The Woodturner Who Makes One Bowl a Week and Nothing More
Robin Wood, based in Edale in the Peak District, turns one bowl per week on a pole lathe using green wood and hand-forged tools.
Sebastian Cole · 2025-01-07
Craft
Artisanal traditions, maker culture, and the handmade.
Showing 61–80 of 167 articles
What Aerospace Engineering Taught a New Generation of Knifemakers
When aerospace engineer Sal Glesser founded Spyderco in 1981, he introduced innovations the knife industry had never considered: a round hole in the blade for one-handed opening, a pocket clip for tip-up carry, and a focus on steel metallurgy that treated blade material as an engineering variable rather than a tradition to be preserved unchanged.
Daniel Hurst · 2025-01-06
The Paper Mill Producing Sheets for Michelin-Starred Menus
Amalfi paper, made by hand in the coastal town of Amalfi since the twelfth century, is the material of choice for menu printing at restaurants including Noma in Copenhagen and The Fat Duck in Bray.
Catherine Avery · 2025-01-06
How One Man Revived the Lost Craft of Damascus Steel
In 1998, metallurgist John Verhoeven of Iowa State University and bladesmith Alfred Pendray announced they had replicated the distinctive banding pattern of genuine wootz Damascus steel after fifteen years of systematic experimentation.
Thomas Nakamura · 2025-01-05
The Quilters Working at the Intersection of Geometry and Warmth
The quilts of Gee's Bend, Alabama, created by African American women in an isolated community along the Alabama River, were exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2002 and compared by critics to the work of Henri Matisse and Paul Klee.
William Ashford · 2025-01-05
Why the Best Tool Handles Are Still Made from Hickory
When the head of a framing hammer strikes a nail with sixty pounds of force, the handle must absorb the shock without transmitting it destructively to the user's wrist.
Sebastian Cole · 2025-01-04
The Foundry Casting Bronze Fittings for Wooden Sailboats
At the Lunenburg Foundry in Nova Scotia, Canada, bronze fittings for wooden sailboats have been cast using methods that have not fundamentally changed since the yard began supplying the Grand Banks fishing fleet in 1891.
Sebastian Cole · 2025-01-04
How a Single Anvil Gets Passed Through Five Generations of Smiths
In a forge in Shropshire, an anvil bearing the stamp of Mousehole Forge, Sheffield, dated 1847, still rings under the hammer of its fifth-generation owner.
Oliver Ramsey · 2025-01-03
The Dying Art of Hand-Painted Porcelain
At the Meissen porcelain manufactory in Saxony, Germany, fewer than thirty artists still paint freehand decoration onto porcelain using techniques virtually unchanged since Johann Friedrich Bottger established the factory in 1710.
James Alderton · 2025-01-03
What CNC Machines Cannot Replicate About Hand-Cut Dovetails
A CNC router can cut a dovetail joint in forty-five seconds.
Thomas Nakamura · 2025-01-02
The Basket Weavers Preserving a Twelve-Thousand-Year-Old Craft
Fragments of woven baskets dating to approximately ten thousand BCE have been found in Guitarrero Cave in Peru, making basketry one of humanity's oldest technologies, predating both pottery and metallurgy.
Catherine Avery · 2025-01-02
How One Tannery in Tuscany Serves Three Hundred Fashion Houses
Conceria Walpier, located in the Santa Croce sull'Arno district of Tuscany, supplies vegetable-tanned leather to over three hundred fashion houses and bespoke workshops worldwide.
Catherine Avery · 2025-01-01
The Stone Carver Commissioned by Architects Who Build for Eternity
Simon Verity, the Anglo-American stone carver responsible for the carved tympanum above the west portal of the Cathedral of St.
Daniel Hurst · 2025-01-01
Inside a Workshop That Makes Bespoke Umbrella Frames
Francesco Maglia, founded in Milan in 1854, is one of the last umbrella makers in Europe manufacturing its own frames from raw materials.
Daniel Hurst · 2024-12-31
The Science of Lacquer and Why the Finish Matters as Much as the Form
Urushi, the sap of the Toxicodendron vernicifluum tree native to East Asia, is the most durable natural finish known to science.
Sebastian Cole · 2024-12-31
How Oak Is Selected, Aged, and Split for Fine Cabinetry
The finest English brown oak begins its journey to a cabinet maker's workshop while still standing in the forest.
Sebastian Cole · 2024-12-30
The Engraver Who Spends a Month on a Single Watch Dial
In the upper workshops of Jaeger-LeCoultre's manufacture in Le Sentier, Switzerland, engraver Micheline Hintzy bends over a dial blank measuring thirty-two millimetres in diameter.
Daniel Hurst · 2024-12-30
Waxed Cotton: From North Sea Fishermen to Fashion Houses
In the early nineteenth century, Scottish fishermen discovered that rubbing their cotton sails with linseed oil rendered them waterproof enough to shed North Sea spray.
Sebastian Cole · 2024-12-29
The Artisan Producing Handmade Nails for Restoration Projects
In the village of Broseley, Shropshire, the last traditional nail maker in England works at a forge producing hand-wrought nails since the eighteenth century.
Catherine Avery · 2024-12-29
How a Defunct Railway Workshop Became a Furniture Atelier
When the Great Western Railway works at Swindon closed in 1986, it left behind a cathedral of industrial space: soaring iron-framed buildings with clerestory windows, concrete floors scored by decades of heavy machinery, and an overhead crane system capable of lifting steam locomotives.
Daniel Hurst · 2024-12-28