Woodcraft Ninjas

The following is Excerpted from “Honest Labour,” a collection of essays from The Woodworker magazine while the legendary Charles H. Hayward was editor (1936-1966). This book is be the fifth and final volume in our series from The Woodworker. And here’s hoping that, if you want to, you get to enjoy a few hours alone…

Publisher’s Note: Please excuse or ignore the choices of pronouns and male-centric language. We are all products of our time, and Charles Hayward (born in 1898) was no exception. It’s interesting to note that as the magazine entered the 1960s, the language and pronouns began to modernize as well. (I’m sure my own writing will…

The following is excerpted from “Honest Labour.” This column was first published in The Woodworker in 1949 – please excuse the gendered terms as a product of their time. Woodworkers deal in the very kindest of materials, the friendly, living wood. I think there can hardly have been a time when men were not tree…

In these latter days of war it is sometimes difficult to hold firmly to the vision that was ours in times of peace. We may be craftsmen who once had high standards of accomplishment which the rush and tear of wartime production, or lack of proper materials, have insensibly lowered; or we may simply be…

The following is excerpted from “Honest Labour: The Charles H. Hawyard Years,” a collection of essays from The Woodworker magazine while the legendary Charles H. Hayward was editor (1936-1966). The columns are like nothing we’ve ever read in a woodworking magazine. They are filled with poetry, historical characters and observations on nature. And yet they…