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While most newly-purchased chisels are supplied together with their integral guard, any vintage tool, mortise chisels, corner chisels, and all gouges do not come with such protection.  A few years...

One of the most mundane – but important- tools in our toolbox is a sanding block. We, and I include here my students in grades four to twelve, are using...

Two years ago I wrote about the ordeal of finding spare parts for the popular (but now discontinued) US-made Jorgensen rapid action vises. Unfortunately, after many years of smooth operation,...

Gustav Stickley is perhaps the most nationally and internationally-recognized name among American furniture designers and manufacturers. His seminal contribution to the rise of the American Arts [...]

Last August we moved into our new home in New Jersey. The house that we purchased was built in the late 1960s and was still endowed with all of its...

Read part 1 here. While thinking about ways to manufacture the butter knives fast and efficiently, and also to maximize the use of wood and avoid waste as much as...

My first time teaching woodworking to a group of toddlers took place almost two years ago. This opportunity to introduce the craft of wood to what is by far the...

In the proto-CAD (Computer-Aided Design) world, draftsmen and draftswomen had to rely on a set of curvy templates when they needed to connect two or more points via a graceful...

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...

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...

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...

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...