The London International Woodworking Festival: Oct. 26-27

I’ll be in the U.K. next month to do some teaching, research and to demonstrate at the London International Woodworking Festival on Oct. 26-27. It’s a new show that is being held at the London Design & Engineering UTC, a new and exciting technical school in the Royal Docks area of London.

The two-day festival will feature loads of interesting seminars on everything from stringing and inlay to using a plate joiner, sawmaking, saw sharpening, making wooden planes and interpreting 18th century French veneer. A complete lineup of demonstrations is here.

I’ll be demonstrating how I sharpen card scrapers. While that might not sound exciting, it’s actually not very exciting. But I have spent many years researching the topic from an historical and metallurgical point of view and have a method of sharpening these tools that is quick, effective and has helped many people through the years.

In addition to the seminars, there will be a bazaar, where you can try out a lot of nice tools and talk to their makers. Classic Hand Tools U.K., our distributor in the U.K., will be there with our books, and I’ll be happy to sign any books you bring along from home or purchase at the show.

There also will be Skelton Saws, Bad Axe Saws, Festool, Axminster, Veritas, Lie-Nielsen and other vendors.

Tickets are £10 for one day and £15 for both days. You can get details on tickets, parking and the like via this link.

It should be a great weekend in a beautiful corner of the world. If you do attend, please stop me and say hello.

— Christopher Schwarz