"Blessed are the grinders." – Ashley Iles
Some days it’s overwhelming to think about all the woodworking and toolmaking knowledge that’s been lost. Last weekend at the Mid-West Tool Collectors Association national meeting it [...]
Tool Overload (In a Good Way)
I’ve just returned from the national meeting of the Mid-West Tool Collectors Association a bit road-weary, a bit hung over and completely overwhelmed by what a cool experience the whole...
Add a Shelf to the Roubo Workbench
An hour before we photographed the cover with the Roubo-style workbench, I was still building it , putting the finishing touches on the leg vise to be exact. I had...
Dovetails, The Pope’s Coffin and the Unidentified Craftsman
A quest to find the builder of this famous project. The morning after Pope John Paul II’s funeral, John Darrow, Frank Klausz’s finisher, asked Klausz, “Did you see the pope’s...
From Junk to Genius: One More Source for Drawbore Pins
Thanks to my daughter’s fourth-grade class, I’ve discovered another good source of small-scale drawbore pins for cabinet work. This morning I had to give a small chat about my job...
Mortising With Forstners – The Oft-Skipped Details
When you are making big mortises, such as those in the Roubo-style Workbench in Issue 4, it’s a good idea to bore out as much of the waste as possible....
Ask, and You Shall Beat the Snot out of Something
OK, I have two very good pieces of news on the topic of holdfasts. In our March 2005 issue we sang the praises of Alaskan blacksmith Phil Koontz. His holdfasts...
