A Photocopy, a Dot on a Box
LAS VEGAS , Wandering around our last day at AWFS , a tool-lover’s heaven , you might think I’m a little misty-eyed. But instead, I’m actually a little mad. After nine years of [...]
Coloring the Tree Before Cutting it Down
LAS VEGAS , This week I’m in Las Vegas for one of our annual trade show pilgrimages. This show is called AWFS. Mostly, these shows seek to deafen you. One whole floor of this show is [...]
The 12-step Program for Smoothing Planes
The first handplane I ever bought was a Popular Mechanics block plane I purchased one night at Wal-Mart. There was no blade-adjustment mechanism. No adjustable mouth. And the iron was so soft [...]
Classic Shaker Side Table: What do the 'Spacers' Do?
Question: I am building the Shaker Side Table (Issue #2). I built the cabinet from the first issue (I used cherry and spalted maple – it came out pretty nice). The table calls out for two [...]
Understanding Early Joinery and Drawboring
Few modern people understand drawboring as intimately as John Alexander , the author of “Build a Chair From a Tree.” He and his students have drawbored more than 1,000 joints (with [...]
The Problem With Dado Joints
Many cabinets with shelves are built using a common method: You plow dados in the sides of the cabinet. And then you glue the shelves into the dados. Perhaps you glue on a face frame to the [...]
A Vise's Rear Jaw: Flush or Protruding?
Question: I am now re-working my workbench. I purchased and read “The Workbench Book” and have researched through four woodworking magazines for the last three years, without an [...]
The Right Nail Ain't Round
In looking at a lot of old fine furniture, you might be surprised how much of it is made using nails. In fact, I’m often shocked at how bad a reputation the nail has among woodworkers. I [...]
