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I have spent this evening making some three legged stools for a school production. I marked out the seats to drill holes and thought the angles looked a bit off. I dug out a protractor and it turns out that my 60/30 degree set square is actually 55/35 degree. I inherited the tool from my...

My Explorers are making some rustic oak benches for the local Jubilee Woods. The benches will be split logs with horizontal log legs. Hopefully the benches will be fairly well progressed by next week. How should we go about finishing them, so they will last well living outside? Thanks.

My little sister gave me a pile of dyed leather offcuts for christmas. (Thanks for the bag of rubbish, Sarah!) I've started a new wallet with it. I've got to this stage: But I'm not sure about a closure. I've got a load of poppers and one of those is doing good service on my multitool...

An ex Scout of mine, now an Explorer has been making this in my workshop over the last two years! Ash body, Walnut on the back. Pink Ivory controls. Charlie has learnt a fair bit about Table saws, Routers, Spokeshaves, Chisels, Bandsaws, Lathes and Pillar drills in the process. I've been really...

A friend of mine reached his thirtieth last month. He has always been happy with his Mora so never bought a flashy knife. I made this one as a present for him. Oak burr scales. Stainless Mora blade. Brass and plastic mosaic pin, for a proud Cornishman!

I'm doing a few evenings with a friend's Explorer section, across town from my own Troop. This week I brought along some Pyrography kit, showed them a few techniques and let them experiment. Here are some of the things they did. The last one is most sickening, I've never managed...

We have just come back from summer camp. When we arrived on site there was an over extended Oak limb that had fallen off. We (well, the Scouts!) cut it up to clear come space. The site crew said it was fine to burn it or use it as we saw fit. Some of it was burned (eventually). We cut and...

Some time back two Primus 96 stoves turned up in our Scout group jumble sale donations. Our GSL decided they'ld do more good for the group as stoves than the couple of quid they would be sold for. I've been given them on the undestanding that if I can get them both working I can keep one. I've...

Does anyone have, or know where one is online, a list of all the Patrols and their colours? I'm doing Turks head woggles, in Patrol colours, on Thursday. I'm planning to take along my Uncles camp blanket which has a few patrol ribbons on it and I'ld like to be able to tell the Troop which...

I've started on the Christmas present making. I'm doing a matryoshka doll for my little Niece. So far I've done the solid inner doll and one hollow doll, from one piece of Olivewood. Hopefully I'll get one more from a second bit of Olivewood and I'll try for another from a nice bit of Leadwood...

A little comission. One of the Barmaids at my local is doing the Bath Midnight Walk for Dorothy House Hospice next weekend and wanted a lighty up hairband.

Well, a little bit of it anyway. I'm going to run a fire safety evening for my Scouts in a few weeks time. One of the demonstrations I want to do is water onto an oil fire. What cooking oil is the easiest to set light to? We should have an old tent to demonstrate how quickly they go up...

I got hold of sixteen lengths of round Pitch pine recently. They are ex church pews and about 130 years old. I'm preparing them for use as Scout Staves for my Troop. 32mmx1800mm and about 1kg. I am quite surprised by the stuff. First of all much denser than I'm used to for pines. One example...

Do any of you know the outside diameter of Army 12x12 tent poles? I've got a couple of brackets to build up for the weekend, but someone else is responsible for the tent they are going in. No idea who or where. Thank you, hivemind.

I cut a couple of old file strikers, for the Explorers to play with, this morning. Just as a play I dug out a bit of charcloth and had a quick go. Second hit and I got a spark in the right place. Panicked grab of a handful of Ash planing waste and I had fire all of a sudden! So I decided to stop...

I really should get a watch for work. My last Traser died thanks to power tool vibration and nasty magnetic fields. I replaced it and got a Casio for work. Then the Casio fell apart. So what to get? I would like a digital (watching the hands go round at several hundred times quicker than they...

I went along to the Viking festival last year and saw something interesting in the little living history display. I'm going to get my Scouts to try it next week, but I don't know if and what it is named. Can anyone help? Four weighted cords are hung from a bar above head height. A person...

Not Bushy but someone probably knows. I made a couple of clipboards prior to the last Firework season. Attached with a ski-lift pass zippy thing is a permanent marker for writing on sequence numbers, by the lighting points. I chose Sharpies as they have retractable version, so no worries...

I bought this Sailor's knife a couple of months ago. It had wooden scales and brass pins amd looked quite nice. On getting it home I figured out where the holes were for the lanyard loop so drilled through the wood so I could fit one. Having a little look at the tools I realised the marlin spike...

As it went well, I'll tell everyone. The last two weeks I've done pioneering projects with our Scouts. Last week they built a catapult. A fairly simple design with a swinging arm and pull ropes running out to the sides. This week I set them the challenge of lifting my car. I gave them a few...