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Since my early days in architecture school, I have been fascinated with masonry and stone arches. Arches are a wonder of both simplicity and complexity. How seemingly impossible is it that a [...]

A few years ago I found a broken and grime-covered segment of a slip stone buried in the soil outside our front porch. Thrilled by this unexpected surprise, I immediately decided to restore the [...]

Winter is the perfect time for fireplaces and firewood, and the best firewood is the one you generate yourself. The late Moravian psychoanalyst, Dr. Schtriker Von Axen, used to teach his meek and [...]

One of the most unusual names in the lumberjack’s catalog of tools is a peavey. Named after Joseph Peavey this tool is a hooked and spiked lever used for manipulating logs, roll them over,  pivot [...]

Did you know that woodchips can tuck themselves under a planer’s blade? Well, as crazy as it sounds it really happen to me last week.  We have a great thickener planer in our shop. It’s a Ridgid [...]

I met Gal Tel Vardi about fifteen years ago when I spent a semester as a visiting lecturer at Shenkar College of Design. Gal (“Wave” in Hebrew) was the head of the advanced fabrication lab, [...]

No matter how good your shop lights are, there are always areas that will benefit from the extra flow of photons. Like most bandsaws, the Grizzly bandsaw that we have (I mentioned it a few weeks [...]

I have been using compasses throughout my career as a woodworker and a woodworking teacher, and my favorite ones are the pencil compasses. Honestly, I never liked compasses that require a 2mm [...]

I often lubricate the soles of my planes with paraffin wax to make them slide easier. While ripping a board that was insistent on pinching just enough to make sawing difficult, it occurred to me [...]

Shop-Made Rocker Jaw One simple board, cut into the shape of a seesaw, can make a huge improvement to your vise. It allows you to firmly hold tapered work and long, upright boards off to the side [...]

A few weeks ago as I was ripping a board on our Grizzly band saw, I felt a kick and heard a bang, the saw blade slipped out of the track, and pieces of black stuff began snowing down …

Anyone who has tried the Japanese-made WoodOwl Tri-Cut drill bits knows how great they are. These bits (read Chris Schwarz endorsement here) cut fast and clean, clear the chips efficiently, and [...]