Stanley’s Sweetheart socket chisels should be for sale in the United States in about six to eight weeks, according to a company product manager. The chisels are in the final testing stages [...]
For the last week or so I’ve been researching the science of smacking the snot out of things. I’ve been reading lecture notes from a Harvard course on “fracture [...]
Some wide chisels and narrow plane irons don’t work well with the cheap-o side-clamp honing guide. They are too narrow to fit between the walls on the top of the guide. And they are too [...]
When it comes to powered machinery, I’m a fan of using carbide inserts in the cutterhead instead of traditional straight knives. The cutters last longer, they do a better job on figured [...]
Sometimes when I write, I come to a question that paralyzes me – and I cannot continue until I get it answered. As a newspaper journalist, I was trained to “write my way around the [...]
In a bar outside Philadelphia, Thomas Lie-Nielsen, John Economaki and I are having a drink and talking about the people who are getting rich selling tools. I’m on my second beer and running [...]
About 10 years ago I was at The Hardware Show in Chicago visiting manufacturer’s booths to see what new stuff they had coming out for Christmas. Some of these tools would stretch credulity. [...]
After last weekend’s orgy of tools, woodworking and back-breaking workbench moving at Woodworking in America, I decided to take a break today and buy some tools and old woodworking books , [...]
I’m off to the airport in a few minutes to head to Metten, Germany, the headquarters of Dick GmbH. I’ll be teaching a class called “Classic Joinery” and we’ll be [...]
This is, as far as I know, a first. This month M. Power Tools will introduce new chisels that have a replaceable high-speed-steel tip. According to the company’s literature, you should be [...]
I’m packing up all the tools I’ll need in North Carolina for the coming week, and I was a bit shocked this morning as I went through my checklist. One of the “Woodwright’s [...]
Thanks to the steady stream of tools that flow in and out of our shop, I do a lot of sharpening. I set up more tools from scratch than I care to admit. And I wear out sharpening stones. Last …