Woodworking in America: Disassemble This!

One of best ways to learn how a piece of furniture is put together is to take it apart. Many of the best furniture makers I know who work in historical styles have done a fair bit of restoration [...]

Wavy Pages in 'Handplane Essentials'?

Several customers have asked why the pages in their brand new copy of “Handplane Essentials” have a slight wave to them, like David Hasselhoff’s hair in a botanical garden. The [...]

Woodworking in America: New Tools

I got to spend a little time in the Marketplace area of the Woodworking in America conference this morning and got a first look at some new hand tools that will be available soon. First stop was [...]

So Incredibly Spoiled: Bad Axe

A couple weeks ago a friend in Chicago sent me a new Western backsaw (nice gift!) that he picked up for a couple dollars. It was shiny and factory-fresh with a beech handle and a clean etch. It [...]

Who Would Make Such a Stupid Rule?

In the history of measuring equipment, there is one blunder so awful that it makes me twitter (old-school twitter) like a smack-addled squirrel every time I encounter it. It’s a 6″ [...]

Tweaking a New Stanley No. 4

When the new premium planes from Stanley arrived, it was agony. I was in the middle of another project and had to just stare at them for a week before I could get my mitts on them. The first tool [...]

No More Felines in the Walls

My wife, Lucy, is fearful that her four cats are going to get trapped inside the walls of our house. And it’s my job, as a woodworker, to prevent this from happening. Before you think I [...]

LVL Workbench: What Was I Thinking?

I’ve been talking a lot about laminated veneer lumber (LVL), the raw material we used to build our latest workbench. But what I haven’t talked much about is why we chose this material [...]