I have often found it beneficial to sketch furniture while examining it. Unlike a photograph, a pencil insists a form be understood to be reproduced. But my sketches don’t always look like my subjects. My failing can be attributed to both my lack of skill and lack of understanding of the subject. I’m not convinced … Read more
Arts & Mysteries Blog
Beginning Woodworking: Splitting Logs
If I could teach a class on period woodworking and really control the syllabus, I would start in the woods and teach beginning woodworking. And while I doubt I could fill woodworking classes like this with guys like us, this is exactly what I’m doing with my kids. They don’t have their own benches or … Read more
Shop Cleanup
We all have junk in our shops that we don’t use or no longer need. My junk is sometimes a bit unique, but it’s junk none-the-less. I’m cleaning out my shop, making room for more junk and I’ll probably drop some on ebay. I won’t post links to my auctions because I think that’s icky. But … Read more
A Machinist’s Chest for Woodworkers?
I hope you are enjoying my latest series on my new tool chest. The project was born this time last year during the FWW presentations at Colonial Williamsburg’s “Working Wood in the 18th Century” conference. The FWW presenters, in my opinion, were wrestling with the differences between executing 18th-century work using 18th-century approaches, (I don’t … Read more
The Emperor’s New Saw?
I built my Roubo clone frame saw many years ago after seeing a similar one in Colonial Williamsburg’s Hay shop. With my version, which is a closer approximation of the Roubo saw in both style and blade geometry, I attempted to improve on some of the slow cutting attributes of the Hay shop’s saw. … Read more
Working to a Line
The basic principle of woodworking is painfully easy: Mark your project carefully, then remove the wood that isn’t part of your project. Over Christmas break, I built my wife a coffee table. Here it is: The table has “clamped” or breadboard ends. Three tenons, integral with the top, fit into attending mortises cut into the … Read more
Marking Gauge Maintenance
I’m busy dovetailing the 13 tiny drawers for the tool chest I’m making. I’m using two marking gauges to mark out the drawer fronts, but I was having some problems with the precision of my marks. I first turned my attention to the pins. They get dull and need to be reshaped or just resharpened, … Read more