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Holden Woodcrafts, Oxford (2026)

06/06/2026

My most recent project, a vanity unit designed and commissioned by Ed at .
A while ago he asked "would you be up for turning some table legs for me?"
I was hesitant at first - I haven't done much production turning, and don't have a huge amount of experience doing spindle turning, but he talked me into it - "I believe in you, Alex!"
I hate it when people say that to me - it makes it harder to say no, but part of me was up for a challenge, so I relented.
"Ok, send me the specs and I'll get on it."

A week or 2 passed. I'd forgotten about it when he texted - "would you mind drawing it up in CAD? I haven't had much time" "sure, no problem." He sent over some sketches, and after a bit of head scratching over how to do the curves I had some drawings and a render. "Next he's gonna ask me to make the bloody thing!" I jokingly thought to myself.
..A week or 2 later: "I'm really busy at the moment, would you be able to make it as well?"

In for a penny, in for a pound!
I actually quite enjoyed this one. It's not really my style - I'm definitely more into modernism (which is often much easier too..) but it was useful experience in working out how to produce all the flourishes, getting the curves in the right place, while keeping enough reference points so it comes together nicely.

And I'm pretty pleased with the result! It's all made with quarter sawn oak in order to show off the medullary rays, which go nicely with the watery nature of its location.

But what really made it pop was the last stage - fuming. By enclosing it in a small, airtight tent with a bowl of ammonia, the fumes given off react with the tannins in the wood, darkening it, giving a more aged look. Ed went out on a limb at this point, as other than some preliminary tests, neither of us had done it before...
Luckily for him, it it turned out lovely, and really brought out the beauty of the rays. After all the time I'd spent on this piece, I'd have been so p1ssed if it went wrong!

So yeah, in really happy with how this turned out, and I think it looks great in situ!

27/04/2026

What could possibly need such chunky coach screws? Maybe vises? Yes, it's a workbench. Of course it's a workbench, what else would it bloody be? I'm not exactly making fine furniture or of reclaimed pine full of cracks and nail holes...

So yeah, last step - mount the vises! I wasn't taking any chances, both were heavy, especially the big blue one - the biggest I could find. Using the longest, chunkiest coach screws that wouldn't go through the bench, i marked and drilled the holes for the vises, and mounted them.

The cheeks were fairly straightforward, just cut oversized, screwed in and planed flush with the bench.

And that's a wrap! Well, almost... I'm still not happy with the tenons but I'm keen to actually start using this mf, so I'll deal with them another time.

Time to make some furniture!

26/04/2026

Bit of a late update as I've been a bit preoccupied with a couple of other things, but I'm pretty much there now. I'm still not happy with the ends of the tenons but more on that later...

Anyway, this thing (almost literally) weighs a ton, and as I might have to move it on my own sometimes, some wheels were necessary. They needed to be retractable too, as this beast needs to be firmly in place before it's used... looking online, though, I discovered the ones that had a high enough weight rating were astoundingly expensive - around £95 EACH, meaning 4 wheels would cost almost double what I'd spent on the rest of the materials and accessories combined!

Then I stumbled on a set of 4 for 25 quid total on ebay.. dubiously cheap, but they were rated to 200 kilos and I figured if (probably when) they failed, I could send them back...

It took 3 of us to lift this beast off its side and stand it up, so I really didn't have much faith in them working, but once they were engaged I was pleasantly surprised, and it rolled pretty easily, despite the highly uneven floor!

Hopefully I've saved myself a few bob, although worryingly, I did find a loose bearing randomly on the floor afterwards, but there's other places that could have come from...

15/04/2026

*obligatory oiling pic*

Wow! Isn't it amazing when you put the oil on!

Meh. It's pine, it is what it is..

Normally this would be the end, but there's still a couple of things to fit, and I'm also not happy with how the indian ink bled into the surrounding wood, so I decided to give inlaying a try.. coincidentally, the thinnest the thicknesser goes is the same as my thinnest chisel, so making the inserts was pretty easy, although they're a bit on the big side as the panel saw swallowed anything narrower.. it took blooming ages and tbh I'm not sure if I'll like the result, but it was good practice for something I've never tried before.. Anyway I left them overnight for the glue to cure properly before i trim them down and see how they turned out.

13/04/2026

Day 552 of this never ending project.. there I was thinking O was going to finish things off today.. Nope!

There was some cupping in the centre of the top, so I decided it needed more flattening.. I didn't manage to borrow a magic machine to do this, but I did borrow a straight edge and jointer plane to do it the old fashioned way. This led to a side mission, as I realised I didn't have any winding sticks to check for twist... Oh well, I guess I'll just make some then!

Looking for some contrasting colours, I dug out some sycamore and some padauk i had left from when i still thought exotic timber was cool.. after cutting, planing and thicknessing two pieces the same size, i chamfered them on the router table, took the arrises off and I was ready to go!

Is it twisted? F'd if i know.. they were so far apart it was just a blurry mess, but i think i guaged it right. It was flat in 2 dimensions anyway, and I'd run out of Fs to give..

The tenon end grain is still giving me a headache too.. hopefully I'll have that sorted tomorrow

12/04/2026

So, if you still haven't worked out what this is, then clearly you're not a golfer...

