Best New Tools of 2006
One of our year end traditions is to pick our favorite tools of the year. Usually this list contains 10 or 12 tools, but this was no ordinary year. Our...
Turn a Block Plane Into a Bench Plane
Lee Valley Tools‘s latest catalog is filled with lots of interesting stuff that we’re beginning to wade through, including two new plane totes that allow you to convert the Veritas...
Out of the Dark Ages
It’s about 7:30 a.m. on a Wednesday, and I am severely deprived of caffeine as I follow Thomas Lie-Nielsen through the narrow passages of his tool factory in Warren, Maine....
Answering Your Questions about the Steel City Table Saw
Our full-fledged, in-print review of the Steel City table saw will appear in our February 2007 issue. In the meantime, we’ve had several questions about what we’ve posted so far...
Writing the Arts & Mysteries Column
Arts and Mysteries began when Popular Woodworking’s editor Chris Schwarz, asked me if I was interested in writing an article for an existing column on hand tool usage called “From...
A Slanted View of Mortises and Tenons
In the Stickley side table from the November 2006 issue, there are enough variations of mortise and tenon joints to give your hands and your head a real workout. One...
And if You Thought That Photo Looked Familiar…
This posed photo (the opening photo for the first Arts & Mysteries column for 2007) is my best approximation of Johannes Vermeer’s “The Geographer” (1668/69). Vermeer is one [...]
Now Available: More Reviews on Hand Tools
For the last three years, I’ve been writing a column on modern hand tools for the Fine Tool Journal, an excellent quarterly publication out of Pownal, Maine. The Journal is...
DVD Review: "Precision Preparation of Chisels for Accurate Joinery"
The opening sequence of David Charlesworth’s latest DVD shows him securing a chisel in a honing guide and putting the tool to the stone for four strokes. He adjusts the...
New T-Shirts for the Normite and the Neanderthal
Readers of our magazine know that we enthusiastically embrace both power- and hand-tool techniques. We’ve found that the best-quality modern-day work tends to involve both hand and machine [...]
First Cut with Steel City Saw
I have a couple of heros in the business world, guys who make sense about making money. The first is W. Edwards Deming best known for his book “Out of...
Therapy, Pop Wood Style
I’m working on a small chest for the February 2007 “I Can Do That” column. Because it’s a primitive design, I wanted the piece to look as if it had...
