Friday’s Tip for May 10th

Adjustable Curves Laying out a large curve with a cobbled-together, oversize compass is a pain in the neck. Instead I use a bowed slat that can be adjusted to any...

THE RAILWAY SLEEPERS

THE SLEEPER BENCH AND SEATS . THIS TIMBER WAS CAREFULLY PICKED FROM A YARD . SOME WERE BOWED SOME WARPED . BUT MANAGED TO PICK THE BEST I COULD FIND...

I Want to Give You ‘Go Fever’

In some high technology circles there is an expression they use when engineers move too quickly to launch a project. They have “go fever” and are willing to overlook horrible...

String Inlay Tools – Radius Cutters

On Hannah’s Inlaid Chest from our June 2013 magazine (issue #204), I scratched most of the string inlay by hand using tools from both Lie-Nielsen Toolworks and Lee Valley/Veritas. Of...

Art History v. Experimental Archeology

I have often found it beneficial to sketch furniture while examining it.  Unlike a photograph, a pencil insists a form be understood to be reproduced. But my sketches don’t always...

The Dough BoxPart 2 of 4

Most woodworkers design and build furniture that is rectilinear and orthogonal. This spares us from having to think too hard and reaching back into our high school geometry lessons. It...

The Dumb Way to Teach Design

While I like and appreciate strict reproductions, I’ve always preferred to design my own stuff. How do I design a piece? In the only way I know how. It’s not...

Planing teak wood is no cake walk

At my day job as wood-shop manager at Robert Lighton Furniture in New York, I often need to fine-tune furniture parts before I pass them over to our skilled sander,...