Shop Blog

A lot of woodworking problems can be avoided simply by monitoring the relative humidity in your shop with a simple and inexpensive hygrometer. In most areas of the United States,...

A dedicated sharpening station makes your work so much easier, but since leaving the magazine in 2011 I’ve never had the space (or a sink) for one. One day I...

Well-made high-carbon scissors are a joy to use and are indispensable in my shop for cutting paper patterns to shape, trimming veneer and 100 other tasks. For years I used...

A few years ago, we published some books to help build your dream home. We covered subjects like home construction, remodeling and backyard buildings. They didn’t really fit with the...

The most common questions that I hear are about how to go about learning to use digital woodworking tools? And, as woodworkers how do you use these tools to get the...

Now that Thanksgiving is over and all of my pants seemed to have shrunk, it’s time to get back to work. I made a quick SketchUp model of the traveling tool...

A reader thought he remembered my cautioning against applying paste wax over water-based finish or latex paint. His memory was that I had said that paste wax could damage these...

When both edges of your slab are “live edge” you can’t rely on them for crosscutting or sawing off accurate miters. This is because tucking a live edge against the...

A common question is: “How can I know if the wood I’m using is going to blotch when I apply a stain or finish?” This question comes up most often...

There are dozens of ways to drill dog holes that dead-nuts plumb, and I’ve written about many of them during the last 17 years. My favorites use the fewest tools...

I can finally put a tick next to something that’s long been on my “to do” list: Learn how to build a Welsh stick chair. With all that’s going on...

I travel a lot. Between trips to see my family a few hours away or taking a boat out in whichever lake is calling my name, I don’t spend many weekends...