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Our magazine’s workshop is an odd duck. In some ways it’s equipped better than some commercial shops (with our eleventy-billion new routers) I’ve been in, but it lacks sorely in [...]

One common question we get from readers is what happens to the tools we test and the projects we build. The assumption, I think, is that we live a life of free wood, free tools and the free time [...]

I always enjoy tours of tool factories to see people (or robots) make things that are useful to my work. How a company can harness hundreds of minds and hands and mechanical pincers to produce [...]

After finishing college, two of my closest friends joined the Peace Corps and were posted to rural Morocco. But within a year they were back in the United States: 20 pounds lighter, two shades [...]

In China, 2005 was the year of the rooster. In our shop, 2005 was the year of the anvil. We built a guillotine out of framing material and dropped anvils of three weights on joints to see how [...]

If you get tired of checking in with this weblog to see if there are new entries, we now have a new way for you to read it , we’ll email it to you. Enter your e-mail address in the …

Trestle tables have always looked notoriously spindly and rickety to my eye. Compared to a traditional apron table, there’s just not much material there. Add to the fact that they are [...]

Every evening I have a glass of red wine or two with dinner, clean up the dishes and then run a 5K , on Saturdays and Sundays I run a 10K. The running part keeps me fit, and the wine …

I get called a Luddite all the time for my affection for hand tools (Recent quip from spouse: “You know, we own a blender for a good reason”). I certainly don’t consider myself [...]

I am just now starting to acquire the tools necessary to do some woodworking, but the money is very tight right now; so I’ve started looking some local flea markets. I was recently one of [...]

Sometimes a craftsman-made tool surfaces that is just plain mysterious and wondrous. Today I spent the morning with Carl Bilderback, a semi-retired Chicago-area carpenter who has an astonishing [...]

Not sure you can drive a nail? This project is a great confidence builder for the beginning basher.