Alexandra Palace Woodworking Show

The Alexandra Palace show was the busiest show I have been to for years. For cabinet-makers Rob Cosman (see pic) was the big attraction. Amongst other things, he said that technique was more important than practice. Now I always tell everybody that they must, like a musician, practice sawing straight and chiselling to a line. I think there is merit in both points of view, what is needed is good technique and fluency. Fluency comes with practice. So like a musician train the brain with exercises but also make sure that the technique is sound as well.
I was demonstrating on the Classic Hand Tools stand and had an electric bench to work on. You may wonder what an electric bench is? Well, it has a motor inside which operates motor-cycle chains to raise and lower the top at the touch of a button see www.boosterbench.co.uk. For someone like me with a bad back it was absolutely brilliant! It is the first two day show when I haven’t needed pain killers at the end of the day.
Talking of benches, it was very kind of so many people to come over and talk to me about the replica bench that I made whilst editor of F&C. Many of you said that you had made your own versions and I am glad the article inspired so many benches. Any chance of anyone sending any pictures in?
One final discovery was www.vallorbe.com. I have known the name as I have had a set of Vallorbe needle files for years but they also make rifflers and rasps. For chairmakers, restorers and sculptors these are great. They come in different degrees of coarseness that allow you to “work through the grits” to borrow a phrase from a different discipline, in order to get a smooth but flowing finished curve. Well worth a look if you like curved work.
There were of course many other things at the show, but these were just a couple that caught my eye. I had a word with an importer of Japanese tools and there will be some new tools appearing in my articles soon. I even had to sell the Japanese marking gauge that I was using as we had no more on the stand and the client wanted one that day! So watch these pages for new tool ideas.

Michael 16th March 2010