Techniques

We sometimes stumble upon inadvertent discoveries, things that strike us as so quintessentially simple, and yet so great…. Such was the case of the nail-sword made by my student, William. [...]

David Brookshaw has been making amazing tools since 1988 — many of them miniatures that have appeared in some of the gorgeous tool books from Sandor Nagyszalanczy, including the cover of [...]

Turned Post Bed By Tim Johnson Here’s how to maintain a positive attitude the next time you hear the phrase “Honey, would you please make the bed?”  Forget about the sheets and [...]

One of the greatest editions to any activity is having music play in the background; one of the greatest advantages of working with hand tools (as opposed to power tools) is that you can actually [...]

Router planes are the Starsky. Handsaws are the Hutch. These two tools work together all the time in my shop. In fact, all the sawing classes I teach are actually classes on the router plane in [...]

So we shot two 25-minute episodes of “The Woodwright’s Shop” today. So you are probably wondering what the heck I did with the other 23 hours of my day. Manicure? Pedicure? [...]

This summer I am teaching the next generation of wood-lovers, wood hobbyists, and perhaps even one or two future cabinet-maker/wood-artists. I preach the gospel of Woodworking in an amazing [...]

I’m packing up all the tools I’ll need in North Carolina for the coming week, and I was a bit shocked this morning as I went through my checklist. One of the “Woodwright’s [...]

Isshi Yamada never said much to me when I was dating his daughter in college. To us Western students who studied Eastern religions, he was an enigmatic Zen Buddhism professor who was famous for [...]

Restore a Chest of Drawers Make broken-down drawers fit and work like new. By Tim Johnson At first glance, the broken-down chest of drawers (at left) looks like a lost cause—a wreck even by [...]

The easiest projects to make are those you’ve built once before. Most woodworkers only tackle furniture projects once in a lifetime and then move on to something else. So the next best [...]

I leave for North Carolina this week to shoot two episodes of “The Woodwright’s Shop” with Roy Underhill then teach a three-day class on handsawing at Underhill’s little [...]