what would you do

[Harbourwoodwork]

I thought "If I could afford it" when I typed that. As you say there used to be loads of little pubs. One on every corner nearly in the 1970s in the Midlands town where I came from originally.
Drinking in pubs never was a cheap hobby though in my time.

have you found the good life living in the west country It must be hard cutting a niche market as a wood worker in that neck of the wood's

I don't know about the good life, but I wouldn't really want to go back up there to live now. Not easy getting work and so on down here, but I managed it for 20 years. I was making furniture. I've packed it up now. I was working mostly with oak, and I was getting more and more allergic to it, and as time went on it seemed that any dust at all was getting to me. Always used extraction, and a powered mask when needed, but it still got to me.

Yeh Iv'e done a fair but of green oak timber frame work,its very sort off hand's in the thick of it with chain morticers and big circular saw's etc.so your getting loads of debris flying about and it does knock stuffing out of your eye's

 

[Dave54]

Always fancied having a go at green oak framing. Never got the chance. Sounds like hard graft! I remember seeing an article (might have been in "The Woodworker") 20 years ago or more, about guys who make traditional lock gates. I know they use elm for the underwater bits, I don't know about the bits at the top. Anyway, they pencilled on the tenons, and cut them by eye with a chainsaw.
This has gone well off topic!

Back OT, perhaps opening a pub would be good if there really was no more telly.