The best hand tools are defined by what is left out: whizzy, expensive-sounding jargon usually indicates superfluous features.
One tool, a bombproof scraper made in New Zealand by Linbide, is superbly functional — it’ll last a lifetime, and I suspect the only reason you’d ever find yourself buying a second one is if you lost the first…
If you set about sanding your kitchen worktop with a powerful sander, and you use it without extraction, the impact on your life will be significant: the air will turn thick, and dust will settle on every single surface with the perfect uniformity of the snow in the John Lewis Christmas telly ad.
Since investing in Mirka’s rather impressive Deros sanding system (a big vacuum extraction unit, a 5m hose, special abrasives and a 150mm sander) we’ve been constantly delighted by its performance.
It really came into its own on a recent outing to sand an oak blockboard worktop.
It made sense to suggest to our clients that we should still be prepared for a bit of cleaning up at the end of the job — but the system worked so beautifully that not a fleck of dust escaped. We created more dust while hand-sanding the awkward sections around the tap and behind the hob. Great stuff.
Sanding a worktop with the Mirka dust-free system Read Post »
Smith & Rodger is a venerable Glasgow company, established in 1877, which manufactures French polishes, lacquers, stains and varnishes.
When I sanded the floorboards in my tenement flat on the southside of Glasgow in 2001, my Dad strongly recommended a product from Smith & Rodger, Aquacoat Xtra. It was indeed a superb product: hardwearing, and yielding a beautiful finish.
A fine short film about the company was released recently, produced by Make Works — their site has details of many independent businesses, from leatherworkers in Shetland to a laser and CNC studio in Glasgow.
Smith and Rodger from Make Works on Vimeo.
The power tools manufactured by the long-established German company Festool are spoken of by many carpenters with something approaching reverence — the strain placed on one’s bank balance by investing in the stuff is generally shrugged off: they’re worth what they cost. As Jason Prain puts it:
They’ve thought about everything you could possibly want each tool to do, you’re never left thinking “I wish it did…”
Perhaps mercifully for our bank balance, we’ll never need to the covet the bounty of the Festool range as much as a devoted cabinetmaker — but we were pleased to join the club with our recent purchase of pair of the RO 90s, a powerful and versatile delta sander.
