Excellent Close-ups
Monday, 14 September 2009 - 18:38 - admin
Recently, I bought and watched Scott Horsburgh's three instructional DVD's. I was not disappointed. Like many weekend, hobbyist woodworkers, I have learned my woodworking piecemeal from books, magazines and the internet. How I wish I'd watched these DVD's years ago as the DVD's covered all that I've learned so far and introduced new techniques to make my woodworking more enjoyable. Scott discusses his subject in depth and most of the camera work is close-up showing Scott performing the actions while he clearly describes the technique.
Scott's philosophy of using well-tuned cheaper handplanes is demonstrated in his first DVD. I always had that nagging concern that my tuning would do more harm than good to my (eBay purchased) Stanley planes but after viewing this DVD I felt confident modifying my planes to make them perform better. The second DVD shows the viewer how to use handplanes and shooting-boards. Again, Scott discusses each technique clearly while the video shows the actions.
A pleasing feature of this DVD is that Scott mostly uses a hard wood in his demonstrations: jarrah (and not pine). The third DVD introduced many ideas and techniques new to me. Part of the third DVD deals with sharpening chisels. After watching this DVD I realized I was over sharpening my chisels and turning them into iron filings. Likewise, the idea of modifying and changing the pin position on a marking gauge to make it work better makes one wonder why they are not produced that way in the first place. The remainder of this DVD shows the preparation and use of two marking out tools. I was at the stage of my woodworking hobby where I marked out with a pencil and ruler. I have a marking knife and a marking gauge but rarely used these tools. This DVD showed me how.
Scott has produced three DVD's full of clearly demonstrated woodworking techniques that have inspired me, given me more confidence and enabled me to get more enjoyment from my hobby.
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