I've now had enough sales of my plane screwdrivers to justify further batches. Which is incredibly exciting as it means I can do two of my favourite things.

1. Buy wood

2. Define process

I bought a few blanks early in the week, not thinking about the upcoming Harrowgate Woodworking show, which has a real wood turning focus, so I ended up coming away from there with some wonderful woods that I'm super excited about turning into plane screwdrivers.

I also dropped in on British Hardwoods on the way and stocked up on oak to redo the top and bottom of the blanket box that I have been working on. I'm keeping that one on hold until the Christmas break though.

I discovered I really enjoy defining build process whilst making walking sticks at the start of the year. For those that don't know, I'm a Software Architect, and it overlaps quite a lot with Software Engineering. Breaking up a build into minute steps and then refining the order of operations to ensure the most efficient and highest quality method has hugely satisfying. Executing that process and seeing the parts come out quickly and perfectly is so rewarding. It's not done there though, I will always discover tweaks and improvements I can make to the process, and so it is refined further every time I work through another batch.

In the case of plane screwdrivers, the efficiency I'm currently working on is the turning itself. By keeping a 12" spindle blank whole and turning 3 or 4 handles at once, I can save a lot of set up time, and I find having 3 to compare results in better consistency. I also made a template that allows me to quickly and easily test tenon diameter and check dimensions/proportions of the handle. This reduces measuring time and allows me to quickly check, which means I do check, thereby increasing quality and decreasing waste.

I am part way through my first batch of screwdrivers using this process, and I feel like it's going well. I would like to be able to refine things further to allow a 4th handle from a 12" blank as that will improve production rates as well as lowering material cost. Improving production rate would really help to improve the profit margin. I'm not an experienced wood turning, so I'm a little slow. Whilst I'm sure I will quickly improve my speed as I work through batches, anything I can do to reduce time, or increase the number from (roughly)the same time is a win.

Unfortunately illness is currently keeping me away from the workshop, the last thing I need right now is sawdust 🙇🏽‍♂️, and I feel like death. So I'll wrap up this week's update there and bid you all a rewarding and trouble free week.

Simon