Trading Wall Street for molding planes. Editor’s note: This interview originally appeared in the October/November 2012 issue of American Woodworker Matt Bickford’s story is quite unusual for a guy in his thirties. He used to be a “market maker” in one of the most competitive environments in the world of finance, living in a big…

Design without compromise: An exercise in high-end handwork. Sometimes a cup of tea is more than a cup of tea. Its surface may be still, its color translucent and its container unadorned. But in a single sip of hot water, you can taste the time of year the leaves were harvested, the sun that touched…

Tool: Stainless Steel Roubo Curves Manufacturer: Sterling Tool Works MSRP: $90 I like using French curves for laying out hyperbolas, ellipses and parabolas when designing furniture details. These curves are not static arcs – they are segments of the Euler spiral – and so the shapes they create have more spring and life. The typical set…

Can America’s most recognizable woodworking personality actually retire? Editor’s note: This interview originally appeared in the November 2012 issue of Popular Woodworking Norm Abram first stepped in front of a television camera in 1979 as the lead carpenter on “This Old House,” a show on which he still appears. A decade later, Norm began “The…

The road to enlightenment is paved with lots of little strips of wood. I am not by nature organized or detail-oriented. When I was young, I was the guy with the punk rock blaring and the messed-up clothes; the dog often ate my homework. Even as an adult, attention to detail is not my strong…

Tool: The Secret Mitre Dovetail Video Manufacturer: Lie Neilson/David Charlesworth  MSRP: $45.00 The “secret miter” dovetail is considered the most elegant and difficult of all the dovetail joints to make. As a result, many woodworkers hesitate to even attempt the joint, which can seamlessly wrap the grain around a furniture carcase to a beautiful effect. In…

Fire and wax together produce a rich black surface. Fire might not be the first finishing technique that most woodworkers gravitate toward; then again, I am not most woodworkers. As a blacksmith and toolmaker, I am around fire every day, and when I began burning my hammer handles, I found it to be a simple…

An embellished lid is your woodworking calling card. Embellished tool chests are perhaps the quintessential calling card of the cabinetmaker. From Benjamin Seaton’s mahogany and tulipwood masterpiece to the unequalled work of Henry Studley, we woodworkers tend to pull out all the stops when we decorate our chests. I’m convinced that the old timers built…

Milk Paint is one of my most favorite paints. I like it for the fact that it is a water-based medium, that it dries to a hard and chalky-like surface, that it is easy to sand, and that it is heterogeneous and unique among opaque finishes. So after I finished sanding the wooden scale model…

Tool: 1/8″ Easy Parting Tool Manufacturer: Easy Wood Tools MSRP: $119.99 Since my first experience with Easy Wood tools in 2011, I’ve been a fan. Thanks to the tools’ long-lasting carbide inserts, I can focus on the shapes I want to produce instead of heading to the grinder or tweaking the lathe’s tool rest. The three…

Since I started woodworking in about 1993, I’ve stored my tools in almost every way imaginable – from plastic buckets to wall cabinets, racks and a variety of tool chests. After exploring each of these methods, I kept coming back to a traditional tool chest because I have not found a better way to protect…

Tool: Diamond Whetstone Honing & Polishing Kit Manufacturer: Trend MSRP: $199.99 To be frank, I’m not a fan of sharpening hand tools using diamond systems because I don’t find the final edge as ideal as one produced on oilstones or waterstones. That said, the new Trend Diamond Honing & Polishing kit (DWS/KIT/B) gets so many things…

Once you understand ‘resultant’ angles, sawbenches (and chairs) are easy. Most first-time chairmakers are intimidated by the compound joinery used to fasten all the legs, stretchers, spindles and arms. The truth is, it can be quite complicated if you try to figure out everything using trigonometry. But if you take some lessons from other chairmakers…

This handsome piece is simple to build and easily adapted to fit your stock. A friend asked me to design and build a table using a special piece of walnut. I was given approximate measurements, but everything else was up to me. I love the freedom these types of projects offer. While the table would…

Tool: Auger Bit Roll Manufacturer: Texas Heritage MSRP: from $90 I’ve been looking for a long time for the perfect storage and transport solution for my auger bits. For a while, they were wrapped in kitchen towels – less than ideal. I have two of my grandfather’s old canvas tool rolls, but they both have holes in…