Below you’ll find smart woodworking techniques including quick tips, advice for beginners and more advanced methods to improve your skills and allow you to get the most out of your workshop and tools. Whether you’re looking for traditional woodworking techniques using hand tools or power tools, finishing or sharpening advice, or just want to hone your woodworking basics, the advice below is from seasoned and trusted woodworkers and furniture makers working at the top of their field.
This jig helps you easily reverse your work for base turning. Properly finished bowls never reveal how the turner mounted them. However, traditional methods for reversing a bowl to turn...
Methods that allow wood to move with the seasons. About a decade ago, I made a drop-leaf table for a book of projects. When it came time to mount the...
Hand-cut appearance with half the fuss. If you’ve labored over hand-cut through dovetails, you’ll be amazed how much faster they can be cut on the bandsaw. You get all the...
While we lust for a 20″ monster, most woodworkers would be just as well off (or better) with a ‘suitcase planer.’ When I started woodworking in about 1993, I wanted...
Is it necessary? And if so, what are the best techniques? Like any tool or machine, a workbench requires accessories (jigs, fixtures, appliances) and occasional maintenance to actually do anything...
When I need to cut a bunch of small, equally sized pieces, I install this simple jig. It holds short pieces securely during and after cutting, so they don’t get...
Add a new dimension to your woodworking skills. With the right techniques and tooling your CNC router can mill brass and aluminum with dependability, accuracy and consistency. Milling these [...]
In the proto-CAD (Computer-Aided Design) world, draftsmen and draftswomen had to rely on a set of curvy templates when they needed to connect two or more points via a graceful...
Small pieces transform your work from austere to awesome. Signature features of Federal-style furniture include bellflowers and stringing that often adorn furniture legs, but are also found on [...]
Mechanical solutions for the formula-challenged woodworker. There was a time when I was fairly good at math – but that was back when “personal” and “computer” were two words you’d...
A few years ago I found a broken and grime-covered segment of a slip stone buried in the soil outside our front porch. Thrilled by this unexpected surprise, I immediately...
Arm yourself with a good plan (or two) and your buying trip will be a success. I have a 10″-wide piece of 8/4 purpleheart sitting on my lumber rack. I...