Sam Wilson's Journal

I built this press in 2003 out of pine salvaged from bed frames that were being thrown out by University House at the ANU. I’ve barely used it since, and the time has come to admit that I’m never going to be the small-time bookbinder fellow that I perhaps at some point thought I might [...]

[Keywords: ANU School of Art, bookbinding, bookpresses, books, woodworking] [2 comments] [Permanent link]

I am ripping down a piece of 135mm tas oak for a drawer-bottom. Straight down the guts of it, I mean: the sectional cut of greatest area; the big-board-to-two-thin-boards break; if you see what I mean. The sort of thing done in twenty-five seconds by a bandsaw, but taking me an hour and a half [...]

[Keywords: cutlery drawer, hand tools, ripping, sawdust, sawing, wood] [No comments] [Permanent link]

Yanagi Sōetsu’s call to arms tools… That the crafted item be produced by anonymous crafts people; made by hand, and in quantity; inexpensive; used by the masses; functional in daily life; representative of the region in which it was produced.

[Keywords: Arts and Crafts (movement), manifesto, Soetsu Yanagi, The Unknown Craftsman] [No comments] [Permanent link]

[Keywords: kitchens, renovating] [No comments] [Permanent link]

Summer is over, so we’ve taken the shadecloth down in the courtyard, and started work on the vegie garden. My first ever attempt at bricklaying! It’s fun; a bit like cob building, but not as messy and with the added element of greater permanence. I guess I really live in the ‘burbs now… the other [...]

[Keywords: barbecues, bricklaying, gardening, houses] [No comments] [Permanent link]

I have been wanting to re-focus my blogging, and return to writing only about my woodworking. I’ve set up a wiki, and installed a new instance of WordPress, and tried all sorts of technical things, but just don’t seem to be able to get the flow of the thing, and actually get any writing done. [...]

[Keywords: Blogging, wordpress, workshop, Writing] [3 comments] [Permanent link]

So, we’re all sitting around, I’m sort of pissed (from a bit of a bottol of beer, and a bit of a bottil of wine) and life’s okay.  Thing is, I’m in here typing away here, ’cause the girls are out there talking about teaching and I’ve got little to say really and that’s okay [...]

[Keywords: alcohol, Canberra, joy, Miscellaneous, Posts written when drunk, rants, woodworking] [2 comments] [Permanent link]

It’s a rainy old morning in Canberra. It’s all dim and damp and cool, and all things are fairly happy. I’ve been to the garden this morning, as usual, and I’ve some photos of the garden, with Adele’s plot in the foreground, and a bit of my plot.

[Keywords: A Place of One's Own, Canberra, gardening, O'Connor Community Garden] [No comments] [Permanent link]

How strange things are! Yesterday I was on the verge of dropping out, the meaninglessness of it all swelled up so – but fret not! an evening of friends and tea, followed by a good night’s sleep, turned it all around. Now the same wrenching division between the high-tech and the low that was causing [...]

[Keywords: Miscellaneous] [No comments] [Permanent link]

In which I work on the catalogue for the workshop exhibition and do no woodworking but lots of thinking.

[Keywords: 2XXFM, dichotomy, InDesign, podcasts, radio, technology, University, Walking With Water, woodworking, world wide web] [One comment] [Permanent link]

I can’t wait to get to work! I’ll avoid transport; I’ll dig the skips; I’ll code to my heart’s content (and no farther)!

[Keywords: dichotomy, focus, materials, reuse, shipping, transport, woodworking] [No comments] [Permanent link]

This morning I came into the workshop really wanting to work on something, but I couldn’t really think what. I pulled out a rough sawn piece of blackwood that was left over from my table, sharpened up my plane, and set to work making shavings. I didn’t have an aim of making anything at all, [...]

[Keywords: flattening, Joseph Whitworth, planing, woodwork] [No comments] [Permanent link]

This morning I began a boxboard mock-up of a set of pidgeonholes for stationery; more on that later. I’m also thinking about the possibility of a bathroom cabinet. I am working again on my bookplate, this time with a view to printing in full colour (I am discovering just how little I know about Illustrator). [...]

[Keywords: bookplate, boring posts, prototyping] [No comments] [Permanent link]

This morning was my final assessment for the Diploma. I was getting pretty nervous beforehand, didn’t sleep much last night (for a host of other reasons, not just the assessment) and had had little to eat. As I moved my work downstairs ready to bump it in I thought how poor it looked next to [...]

[Keywords: art school, assessment, dovevtails, future plans, manifesto, woodwork technique, woodworking] [No comments] [Permanent link]

To be in touch — in contact — with the wood is a wonderful thing; the dust, shavings and sweat blackening my hands; reveling in intimacy with the tree, giving part of myself in exchange for what I am making. Running my hand over the wood, sweeping the shavings off the bench with my skin, [...]

[Keywords: closeness, emotion, physicality, wood, woodwork] [No comments] [Permanent link]

In which I put little inlays over nail holes. Thus far today I have been installing little squares of inlay to cover the nail holes in the box sides. It’s fun work, quite exacting but calm and easy. I’m enjoying myself. I finished the inlaying just after lunch and moved on to planing grooves in [...]

[Keywords: box, inlaying, planing, woodwork] [No comments] [Permanent link]

I get back from the library and cheer up, but have a bit of bother with my plane iron.

[Keywords: planing, posture, sharpening, stock preparation, Tools, woodworking] [No comments] [Permanent link]

An afternoon of a book, a cafe, a friend, much good talking and only a little work done. William Morris’ lectures on Art and Socialism from the last quarter of the 19th century kept me company in a juice bar in town this afternoon, but only for a short while before the noise got to [...]

[Keywords: decoration, quotations, William Morris, woodwork] [No comments] [Permanent link]

In which I wonder for a while if my work is crap, and then decide that it’s not.

[Keywords: ANU, door jamb, dovetails, glueless, PVA glue, treenails, Work] [No comments] [Permanent link]

What Fine Woodworking has to say about making small treenails or pegs for pinning joints.

[Keywords: Fine Woodworking magazine, technique, treenails, trunnels, woodworking] [One comment] [Permanent link]

[Keywords: box, Making, visual diary, woodwork, Work] [No comments] [Permanent link]

The speed at which one is required to respond in various forms of a) long-distance communication, and b) woodworking. I have been thinking about the various forms of long-distance communication that are in common use, such as email, telephone, and snail mail, and in particular the length of time each gives one to respond to [...]

[Keywords: attention to process, communication, correspondence, email, sawing, slowing down, Speed, speed of response, time] [No comments] [Permanent link]

In which I bring my desk back to school to finish finishing it and then get it assessed. What a marvellous morning! I brought my desk back to school this morning to get it assessed next Monday; I walked here with it on my wheelbarrow. It’s not a long walk — an hour or so [...]

[Keywords: art school, Exploring, urban resistance, wheelbarrow] [No comments] [Permanent link]

I won’t fill you in on the background of anything; I have to start sometime, and it might as well be now. The box is coming along well, better this afternoon once I gave up for the time being trying to make A Thing to cut trunnels. I turned instead to getting the bottom finished: [...]

[Keywords: boxes, Making, Truth to Materials, woodwork] [One comment] [Permanent link]

After many weeks of thinking, scheming and proposing I have at last settled upon this blog form, and so must begin. Have I anything to say? Not much, but this morning Yanagi (yet again) gave me something to think about, and I think it worth sharing. “Crafts are of and for the great mass of [...]

[Keywords: art school, Reading, Soetsu Yanagi, The Unknown Craftsman, woodworking] [No comments] [Permanent link]