Archives

As a hand-tool woodworker, I try to avoid bookmatching my panels. Bookmatching creates a panel where the grain in one board runs one way and the grain in the other...

Instead of writing about the flatness of plane soles, perhaps I should talk about something less controversial, such as religion or politics. When purchasing a vintage plane, the flatness of...

Cincinnati is not a tourist destination like nearby Big Bone Lick, Ky., So when people come to visit our shop I try to accommodate all their requests so they consider...

Whenever I teach a class on handplanes, I’m amazed at what the students bring to set up and use. I’ve seen Holtey planes and Harbor Freight planes in the same...

Sometimes it seems like there are 100 things that can go wrong with a handplane before it will do one thing right: Eject a perfect and fluffy shaving. Lately I’ve...

Anyone who has spent more than five minutes with me knows that I am obsessed with food , almost as much as I’m obsessed with woodworking. Both of my parents...

The vintage Stanley No. 48 plane was one of the most gizmo-tastic planes in the company’s arsenal. It’s a single tool that can cut both the tongue and the mating...

If you have been putting off buying an insert from toolmaker Paul Hamler that converts a bench plane to a scraper plane, you might want to start checking your couch...

As a 4-year-old, the woods behind my grandparents’ house in Bronxville, N.Y., was both foreboding and magical to me. My grandfather would take me for walks there almost every day...

If only we had 1,000 more teachers like Trevor Smith, I think the future of woodworking would be safe and sound. Smith, a physics teacher at Troy High School in...

Today we glued up two chunks of what will become Managing Editor Megan Fitzpatrick’s workbench. For those of you just tuning in, I haven’t broken my vow of workbench chastity....

The most miserable aspect of hand work is setting up the tools for the first time. Removing the coarse manufacturing scratches from the unbeveled faces of your edge tools can...