An Unusual Shape for Wooden Nails
The pegs that hold the joinery of old furniture together are always interesting. I’ve seen pegs with their heads shaped square and octagonal, which are obviously the product of either [...]
Rehandling a Chisel
For the last week or so I’ve been researching the science of smacking the snot out of things. I’ve been reading lecture notes from a Harvard course on “fracture [...]
A Dovetail a Day – Hurray
Whenever I stink at something in woodworking, it becomes my lunch-hour obsession. While chomping an apple, I’ll read everything I can about the topic. Then I’ll steal off to the shop [...]
Video: Stupid Shim Tricks
Some wide chisels and narrow plane irons don’t work well with the cheap-o side-clamp honing guide. They are too narrow to fit between the walls on the top of the guide. And they are too [...]
Changing and Stretching With SketchUp
SketchUp is a great tool for creating models of your next project, but where it really shines is when you want to quickly change a project. Whether it’s something you made, or someone [...]
Sensible Dovetails with Glen D. Huey
Senior Editor Glen D. Huey and I cut dovetails in completely different ways. But we entirely agree on one point: People make the joint a lot more difficult than necessary. There is a time for [...]
And You Call Yourself Cheap — For Shame!
If you ever needed more evidence that woodworkers have always been a parsimonious lot, look no further than the December 1901 issue of the British magazine The Woodworker. In an article on [...]
Review: '17th Century New England Carving' with Peter Follansbee
I never cared for carved furniture until I saw some 17th-century American chests in Wallace Nutting’s “Furniture of the Pilgrim Century.” (A low-resolution GoogleBooks version [...]
When Your Plane Iron Won't Retract All the Way
Reason No. 50 that I dislike chipbreakers: They can prevent your iron from retracting all the way into the mouth of the tool. Sometimes I think chipbreakers are a cruel joke on the woodworking [...]
The Power of the Pixel
People gripe that the vintage tools and books I write about often go up in price after I post an entry. I actually think the effect is mild and temporary, except in two cases: Robert [...]
Video Preview of ‘Build a Sawbench’
Here’s a short trailer of the forthcoming DVD “Build a Sawbench with Christopher Schwarz” that will be released in a few weeks. If you pre-order the DVD, you’ll save $5 [...]
Coming in 2011: Build the Square that Built Bridge City
If there were a woodworking tool hall of fame, the Bridge City TS-2 try square would definitely be on display there. In my travels through shops all over the country I’ve seen this square [...]
