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Welcome to What Really Grinds My Chisels, an occasional feature where the Popular Woodworking editors tackle subjects they feel passionate about. I consider myself a pretty traditional woodworker. I heavily favor hand tools because that’s how I like to work. But, I also realize that there’s a particular part of woodworking that I enjoy, so…

Moby Dick, the Great White Planer The newspaper advertisement was brief: “PLANER, 24″, $450. Call.” My friend Charles Poth and I had been looking for just such a machine. We found the owner’s home outside rural  Jeromesville, Ohio, at the end of a long gravel road. The planer was stored outside under a raggedy canvas…

Years ago when I was editor at Popular Woodworking, I was interviewed for a job at one of our competitors. During the interview, I experienced one of those fork-in-the-road moments where a single decision will change everything you do for the rest of your life. To set the stage a bit, this happened about 2008….

It’s the easiest question in the world: Who is your favorite woodworker? A fellow craftsman asked me this question earlier this month, and I still don’t have a good answer. I have one easy answer: Dead woodworkers. Charles H. Hayward is my No. 1 hero. He was everything I have ever wanted to be: A…

Even if you have a gold-plated fancy-pants laser-guided dovetail saw, you should also own the $15 Zona dovetail saw because it’s so dang cheap and so dang handy for small-scale work. I’ve written a lot about this saw (check this entry for the background and copious links). Bottom line: It’s served me well for years…

You can achieve a great finish from commonly available products. We all love home centers for the good stuff they carry and for their low prices. But home centers cater to the lowest common denominator consumer – that is, they carry only the stuff that has a big market. The result is that many of…

The two commonly available pure oil finishes that can be used on furniture and woodwork with decent results because they cure – that is, turn from a liquid to a soft solid – are linseed oil and tung oil. There are important differences between these two oils. Raw linseed oil cures much too slowly to…

The critical parts are the fluid nozzle and air cap. As I have said many times, spray guns are pretty simple tools. By comparison, they aren’t any more difficult to use than a router. Still, there are a couple of critical parts you should be familiar with to get the best results. These are the…

Sponsored by Inventables Like many woodworkers, we can get bogged down in specs when we’re researching a new tool (or car or kitchen appliance). How many horsepower? What size bits can it use? What sort of steel is it made of? What’s the runtime on batteries? How fast does it go? Does it cook both…

While enjoying a leisurely lunch the Sunday before Christmas, it hit me. Something was missing. Nope, it wasn’t the usual holiday panic — a forgotten gift or missed greeting card, but an urge for a holiday-theme woodworking project. Something that could be made with woodworking tools between now and New Years’. Something simple, Something needed….

The Star Wars Universe Not long ago, in a small workshop far, far away… As new technology spread rapidly throughout a galaxy of centuries-old traditions, the woodworking world was in a period of great unrest. At a remote base deep in the woods of the Great Northwest, a lone rebel armed with revolutionary tools faced…