Archives

For a two-car garage shop, optimizing space is always the top priority. To help wrangle materials and supplies, I recently built a cart based on a brilliant piece of industrial...

For those of us who don’t own a lathe, or who sometimes need a quick turning solution for small objects without the fuss of a full lathe setup, there is...

My friend, Daniella Ohad, recently returned from a tour of craftspeople’s shops in Japan. She wrote a whole series on her design blog about the incredible contemporary craft art she...

Three weeks ago, I decided to check the small shop vac I had hooked up to my Delta bandsaw. To my surprise, it was packed full of sawdust—years’ worth of...

A few months ago, while visiting the Rockler store in Cincinnati, I spotted a small ruler hanging by the checkout counter. It was promoted at a cost of around $6....

And so we arrive at the final stage of our boat project. By now, the hull has been carefully shaped, the spars have been crafted, and the masts and booms...

Masts, Booms and Yards After my students finish shaping the hull, they move on to thorough sanding—working through a progression of sandpapers until they reach a smooth finish with 220...

In our last entry, we left off just as the students began shaping the hull of their boats. I had explained the importance of leaving small vestigial blocks at the...

In part 1 of this project, I described how my students begin their boat-building journey by sketching and transferring a symmetrical deck design onto a blank—typically a 2×4 or 2×2—and...

A Hands-On Sailing Project in 2×4 A wooden boat is one of the most inspiring projects a child can build. It’s an object of grace and adventure, deeply symmetrical yet...

Once upon a time, the go-to rasps for woodworkers seeking quality were the Nicholson #49 and #50. These were hand-cut rasps, where each tooth was individually raised by a skilled...

Tool: Easy-Squeeze Silicone Glue Bottle Shop Now  Manufacturer: Rockler MSRP: $8.99 Over the years, I’ve used many types of glue bottles in both my shop and classroom. Most of them...