Techniques

My head is deep into preparing card scrapers these days. I’ve vowed to try to make sense out of all the conflicting information we read about sharpening them. And so I’ve been turning [...]

Editor’s note: This May, our company will be publishing a book that’s tentatively titled “Hand Tools for Power Woodworkers,” a 192-page hardback that will combine our best [...]

I get a lot of questions about Arts Crafts style finishes. Gustav Stickley’s original work was made of quartersawn white oak and fumed with ammonia. This was then topcoated with shellac, [...]

OK I’m sorry to be a bit of a tease about all this stuff with sharpening scrapers. It’s not that I’m trying to string you along, it’s just that I still have more questions [...]

Scrapers are one of the most misunderstood but useful tools in a woodshop. A scraper in its simplest form is simply a piece of hardened steel that has a small hook on its edge that was created by [...]

If you do any work at all with hand tools, a good marking gauge is an essential piece of equipment. It is the tool that guides all your other tools: It marks your baselines when dovetailing, your [...]

There’s one question that I’m asked almost every week that I cannot answer. And here it is: What brand handplane should I buy if I don’t want to fix up a vintage plane, I [...]

The traditional English sawbench looks a bit like an alligator with really long legs. This curious appearance has left some readers a bit curious themselves about some of the features of the [...]

I finished building a Roman-style handplane from a kit made by Ron Hock of Hock Tools. The kit is designed to be used to make a plane in the style popularized by James Krenov,�  but I converted [...]

This week I’m building two wooden planes from a kit sold by Ron Hock of Hock Tools. The kit is designed to be used to make a wooden handplane muck like the ones popularized by James Krenov [...]

I recently bought your “Coarse, Medium, and Fine” DVD, from Lie-Nielsen. I wanted to thank you for it, I found it very informative and useful. I have two questions: 1. Would a [...]

One of the best things about going to an exhibit of new or antique furniture is getting to examine the joinery , closely and from the inside of the piece. I will pull every drawer out (if [...]