February 2013 Southern Cellarette Japanese Chisels Shell, Stone & Metal Inlay A Bed for the Thorsen House Dan’s Whetstones April 2013 City Sideboard Quarter Columns Compound Dovetails A Workholding Renaissance Greene & Greene Inlay June 2013 Hannah’s Inlaid Chest Wharton Esherick The Milkman’s Workbench Chimney Cupboard Wall-mounted Server
The portable “Milkman’s Workbench” from the June 2013 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine has attracted a lot of attention, judging from the e-mail piling up in my Inbox. The No. 1 question: How can I build the bench without wooden bench screws? One answer: wedges. Reader Ilkka Sivonen of FInland built the bench without wooden … Read more
One of the biggest obstacles to beginning woodworkers is carving out a space to work in, and building a bench to work on. Recently, I built a pair of portable workbenches that are closely based on a now-disappeared commercial bench from the 20th century. These small-scale benches clamp to almost any surface, from a kitchen … Read more
I’ve turned hollow mortise chisels into square punches, refashioned chisels and their handles, made a number of scratch stocks, ground steel bar stock into embossing punches and a made a few other quick tools. And I’ve built a few wooden, Krenov-style handplanes over the years – I had a fine time and wound up with … Read more
I try to stay abreast of the world of workbenches and workholding. But sometimes a place like Evans Wood Screw Co. escapes my eye. For six years, this Franklin, Ind., enterprise has been cranking out wooden vise screws for workbench builders. You can find the company at TheTraditionalCarpenter.com. The small site offers a good selection … Read more
Way back in 2005, I wrote an article for issue #4 of Woodworking Magazine about holdfasts. At the time, very few woodworkers knew what a holdfast was, and the article reviewed available manufactured holdfasts, as well as a few blacksmith made ones. We recently put the original holdfast article online, and included a link to … Read more
If you ever want to try out a lot of different workbench designs before you settle on building one for your shop, you might want to take a class at Kelly Mehler’s School of Woodworking. During the last five years, Kelly and his students have been building different style benches with all manner of vises … Read more
