Drool time!

Ooh, what a loverly couple of weeks I've had!

I've moved my hollow-chisel mortiser to my friend's workshop, which has freed up a bit of space, and my old and trusty tablesaw has gone to a mate who can make use of it. I can't film it because it doesn't comply with modern H&S regulations, although it complied with the rules of the day when it was bought, about 15 years ago.

The resulting space has been filled with a nice shiny new Xcalibur cabinet saw from Woodford Woodworking Machinery . Roy was supportive of my idea from the first conversation we had back in November, and now it means that not only can I film knowing that the machine is legal, but I can also photograph it for my articles in Good Woodworking. It's always been a problem avoiding photographing the old saw, and so now all the machines in my shop comply with current regs. Thanks Roy!

The only problem with it is its huge size. The footprint is not much bigger than my old one, just and inch or so, but it is the rails that cause the problem. I could cross-cut a full 8ft sheet with this, if I had the space, the rails giving me 50" capacity to the right of the blade, but I simply don't have that sort of space. I'm loathe the cut down the rails, especially as the saw isn't actually mine, so I've been out and bought some angle and box-section steel, and the 1.2m lengths will give me a capacity of 500mm, which will be ample for most of my needs. I'll still have the long rails if I really do need to fit them.

Well this is supposed to be about filming, not table saws, so I can tell you that we have re-shot some earlier scenes. This is beginning to become a habit, because as we get better, I'm more aware of the flaws in the early work. Some I can fix in software, but some I just want that little bit different, a higher angle, more to the right, that sort of thing.

I'm beginning to get a bit of a backlog of footage though. One of the challenges of film-making is keeping track of all the little bits of footage. Some are only a few seconds long, and if we have several takes it can mean that a 5-minute sequence can consist of quite a few separate files, especially when you tot up the voiceovers, music and stills that may be used as well. I dare say that there is a well-established organizational method for handling all this, but without any formal training, I'm having to re-invent the wheel.

This week I have a deadline for some GW writing, and that should take a day or so, so I really need to crack on and get this footage sorted and get back up-to-date.