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  In this excerpt from “The Practical Workshop: A Woodworker’s Guide to Workbenches, Layout & Tools,” Christopher Schwarz discusses how the book can help you build your [...]

I’ve long been fascinated by legends involving old chairmakers. Here in Kentucky we had Chester Cornett, an enigmatic bearded maker of the wildest ladderbacks and rockers I’ve seen. In Indiana...

Beer shows up in many accounts of early workshop life. Not only was it an important source of nutrition, it also served as payment for trespasses and a way to...

One of the most frustrating parts of using a smooth plane is when you have a low spot on your board that simply refuses to be planed out. There are...

When I went to the lumberyard to buy the stock for my first project of my own design I picked through the store’s entire stack of 1x12s to find the...

Gluing up narrow boards into big panels stresses out many beginning woodworkers. Sorry to say it, but I have another stressor to put on your shoulders: Don’t tarry. Schnell. Andele....

I sharpen a curve on the cutting edge of all my bench planes and block planes. The curve prevents the corners of the iron from leaving behind “plane tracks” –...

I work alone, so when I need to move a 70 lb. chunk of rough lumber over my jointer, I’ve got to be tricky if I don’t want to be...

When people injure themselves in the shop, their first reaction is to grab the wound and refuse to look. Sadly, this is the same attitude many woodworkers take with the...

When traveling, there are many times when I wish for a toothed planing stop, especially when installing stuff where I rarely even have a bench. Enter the Whipple Hook from...

My biggest arguments while at Popular Woodworking Magazine weren’t about hand tools vs. power tools, Shaker vs. Arts & Crafts, Grizzly Industrial vs. everyone else. Instead we fought about a...

To move forward with my design for a three-legged stool, I had to look back to my past work. Though the above stool might look a lot like the other...