Tool Reviews

While surfing around the woodworking sites, I found mention of this jig for cutting mortises. It’s a Mortise Pal (mortisepal.com). If you have a plunge router (weighing less than 12 [...]

Lee Valley Tools sent out a new product release for a guide used for cutting dovetails. It’s not really a new guide, but a new angle for the guide. The reconfigured Veritas 14Ã?º Dovetail [...]

Norton IM83 Portable Waterstone Sharpening System I’m not the most organized person in the world. In fact, I’m without argument the messiest person in our office and shop. I do OK if [...]

In our June 2007 issue we reviewed two-base router kits. You can read the full review in Adobe PDF format by clicking here. One of the routers in the test, from Craftsman, was nearly identical to [...]

Vintage wooden-bodied miter planes are fairly rare birds (at least in the Midwest), so I was quite eager to try a new one made by Philip Edwards in England. While I’m well-versed in [...]

Plow planes are workhorse of the hand-tool shop when it comes to cutting joints with a plane. With a plow plane you can, if you are so inclined, cut many of the important joints for a carcase: [...]

I’m confident with most hand tools, except for the saw. I can go months without using a plane or chisel, pick one up and get the results I want. Not so with the saw. I don’t get [...]

Most woodworkers consider the thickness planer to be one of the most important machines in a woodshop. As a result, many manufacturers have produced a variety of sizes in planers. None has been [...]

This year at the AWFS show we saw several new table saws with new guard systems that include riving knives. I wrote about it here on the blog and the other day one of these saws, the Bosch 4100 [...]

Long-time toolmaker Paul Hamler has developed a new device that can turn many handplanes (both vintage and new) into a scraping plane that is easier to set up, tune and use than any other [...]

If you’ve been pondering ordering a handplane from Philip Marcou after my review of his plane in both Popular Woodworking and a longer review in the Fine Tool Journal (read the review in [...]

An old friend dropped into the Popular Woodworking shop this week. You know how nice it is to see old friends. Memories flood back about the first time you met and the times you’ve spent [...]