There’s a brief moment early each morning when the workshop feels more like a studio than a place of production. The air is calm, the light moves quietly across the timber stacked along the wall, and in that stillness the first pass of a hand plane begins its steady stroke.
Hand tools are what first got me into woodworking, but the longer I use them, the more I realise that hand tools aren’t just an alternative way of working, they become the way I understand the material.
Working from Kerikeri, I build furniture by hand because it allows me to work with an intimacy that machinery cannot offer. But here’s another truth that often surprises people.
Hand tools, when mastered, are incredibly efficient.
A large workshop filled with machinery demands space, noise, power and often a team to justify the overheads. A studio built around refined hand tool work, using planes, tuned chisels, cabinet scrapers and marking tools, becomes an environment where working alone in a considered way is viable.
In this smaller footprint, I can move fluidly between prototyping, sculpting and finishing without interruption. This is how I create bespoke pieces for clients, not at the scale of a factory but at a very personal scale.
One of the great freedoms hand tools offer is the ability to prototype through touch. Machines tend to encourage repetition and formula. A blade invites exploration.
When shaping the leg of a Carran dining table, for example, the early lines often begin with my coarsest scrub plane, carving broad shadows into the timber to quickly outline the form. The medium plane brings clarity to that initial shape, refining proportions and transitions. The smoothing plane, set really fine, gives me a beautifully smooth surface, ready for a very light sanding. Just enough to prepare the surface for oil.
This shaping by hand feels very much like drawing. You discover the piece rather than impose it.
It is the same approach I took when developing the Anisha dining table. The shaping of the leg bottoms emerged through hand guided refinement rather than templates. The tools allowed me to respond to the timber in real time, honouring its natural direction and temperament.
Hand tools draw you into a closer dialogue with wood than any machine can. You feel the density of Blackwood shift under a freshly sharpened blade. You hear the difference between earlywood and latewood as the plane glides.
The smell is something I barely notice anymore, but everyone who steps into the workshop comments on it. During my exhibition a couple of weekends ago, a lady walked in and burst into tears, the scent reminded her of her father who had recently passed.
These sensory moments guide decisions and they deepen understanding.
The result is not a romantic notion of craft. It is a genuine and measurable increase in quality. Edges stay crisp instead of pillowed. Curves remain true instead of blurred. Details emerge exactly as intended.
Using hand tools is not only an artistic choice. It is also a way of working that aligns with the land here in Kerikeri.
Because I use fewer machines, my energy use is low, close to that of a home rather than a factory. Waste is reduced. Noise is minimal. And I can work closely with locally grown timbers, shaping them respectfully and responding to their individuality.
There is something deeply satisfying about building a piece from a tree that grew in the same region where it will eventually live. The work feels grounded.
For years, hand tools were simply an interest. After all, it was hand tools which first got me into woodworking. Then one day, while shaping a prototype with a coarse plane, I realised something that changed my direction entirely.
I did not need a large workshop to make the kind of furniture I wanted to make. I needed mastery. I needed understanding. I needed time, intention and sharp edges.
Hand tools were not a limitation. They were freedom. They were my way of becoming an artist, not just a maker. They allowed me to build at the highest level without compromise.
Clients often tell me they can feel the difference when they run their hands along a table or open a cabinet door. There is a quiet clarity in pieces made this way, a calmness in the surfaces, a refinement in the edges and a sense that the furniture has been shaped rather than produced.
If you are considering a piece for your home I would love to hear from you.
Cheers,
Lloyd