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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 a thick slice of [...]

I’m a big fan of cut nails. They hold far better that modern wire nails and they really have the right look when it comes to building reproduction furniture, which is why I don’t use [...]

Sash saws are a bit of a mystery to the modern-day woodworker. These saws show up in early catalogs and inventories of cabinetmaker’s possessions, but that’s about all you get. [...]

My head is deep into preparing card scrapers these days. I’ve vowed to try to make sense out of all the conflicting information we read about sharpening them. And so I’ve been turning [...]

So I like my wagon vise quite a bit and have been giving it a nice workout during the last week or so. I think it’s a keeper. (And good thing, considering the massive chasm in the [...]

The best thing about this weblog (besides attending the endless cocaine parties) is getting to hear the opinions of other woodworkers. After posting photos of the wagon vise I adapted from the [...]

Retrofitting anything to a bench is generally one of those things that looks great on a bar napkin, but when it’s all said and done, you’re ready for a drink. These retrofits rarely [...]

Editor’s note: This May, our company will be publishing a book that’s tentatively titled “Hand Tools for Power Woodworkers,” a 192-page hardback that will combine our best [...]

OK I’m sorry to be a bit of a tease about all this stuff with sharpening scrapers. It’s not that I’m trying to string you along, it’s just that I still have more questions [...]

Scrapers are one of the most misunderstood but useful tools in a woodshop. A scraper in its simplest form is simply a piece of hardened steel that has a small hook on its edge that was created by [...]

Plastic sawhorses are OK in a pinch. However, once you build a sawbench you will wonder how you ever worked wood without it.

If you do any work at all with hand tools, a good marking gauge is an essential piece of equipment. It is the tool that guides all your other tools: It marks your baselines when dovetailing, your [...]