My carpentry

It all started over 16 years ago when a sofa was being built at home. I had sourced the design from IKEA and employed some carpenters to replicate it on site.

Always fascinated by skills on display, I had watched fascinated. Had picked up their handsaw and realised how their skills made something so impossible look so very easy. But had kept at it with the discarded wood till I could saw through a reasonably straight line.

At the time, I also happened to visit a local hardware store to pick up some nails. There I met a fabulous gentleman who then gifted me my first piece of pinewood (story under the first image below).

With the sofa guys working on their sofa, I had sat on the sidelines, working on my own plank using their saw whenever they happened to put it down.

The head carpenter was impressed and gifted me his own personal handsaw. He showed me the trick by which he had bent every alternate tooth the other way and how this facilitated faster sawing. I used that saw for everything I did after that, for all these years. I never found another saw quite like that unassuming piece of metal with a decrepit handle.

So many stories. Will relate some of them while I show you pictures of some of my woodwork below.