Feature in Furniture & Cabinetmaking

In the latest issue of Furniture & Cabinetmaking (Issue 303), Mark was interviewed for a Profile feature, and had the honour of being on the magazine cover!

The article goes through the back stroy of the DRC business, and includes a lot of our recent work & projects.

The magazine is published by The Guild of Master Craftsman (GMC Publications Ltd), and has a number of other great profiles for Mark Whitley; Ryan Cheney; Constance Graesslin de Mare; and Germán Peraire. The issue also includes great tips & projects from Mitch Peacock (no relation), Israel Martin; Thomas Eddolls Michael T Collins; Anthony Bailey; Oz Hassan; John Greene; Louise Biggs; and Paulo Caputo

Click here to purchase the issue or sign up to a subscription!

Thanks to the team at GMC for reaching out, and hopefully I’ll be doing some writing for them in the near future with a Project article - look out for that!

Aur Du Coffee Table

Aur Du Coffee Table

The latest video on our YouTube channel is the Aur Du Coffee Table - pronounced I-thee, it means Black Gold in Welsh

The table is a unique design, stitching together a live edge Elm slab with blackened steel rods - the top is paired with burnt oak trapezoidal legs using a process called Yakisugi - the top is finished with Raw Linseed Oil & all parts are protected with Osmo Polyx Hard Wax Oil

There are many more videos on the channel which is a combination of client furniture builds, concept designs & workshop furniture builds

New Skills - Forging an Axe

In my pursuit to be a better Furniture Designer & Maker I’ve been taking Blacksmithing courses with Alex Pole Ironwork & team - although I have incorporated more metal & fabrication into my work in 2021, the forged aesthetic is beautiful & I hope to one day have a forge at Deer River Workshop, so I can make & create furniture hardware for my pieces.

I’m also a fan of Axes, and I have a small, but growing colllection of axes from makers across the world - some are displayed in my workshop on the tool wall…so to continue my foray into Blacksmithing, how better to hone those techniques than to take an Axe Forging workshop at The Forge in Sommerset

The axe pattern is based on the traditional Hudson Bay pattern, and handled in Ash. We leanrt a number of key skills inclduing difting the eye of the axe, forging out the blade, before heat treatment, quenching & finally handling.

After completing the axe making part with Joe Garnett & Steve House, we worked with wilderness skills instructor Joe O’Leary to learn survival skills using our axe

Thanks to all the instructors & the rest of the group for a great few days

https://www.alexpoleironwork.com/

https://wilderness-survival.co.uk/home

DeWALT DCS520T2XR Plunge Saw 54V Kit

A Track Saw or Plunge Saw is an extremely useful power tool in the workshop or on the job site. As both names suggest, it rides along a track with the grooves in the base plate to create an accurate straight cut, and plunges into the work piece with the ability to control depth accurately, meaning you could cut long dadoes, rabbets & grooves in a work piece.

You can buy the saw unit individually with many of the top brands - the cheapest decent unit I’ve seen is around £370, but I’d advise buying a kit including the tracks (at least 2 with a joining bar) & additional batteries. They are a real upgrade on a normal circular saw (which still has a significant place in the toolkit), and they excel when ripping & cutting sheets, including 8’x4’ boards along the middle (by using 2 tracks with a joining bar). Dewalt, Makita, Bosch & Festool all have popular versions, but the awesome 54v 6ah batteries I got with this Dewalt kit are a no brainer for me, as they run on all my other yellow tools, significantly extending run time!

This unit has a great 55m cutting depth, a 47 deg bevel angle & can cut 75m+ of plywood before needing a charge! It’s got the performance of a mains powered tool, but without the wires, whcih make it the ideal jobsite saw, but equally as productive in the workshop for cabinetry work

KEY FEATURES

  • High power, high torque brushless motor

  • Variable speed for cutting wide range of materials

  • The enclosed guard gives a 90% dust extraction capability

  • The anti kickback function stops the saw from moving backwards along the rail and helps stop the saw from climbing out of the work piece when making plunge cuts

SPECIFICATIONS

  • 2 Batteries Included 6.0 Ah, 54v

  • Cordless

  • 165mm Blade Diameter, 20mm Bore Size

  • 5.5kg nett weight

  • Sound level 93.2 dB(A) [2.9 dB]

  • Max Cut Depth at 90 deg 55mm (with rails, 59mm without)

  • Max Cut Depth at 45 deg 4omm (with rails, 44mm without)

  • Blade Speed 1,750-5,000 rpm

  • 42-tooth precision saw blade

  • T-STAK case

  • DCB118 charger

  • 2x 1.5m guide rail, plus joining bar

  • Rating - Industrial

What I like…

  • It runs forever! I’m using it mainly to rip down 3/4” plywood for cabinetry & worktops - no performance loss on 6 sheets of baltic birch plywood in one session

  • It’s got a small footprint in the tool cupboard & the box its really well organised for batteries, chargers etc

  • Its very accurate & makes very clean cuts with the 42-tooth blade

  • I used it to bevel the ends of a hardwood live edge slab - the cut was so clean it hardly needed sanding!

  • Dust extraction port works with my Festool Midi - very useful!

What I didn’t like…

  • The charger is almost louder than the unit! Sounds like its going to take-off, but for the power I’ll accept a noisy charger - reasonable quick charging time to be fair!

  • The joining bar is a tad fiddly, and not supplied with an allan key to lock in place

  • One to see how it holds up for the future, but the adjustment knobs for the plunge depth & angle don’t seem the greatest quality compared to the rest of the unit & I’m sligthly worried about their longevity with heavy use - fine at the moment though