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When it comes to making wooden shop tools, I think that most of the modifications we make to them are to stop us from throwing the tools away by accident. Many winding sticks are a right triangle [...]

When you learn woodworking through reading – books, magazines and websites – you often have no idea how certain words are pronounced. And so when you finally encounter fellow woodworkers in the [...]

During the first three hours of my my class on building a trestle table, here are the statements I heard the students say the most. I cannot design. I can’t draw. I can’t come up with original [...]

Trying to teach design is like trying to push water uphill – or so I’m told. Despite the warnings and eyerolls from some fellow woodworking instructors, I’ve tried to build in a design component [...]

When I teach woodworking, I talk a lot about monogamy. Not to your spouse (that’s your problem) but to your tools. I think it’s easier to learn to saw, sharpen and plane boards if you don’t jump [...]

When it comes to doing precision work that has to be performed over and over again, it’s easy to fall into the siren whine of the router. The router is probably my least-favorite woodworking [...]

Here’s a lie I heard once at a lumberyard: When picking out boards, you should always choose ones that have the heart – or pith – in them because that is the strongest part of the tree. Those [...]

Roman workbenches have not left this world. In fact, some people might argue that they are still used today and are called shaving horses. While I don’t have a dog in that particular fight, I do [...]

The first time I saw an 18th-century workbench, I thought: Wow. That will never work. But then I built some of these benches (dozens, actually), and I am a huge fan of the form’s stability, [...]

For the last few years, I’ve studied the world of campaign furniture and the history of the Roorkhee chair, an English form of military seating that appeared in the last days of the 19th century. [...]

This week I’m in Bavaria to teach two woodworking classes at the workshops of Dictum GmbH. (And to visit my favorite coffee machine in the entire world.) However, instead of pushing the machine’s [...]

While I have used a lot of bowsaws in the last two decades, I’ve never made one. But during the last few weeks, I’ve made five. The reason is that I fly to Germany on Friday to teach a couple …