Bench Talk 101 Jaq and Shane Skelton talks 250 years of English Hand Saws

Welcome to Bench.Talk.101. In this episode Jaq and Shane Skelton talk us through a brief history of the last 250 years of English Hand Saws. Shane’s attention to detail especially historic influences coupled with his engineering precision skills make this a fascinating talk. Shane relates the similarities between his family business and the family business of Mr White one of the first known modern saw makers from the early 18th century. We learn about how saw makers developed their products over time making use of the wealth of the expanding Empire with the transportation of exotic woods and how Thomas Chippendale took advantage of his London location producing high end furniture for the elite despite having the devastation of his workshop being burnt to the ground. We see first-hand how Shane uses his engineering skills to improve the 250-year-old design to tension his saw blades and hear how he has developed his own range of oils to protect and enhance the wooden handles of his own saws. We do normally like to keep Bench Talks to a time limit of one hour, (30-minute talk and 30 minutes of questions). However, Jaq and Shane captivated us all with a fantastic presentation with lots of questions from the Bench Talk members, so this particular episode is 1hour 40 minutes long! You can find out more about Skelton Saws from their website https://www.skeltonsaws.co.uk