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First a warning: Don’t read this blog entry if you already obsess too much over the details of your furniture. This entry could only make things worse. Years ago, a...

In my book, Jeff Miller might just be one of the keys to the future of woodworking. The furniture he’s built during the last three decades is decidedly contemporary. It...

Sharpening a spear-point marking knife isn’t difficult, but it sure seems to flummox some woodworkers. The bevels on the knife are small, and if you aren’t used to freehand sharpening,...

Whenever I teach a sawing class, I typically reduce the set of students’ saws using a metal file. And when I do this, I’m also amazed at how many times...

Do not tell my wife this, but one of the best parts of teaching woodworking is getting to travel. Since I started teaching woodworking six years ago I have seen...

One of the topics I touch on briefly in “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest” is something I have wanted to write a book about for many years: elemental furniture forms. “Elemental...

Recently I’ve become somewhat obsessed by the puzzle of storing saws. During my years as a woodworker, I’ve been admonished many times for how I handle this tool. Here are...

“(Chairs) are too hard. Chairmakers are doomed to poverty.” — Gary Bennett (1934 – ) furniture maker and artist If I were a full-time chairmaker, I don’t think I’d be...

When sharpened steel knocks into anything else, the result is usually dull steel. That’s why woodworkers protect sharp edges by wrapping our tools in canvas or leather tool rolls. Or...

Today I’m in Portland, Maine, eating myself sick at Duckfat and studying the architectural details on the old houses in this coastal city. As I started picking apart some Victorian...

When Thomas Lie-Nielsen was growing his toolmaking business in the 1990s, he designed an addition to his factory in Warren, Maine, that would be the perfect foundry to cast his...

I have always waited for and dreaded the day when someone made a commercial workbench that I would consider buying. That day might (almost) be here. This week I am...