22 Comments

  1. Those four Preston router planes in the background are like a friendly reminder that I may never have one. Paul, I confess I a case of router envy.

    When I retire I want to be your apprentice 😀

  2. I had a strange ‘light-bulb’ moment toning while I was watching this: I realised I’d finally completed the transition from “I wish I could build that” to “I’m going to build one of those”. This time last year this would have been too daunting to me in case I mucked things up and wasted a lot of expensive timber. Now I know I can build this to a standard that I’d be happy for Paul to cast his eye over. Thanks Paul for the gift of Real Woodworking.

    1. Hi Jon, great coincidence! I think I’m near to this point, too. The Paul Sellers method of teaching it’s so exciting and enlightening for me that some times I love more watch him teaching us than do it by myself.

      Yes, it’s like an strange enlightenment, but at same time I’m making great progress and my work becomes better and better every day. Thanks Paul and team.

  3. This episode is not only about woodworking, it’s about real woodworking in real time, without cuts. And for me it’s about tenacity and humility, real teaching in capital letters. I only remember this aptitude for teaching in some of my oldest teachers I had, so long ago. You are not making us only better woodworkers, you are teaching us to be simply better. Thanks a lot.

    By the way, let me to share with your a quotation from Walter Crane on 1893 about the revival of design and handicraft: “The movement … represents in some sense a revolt against the hard mechanical conventional life and its insensibility to beauty (quite another thing to ornament). It is a protest against that so-called industrial progress which produces shoddy wares, the cheapness of which is paid for by the lives of their producers and the degradation of their users. It is a protest against the turning of men into machines, against artificial distinctions in art, and against making the immediate market value, or possibility of profit, the chief test of artistic merit. It also advances the claim of all and each to the common possession of beauty in things common and familiar, and would awaken the sense of this beauty, deadened and depressed as it now too often is, either on the one hand by luxurious superfluities, or on the other by the absence of the commonest necessities and the gnawing anxiety for the means of livelihood; not to speak of the everyday uglinesses to which we have accustomed our eyes, confused by the flood of false taste, or darkened by the hurried life of modern towns in which huge aggregations of humanity exist, equally removed from both art and nature and their kindly and refining influences.”

    Best regards from Catalonia,

    –Óscar

  4. Thanks to you Paul I’ve just sold a Stanley number four on eBay….to a gent in the Faroe Islands Denmark!! He said that following Paul’s advice he bought one and further told me he had watched all Paul’s videos on Utube
    The same goes to a lady in Gothenburg Sweden plus two sales to Germany and one sale to Norway Infact I have sold to other countries ALL BECAUSE OF MR. SELLERS……..what an amazing man

    Thank you John ..two vices UK

  5. 2 Things
    upon retirement I believed I needed expensive tools that required me to ware one of these and one of these and one of these and one of these in order to find repeatability as a stage ( – 1) wood “hack” who could not spell spoke shave let alone how to sharpen or use it on spokes. I still have my power tools but I get tones of excitement and satisfaction doing things w/ hand tools that require NO electricity forsaking the lights in my shop.
    2nd
    I’ve bee called a dull eyed mouth breather before so thank you Paul for making this simple Gumby for breaking it down Barney style as it were, thank you for charging me a reasonable price for the master classes I understand the need to charge some thing in order to keep the lights on. Thank you for the humility of your craft you bring to your side of the camera it encourages hacks like me when a 30 + year Master draws concern over a glue up he has probable done hundreds of times it helps me when I loose sleep and planning out 2 mortises 90deg. out from each other
    Thank you

  6. I found this episode both amusing and unsettling.

    Whilst I’ve not worked with dovetails I have done a fair number of big glue-ups, and I felt this video really captures the tension of the “must work quickly” vs “must not make a mistake” nature of this stage of a project. Watching it gave me that same pit of the stomach feeling I get when I’m about to tackle one myself. I guess that’s the mark of a good video.

    I think this also contained just about the largest number of great quips I’ve seen from Paul (shouting at a mate, etc). About the only thing that would have made it funnier would have been Phil’s voice at about 25:05, saying, “Oops! I didn’t turn the camera on” 🙂

  7. Thank you Paul and Phil.
    You captured the tension I feel on almost every glue-up. It was a real eye-opener to see that you can apply glue after a joint is partially assembled and still have an effective joint. Brilliant!

  8. Why not apply glue to only one of the bottom corners (including shelf tenons), assemble the rest of the cabinet dry, clamp and make sure it’s square, let the glue set then dismantle and repeat with adjacent top corner and finally glue the other side panel?

    1. There is a pretty good case to be made here for gluing this up in sections. Bottom/side clamped, top and opposite side clamped. Once these sub-assemblies are set it I would be pretty stress-free to clamp th 2 sub-assemblies together along with the drawer divider.

      I think sometimes these very complex glue-ups are more a factor of production necessity than real world working technique. It certainly was fun to watch but it made my stomach hurt a little. Didn’t need to be that hard.

      1. I guess the one benefit from gluing in one go is not to have to put it together and take it apart as many times, which can loosen joints or risk damage. Also, if some aspect are already glued up and something is out of square, then that can limit adjustments that can be made or possible over-stress the glue line. Just some thoughts for consideration.

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