Techniques

Learning to sharpen has little to do with your sharpening stones. It has a lot more to do with being able to see your progress and knowing when to stop. Showing a class of woodworkers what a [...]

One of the things that can overwhelm a beginning woodworker is the sheer number of choices to make about the simplest things. It doesn’t help that there is always someone waiting to tell [...]

My first Stanley shoulder plane (a No. 93) was the worst plane I ever bought. The sole was more than 1/8″ out of alignment, and it took me a couple hours on a belt sander to even get the [...]

If you’ve taken the bait and are willing to make a Gottshall block, I suggest you ask yourself two questions before you start. What kind of woodworker do you want to be, and how will you [...]

This morning we were messing around with the band saw blades and got into a discussion of how to fold and unfold them properly. I was taught to use my foot to fold it. Robert Lang uses just his [...]

I don’t relish handing out bad reviews of tools. But as someone who gets stoned occasionally by an angry mob, I know that a critical review can help improve the quality of my work in the [...]

Yesterday I presented an exercise to increase skills in SketchUp. Our blog lists newer posts before older ones, so you might want to click here to get caught up. Here are the techniques I used, [...]

I’ve been purging my shop and tool chests of excess tools this week. But now I’m afraid some of my tools are “taking the hint” and leaving on their own. This morning I set [...]

When I first started using SketchUp, I made a fundamental error. I tried to draw, applying what I knew about hand drafting and CAD to a program designed for 3D modeling. It was slow and tedious [...]

Soon I will sell my Makita LS1013 miter saw. Not because it’s junk , far from it. It’s still the best miter saw I’ve ever used. But I don’t need it anymore. During the [...]

William’s first woodworking project was a New England trawler boat. The kind of boat you see in the quaint  harbors of shore towns and villages along the North East coast. He started [...]

The October issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine is on its way to subscribers and to news stands. If you have SketchUp installed on your computer (it’s a free download available here) [...]