Author: Lieuwe

Elm is underrated and underused. I really like the stuff. It’s cheap, does not split, and is quite durable in use. I picked up a board of quarter sawn Dutch elm a while back, which turned out to be perfect for cutting boards. Because it is quarter sawn, the wood is very straight and stable. With a […]

Why would you buy finishes for wood? Really, they are expensive, and often contain all kinds of (petro-)chemicals of which you’re not aware when reading the label. The law requires labels of food and drinks to tell us what goes in there, because we consume those things. There is no such requirement for finishes, even […]

  Some time ago, I visited an old sawmill, “de Zwaluw”. It lies in Burdaard, a small village in the north of Friesland. If you’ve ever heard of it, chances are it’s because the famous Frysian ice skating tour, the “Elfstedentocht”, passes through the village twice. The sawmill is wind-powered and run by a team […]

This blog post is long overdue. I carved the spoons below over the last couple of months. As you can see, I’ve been experimenting with different types of wood and different shapes. Most of them are finished with a homemade wax, a mixture of walnut oil, beeswax and a bit of orange oil. They were […]

Last year I bought the Nexus 7 (and made a leather case for it). Since I really enjoy the “Nexus-experience”, and since I needed a new phone, I decided to buy the Nexus 5 when it came out. Here’s how I made a leather case for it.

This is my second knife. I didn’t really take pictures of the making process. A lot of it’s the same as with my first knife. Some of it’s new, but I just forgot to take pictures… The knife is based on a Polar Whittler 80 blank, which I ordered from Nordell Knives. I paid about […]

 I’ve been working with wood, fabric and leather for a while now. Though I love working with these materials, I sometimes feel limited in the options I have when making things. As soon as I need hardware for something, I have to buy it. I have dabbled a bit in metalworking in the past, making […]