Archives

CHICAGO , After about 60 seconds I’m certain that this feels a bit like a drug deal. I was told to show up at a hardware store on a certain date and at a certain time to see “some [...]

There is a lot to know about nails. Don’t laugh or scoff. I’ve been digging deep into my library this week and have come up with some stuff that is wild and weird from the world of [...]

So many woodworkers resist using hammers, and I suspect it’s because they use one that’s more suited for framing a house or cracking walnuts. In browsing through old tool catalogs, [...]

LAS VEGAS , Wandering around our last day at AWFS , a tool-lover’s heaven , you might think I’m a little misty-eyed. But instead, I’m actually a little mad. After nine years of [...]

LAS VEGAS , This week I’m in Las Vegas for one of our annual trade show pilgrimages. This show is called AWFS. Mostly, these shows seek to deafen you. One whole floor of this show is [...]

The first handplane I ever bought was a Popular Mechanics block plane I purchased one night at Wal-Mart. There was no blade-adjustment mechanism. No adjustable mouth. And the iron was so soft [...]

Question: I am building the Shaker Side Table (Issue #2). I built the cabinet from the first issue (I used cherry and spalted maple – it came out pretty nice). The table calls out for two [...]

Few modern people understand drawboring as intimately as John Alexander , the author of “Build a Chair From a Tree.” He and his students have drawbored more than 1,000 joints (with [...]

Many cabinets with shelves are built using a common method: You plow dados in the sides of the cabinet. And then you glue the shelves into the dados. Perhaps you glue on a face frame to the [...]

Question: I am now re-working my workbench. I purchased and read “The Workbench Book” and have researched through four woodworking magazines for the last three years, without an [...]

In looking at a lot of old fine furniture, you might be surprised how much of it is made using nails. In fact, I’m often shocked at how bad a reputation the nail has among woodworkers. I [...]

The scrub plane is unusual in that it doesn’t fall neatly into the traditional English system of classifying bench planes. Rough stock was prepared first with a “fore plane,” [...]