Tools

Handplane irons should be sharpened completely straight across. No curve. Ever. No, scratch that. All bench plane irons should be sharpened with some sort of curve. Always. Ah yes, this is one of [...]

And you thought yesterday’s posts about Estonian workholding was obscure? Bah, that was amateur hour. Let’s talk about the Charles Fenner Patent frame saw, a fairly rare bird among collectors. [...]

Improve performance by installing a larger filter bag. You might not need a more powerful dust collector after all. That’s the word from woodworkers who’ve replaced the original equipment filter [...]

One of the best things about the Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool event we hold in our shop each year is getting to hang out with the toolmakers and demonstrators who come to town for the event. One of the [...]

Megan Fitzpatrick and I drove up to Columbus, Ohio, last Thursday with Al Parrish, our staff photographer. We visited Ron Herman at the shop for his business, Antiquity Builders of Ohio. Ron had [...]

Fridays are fun, but it’s Saturday at a woodworking event – such as this weekend’s Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event held at the offices of Popular Woodworking Magazine – when you can get a better [...]

Carpenter and woodworker Carl Bilderback never flattens his oilstones. And they are both dead flat – I couldn’t get a .00125” feeler gauge under a straightedge that I laid on the stones. His [...]

With Andrew Lunn’s announcement that he’s leaving the sawmaking business, the No. 1 question on all our minds is: Who will have the guts to pull a prank on Jameel Abraham from Benchcrafted at the [...]

For years now, Lie-Nielsen has made 55° frogs for its No. 4-1/2 bench planes. I’m a big fan of higher planing angles, but I’m not as big a fan of the No. 4-1/2. I prefer the smaller smoothing [...]

Andrew Lunn, who made the finest backsaws I’ve ever used, has decided to stop making saws, though he is not hanging up his shop apron entirely. Lunn made the announcement to his customers today [...]

The best sharpening advice I ever heard was from Tony Konovalov: Grind, hone and get back to work. Or, to put it another way: Which is more fun? Making your tools sharp or making your tools dull? [...]

I made some cavetto moulding for a version of The Schoolbox I’m building. And because a cavetto is one of the easiest mouldings to make with a round plane, I decided to demonstrate the basics of [...]