In an effort to “get back in touch with nature” I’ve begun my next project. It’s a coffee table. Not just any boring old square coffee table, but one made from Huon Pine and with no electrical assistance.

We bought the block on our trip to Tasmania earlier this year and it has since been sitting in the garage. Last weekend I gave it a good rough sand and clean-up. In doing so, I quickly discovered I had a lot to learn about manually working with wood. A belt sander and electric plane would have done the trick easily, but I wanted a challenge.

Wasn’t that a stupid idea! There are a few marks from the original saw which will take some time to work out as well as some rough edges which I want to keep (but tame somewhat). I bought myself a hand plane and started using it yesterday. It is a lot harder work than I expected but am actually enjoying it.Not much progress to date, but I’ll endeavour to do some work on it each weekend.