Ah, Thursday – day four of a woodworking class. This is the day that most students hit a wall. They take naps at their benches. They sneak off to their...
The first lesson of handwork is this: Most things that you think are important are not important. Most surfaces do not need to be true. Most edges do not need...
Years ago when touring Winterthur, I saw a lot of wacky Pennsylvanian dovetails on old chests. These joints had been wedged through their pins – a feature I had not...
I’ve hauled my tool chest all over the United States and Canada, and I remain impressed – deeply impressed – by how it has handled all the miles. I’ve even...
Lie-Nielsen’s heavy-duty chain-drive mechanism has recently been used to create two new vises from the Warren, Maine, tool manufacturer – a dovetailing vise and a leg vise. I got a...
Whenever I teach at a woodworking school, I’m always fascinated by what happens when I open my tackle box full of cut nails. Usually, the students react as if I’d...
In the world of design, you read a lot about the acceptance or rejection of symmetry. Wait, wait. Don’t go away. This blog entry, by the way, has to do...
While teaching a recent class, I nicked my thumb on something sharp, and the shop’s first aid kit was locked up for some reason. No matter – I closed up...
Threading and tapping wood by hand can be frustrating, even when you know what you are doing. Today, 11 students and I at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship built Moxon-style...
This week I’ve been surfacing a lot of wood by hand, from pedestrian sugar pine to funky metals that have wood-like properties (e.g. purpleheart). And all the while I have...
I spent the afternoon with Peter Follansbee at his shop at Plimoth Plantation in Massachusetts – watching him work for a profile I’m writing about him for Popular Woodworking Magazine....