After getting it out of the clamps, there was a fair amount of glue to clean up, but i wasn't particularly bothered about the top as that was going to need to be flattened anyway. I'd decided to stain the legs black though, to give it an interesting contrast and blend the different endgrains in the joints together, so I needed to get into all the corners, before staining all the bits that would be hard to reach when it was upright.

Once I'd done that, I nearly gave my self a hernia lifting it into its feet, but I managed it and set about flattening the top. I got a bit bored of it after a while, and then someone told me one of my neighbours might have a machine to make things easier, so I stopped...

I was still curious as to how it would look at the end though, so I carried on with the staining despite knowing I was going to have to redo it next week. Annoyingly, the indian ink I was using bled into the surrounding wood, going too deep for a little sanding to remedy. I ended up chiseling out some of it to see how deep it went, and I reckon it's fixable with a bit of inlay, but it's another thing to faff with!

There goes my hope of having everything done by Monday!

11/04/2026

So... the big day was finally upon me...

I can't believe that at some point i was actually considering doing this by myself! It's foolish, but I often feel awkward asking for help, but I'm glad I did this time!

There's not much to show here, as we were too busy wrestling the massive components into place to take many photos, so you'll just have to trust me when I say it went seamlessly and I definitely stayed cool as a cucumber throughout..

It was suggested that we do it in two separate glue ups, first the legs and stretchers, then the top and the legs, but I was concerned that with the lengths involved, even a slight discrepancy could push the legs too far out of alignment to fit into the top, and probably make me cry, so we did it all in one go. Clamping the legs together, we then quickly slotted the whole construction into the top while we still had a bit of wriggle room before the glue went off. I specifically used titebond 3 for this, due to its longer open time.

It was stressful at times, as the joints took some persuasion to go in fully. Due to the lengths of the tenons, we had to keep tightening the clamps all the way, undo them, slide them closer in, tighten again, and repeat until they were all the way in, keeping everything aligned while doing so.

It was easy enough for the first stage, but the second stage made me a bit nervous - all four joints had to go in together, because if one corner went in too deep before the others it would push everything out of alignment, and it would get stuck half way through, so we had to make sure the clamps were tightened evenly.

Despite the longer open time, time was still of the essence - while it takes longer to go off, the glue could still grab if we weren't quick enough, and the parallel clamps kept slipping out of position and refusing to tighten, but we got there!

I relaxed a bit at this point, hammered the dowels and wedges in, and breathed a big sigh of relief.

Was it bang on square? No. At this point, did I GAF? Also no. It's together, and it's going to be a double 'ard b@st@rd!

10/04/2026

Nearly there! The last step is to make sure the joints stay extra solid..

For the top mortise and tenons I'm using wedges, having cut the mortises with a slight taper widening towards the top, when the wedges are driven in the tenon expands into the space, ensuring it won't get pulled out over time.

To ensure the same on the mortise and tenons on the stretchers, I've drilled some holes alongside to the mortises to go through the tenons, which have corresponding holes slightly offset toward the shoulder. Known as "draw boring," when a slightly tapered peg is driven through the holes it pulls the tenon tightly into the joint and holds it there, maintaining a tight, solid joint for years to come.
.. and that's about everything! I guess there's no more faffing around to be done, time to glue this beast up!

09/04/2026

What's going on? Why are you digging more bits out of it? Well you've probably worked out what I'm making by now, so it's not much more of a stretch to work out why I'm cutting out these recesses..

Another task that took much longer than expected! The first bit was pretty simple, I just needed to make a bit of room for something and it wouldn't be visible, so I just rawdogged it with the router, but the recess within a recess needed a bit more precision, and took a good chunk of the day. It didn't help that I was fitting another component that also weighed a ton, so lifting it in and out took a toll on my back, exacerbated by the awkward height i was working at..

Thankfully, I also noticed a mark I'd made back when I was gluing everything together, where one of the screws I'd put in to glue the boards on the bottom (clamping would have been a nightmare) had snapped off. I didn't think it an issue at the time as none of the holes would be near it, but that was before I realised I was going to have to rout that section out.. thank god I'd had the good sense to mark it, as the chunky router bit I was using wasn't cheap!

Fortunately, it was fairly straightforward getting it out, and it's times like these where it's handy to have a set of cheap chisels I don't mind dinging up a bit - Definitely not a job for my Lie Nielsens! I've already knocked my 1" one off the bench a couple of times during this project, I'm not going to hurt it any further!

Anyway, I'm nearly ready for the glue up now, just need to do a couple of little tweaks, then it's time to put this mf together!
..I just hope the shortgrain I've exposed next to one of the dovetail mortises doesn't end up breaking off in the process 😬 It wasn't initially in the design, but i realised the thing I'm attaching needed to be flush and it was too late to change it's position. My fault for going in guns blazing in my excitement to start..

It'll probably be fine though, but i might put in a couple of dowels just to be sure..

07/04/2026

I had to put my other project on hold briefly as I'd been commissioned to do some production turning, so I've been a bit preoccupied with a bit of pe***ng...

All done now, and I'm fairly happy with the results. The first ones took a little while to do but once I'd got my eye in i didn't need the templates so much and i was smashing them out pretty quickly.

There's subtle differences between each one but it won't be noticeable once they're spaced apart on the coat rack, and besides, that's the charm of hand made!

Holden Woodcrafts

06/06/2026

27/04/2026

26/04/2026

15/04/2026

13/04/2026

12/04/2026

11/04/2026

10/04/2026

09/04/2026

07/04/2026

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