• Hi all and welcome to TheWoodHaven2 brought into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming! We all have Alasdair to thank for the vast bulk of the heavy lifting to get us here, no more so than me because he's taken away a huge burden of responsibility from my shoulders and brought us to this new shiny home, with all your previous content (hopefully) still intact! Please peruse and feed back. There is still plenty to do, like changing the colour scheme, adding the banner graphic, tweaking the odd setting here and there so I have added a new thread in the 'Technical Issues, Bugs and Feature Requests' forum for you to add any issues you find, any missing settings or just anything you'd like to see added/removed from the feature set that Xenforo offers. We will get to everything over the coming weeks so please be patient, but add anything at all to the thread I mention above and we promise to get to them over the next few days/weeks/months. In the meantime, please enjoy!

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  1. Dr.Al

    Miserden Sculpture Trail

    We had a very pleasant afternoon out wandering around the Miserden gardens and looking at all the sculptures. A few of my favourites (mostly by Graham Hawkins, who's works I've posted here before): This one (called "Flat Out") was made with the engine from an old chainsaw that I gave him...
  2. Dr.Al

    A small project with a difficult joint

    I finally managed a bit more workshop time this morning. If you remember from the last instalment, the last thing I'd done was to chop straight down parallel with (but not all the way up to) the shoulder line. The next job was to clean up the corners (where the saw didn't reach due to cutting...
  3. Dr.Al

    London International Woodworking Festival

    Sounds like it could be good but my interest rapidly fades with the introduction of the word "London". I think I'd be more inclined to traipse up to Harrogate than to go to east London. Of course if someone put on (and paid for) a flight from Staverton or Kemble to London City Airport then I...
  4. Dr.Al

    A tad of mirth

    My car wouldn’t start this morning - I turned the key but nothing happened at all. On opening the bonnet (like I’d have any idea what to do) I was surprised to see a bat hanging, upside down, from the raised lid. I was absolutely amazed when he spoke; telling me what a handsome fellow I am...
  5. Dr.Al

    Reclaimed bookcase - finished

    Great stuff Andy, thanks for sharing. You're definitely making me look like a slacker with the two projects I've got on the go at the moment!
  6. Dr.Al

    Reclaimed bookcase - finished

    Way, way too hot to even think too hard about planing wood at the moment so I'm doing vicarious woodwork: reading Andy's post & catching up on GR Woodworking youtube videos!
  7. Dr.Al

    Reclaimed bookcase - finished

    Oooh goody, another @AndyT build thread. My day has just got much better! Thanks for sharing. A thoroughly enjoyable read, even if I did go slightly green with envy at your workshop temperature. I'm currently sitting in the coolest room in the house with a fan going full tilt in my face, but...
  8. Dr.Al

    Hot Heat 2026

    As I understand it... When it's low humidity, sweat evaporates quickly, taking heat away with it and lowering the temperature of the body. When it's high humidity, the air has so much moisture in it already that the sweat stays put and makes you feel clammy while also not evaporating and...
  9. Dr.Al

    Fixing a Chipped Japanese Chisel Blade

    I find this really interesting and it makes me think I need to work on my plane set-up technique. It generally takes me about a minute to do the actual sharpening of a plane blade (including putting it in a honing guide) but 2-3 minutes to get the blade out, put it back in and get it nicely...
  10. Dr.Al

    Terminology - Two countries, separated by a common language

    Might I suggest we draw this to a close? It feels like we've gone a long way off topic & the current debate might benefit from nipping in the bud as it were.
  11. Dr.Al

    Terminology - Two countries, separated by a common language

    I think the distinction might be getting a bit too subtle for my head to handle! The examples (of a metonym) I remember being told were the use of "Washington", "Downing Street", "Whitehall" to mean "the US government" or "the Prime Minister's office" or "the civil service". Similarly "The...
  12. Dr.Al

    Hot Heat 2026

    It's a perfectly comfortable 21 °C here (in the air conditioned office)
  13. Dr.Al

    Mumbles

    We have both of them in the woods behind our house. I've seen a Tawny flying over once but never seen the Little Owl. We hear them both most nights. Since you mentioned them, from the same place... This is Rowan the Tawny Owl (sitting calmly on my arm looking very wise) This is Ozzy the...
  14. Dr.Al

    Fixing a Chipped Japanese Chisel Blade

    I remember reading somewhere that the laminated construction means that you can (carefully) hit near the tip with a hammer & the softer backing metal will bend slightly and expose more of hardened cutting edge, so there's not as much work needed to flatten it (i.e. you don't have to flatten the...
  15. Dr.Al

    Mumbles

    It's quite amazing what a mobile phone camera can do these days. With my phone held in my right hand, I managed to get this shot of a (captive-bred, obviously) Indian Eagle Owl just about to land on my left hand: (the owl's called "Mumbles" in case you were wondering about the thread title)...
  16. Dr.Al

    Hot Heat 2026

    I'm dreading it. Met Office are forecasting 39 degrees here on Wednesday and Thursday: On Wednesday night it'll still be 27 degrees at 11pm! Stay safe everyone.
  17. Dr.Al

    Newbie

    Welcome to The Woodhaven Richard
  18. Dr.Al

    A small project with a difficult joint

    It's generally been a lovely wood to work with. Not as nice as ABW but as native (ish) woods go it's great. I think it depends how spalted the spalty bit is. The drawer box... ... had some lovely patterning (it might not class as spalting 🤷‍♂️ ) but was really nice to chisel. I couldn't...
  19. Dr.Al

    A small project with a difficult joint

    The stuff I used to make the drawer box didn't seem that bad & lulled me into a false sense of security I think.
  20. Dr.Al

    Mike builds a teardrop (Gas)

    That looks amazing Mike
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