Shop Blog

In my last blog I wrote about tools you don’t need. The point was that we don’t always get good information on what to buy. Our sources for tool recommendations...

I’ve always admired Garrett Hack’s furniture, especially after I examined a piece in detail that a friend of mine owns. Some furniture looks good in photographs. Some looks good in...

Plate 11 from A.J. Roubo’s “L’Art du Menuisier” is one of my favorite woodworking documents. The workbench shown there has inspired many of my own designs, but [...]

If you are coming to Woodworking in America next week, you probably are going to eat something at some time during your trip here. If you’d just like to eat...

With Woodworking in America breathing down our necks (we’re beginning to count it down in hours instead of days), we’re trying to get a workbench built, machines assembled, wood [...]

Woodworking isn’t all about tools and shop techniques. To make the most of your time in the shop, it helps to have a design worked out and good plan in...

Over the years, I’ve turned to my brother Steve for practical advice on a range of subjects. Older brothers are good that way. Several gems of brotherly advice have included...

The workbench that we’re building for Woodworking in America (and Megan’s study) is also the workbench we’ll be building next year at Kelly Mehler’s School of Woodworking [...]

I walked in to work Monday morning with trepidation. After cutting the massive tails and tenons for my new “Petite Roubo” bench over the weekend, it was time to find...

If there were an award for the most words per board foot in writing about woodworking, I believe that this series of posts about the Gottshall block would win. And...

There are few things worse than too-soft screwdrivers. Lima beans, Care Bears and eye surgery with a teaspoon immediately come to mind. When I blogged about my favorite “perfect handle”...

The machinery room at Dick GmbH is a power tool lover’s dream. It has an enormous sliding table saw, a jointer/thicknesser the size of a small car and a huge...