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If you like working with hand tools and enjoy timber framing, bushcraft, and other off-grid activities, your typical drilling device is a hand brace.  Since most modern hand braces have limited [...]

Until recently, my go-to glue-spreading tool for small joints was always a cheap nickel-plated steel brush with natural bristols. I still use these brushes, but ever since I discovered the [...]

After roughly shaping the awl’s handle (read the first part of the story here) on the bandsaw, I clamped it inside my Pattern Maker’s Carving Vise and began shaping the neck. This vise is [...]

It is fun to make a tool for your own use. When that tool becomes one of the handiest tools in the shop, you’ll be delighted that you took up that challenge. On the many occasions you hold it in [...]

The awl is one of the most useful tools in woodworking and perhaps the most basic of them all. Awls help to initiate indentations into which screws, nails, and drill bits will bore. We use them [...]

One of the first things that many people notice when advancing the blade of a Preston/Record style shoulder plane (today’s Clifton and Lie Nielsen planes are based on that design) is a scratching [...]

A few years ago, my friend Cambell Albritton gifted me with a small Clifton #410 shoulder plane that he no longer needed. The plane was still in its original box but unfortunately developed a few [...]

Hinges are some of the most important hardware elements at our disposal. We need them for practical reasons, but we also want them to look good – as together with pulls and knobs, they [...]

As you recall, a few months ago, I wrote about a beautiful chair made of solid mahogany that we bought and found out that it was sadly damaged during shipping. The vendor sent us a replacement, [...]

Diamond stones are the bedrock of my sharpening routine. I use them as my main abrader throughout my sharpening/honing sessions because they preserve their flatness and keep their hard particles [...]

Most of us have used, at some point, a pegboard to organize our tools. In fact, a few years ago, I reclaimed a hanging pegboard toolbox (a colleague of mine discarded it) and have been using it [...]

Since I received my Benchcrafted Roubo workbench a year ago, my woodworking life has tremendously improved. My new and heavy bench (I wrote about it here and here) has 1” holdfast holes that can [...]