyone closer to the blazing woodstove. Maybe it’s the dwindling pages remaining on the year's calendar, falling away like autumn leaves (there’s a mixed seasonal metaphor for you). Maybe it’s the cookies in the oven. Yeah, definitely, the cookies have something to do with it. Here at M&T, we have a lot to reflect on and be thankful for. Every passing year brings new and interesting work for us, new ideas, new acquaintances and friendships, and new (often old) tools to mess around with. This year has been especially unique, with the launch of...
Barn finds are the best finds.Last week on the Daily Dispatch, I put up a video comparing several saw totes, from an oddball old Disston D-8 thumbhole crosscut (?!) saw to a brand-new Spear & Jackson crosscut that is less than graceful in form (as most new hand saws are, sadly). I also shared an interesting tote I hadn’t seen before – it was found in a bucket of rusty tools in a friend’s barn. This handle has similarities to the Disston thumbhole tote, suggesting that it is intended for ripping. (A note about that idiosyncratic thumbhole crosscut saw – the Disstonian Institute website notes that “The thumbhole handle was also offered on 28" and 30" crosscut saws for a...
