Going to a car boot sale on a Saturday morning has become a bit of a tradition in our family. They've been a bit unfruitful recently, but my dilligence paid off last Saturday when I pick up this old mortice chisel for £5. I've been looking for one like this for a while now after seeing them used by Peter Follansbee in his wonderful book Make a Joint Stool from a Tree. It's in fantastic condition and though it's clearly quite old, it looks like it's seen very little use.
I also decided to sharpen up an old drawknife that I picked up at a marche en puce (flea market) in France last year. It needed quite a bit of work, so I did some initial grinding on a belt sander and then finished off with oilstones. In the past when sharpening drawknives I've raised the stone up in a vice in order to give clearance for the handles, but this time I thought I'd try something different. I clamped the drawknife between my left hand and my chest (a bit like holding a violin) and then moving the stone along the edge. This worked really well for me and as long as you use big enough stones, then I think that it's quite a safe way of doing it.
Another tool I've been playing with recently is my camera. I used to be quite in to photography and still have quite a large collection of cameras. Not what you would call proper cameras, but quirky, vintage and instant cameras such as Lomo cameras, Holga, Diana, Polaroid etc. Unfortunately processing film has become quite expensive so I haven't used any of them for sometime. However the kind of effects that you get with these cameras seems to be quite fashionable and so there is quite a lot of photo editing software available that will allow you to achieve similar effects. For me it doesn't quite have the charm of the real thing, but it's fun to play with anyway.
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