Tools

Years ago Don McConnell (now with Clark & Williams plane makers) shamed me into sharpening my own saws. He was down for a photo shoot and I mentioned that I had sent a saw out to be sharpened [...]

I swore a blood oath I would never write about the “nib” on a saw , the ornamental protrusion found at the toe of some old saws. And I won’t break that oath. I will, however, [...]

What’s this? It’s a lovely mountain scene that would make Bob Ross proud. Happy little trees. Oh look, the big gymnosperm is reflected in the water. I can almost taste the wood smoke [...]

Many woodworkers think it’s bonkers to use a curved cutting edge in a jointer plane. After all, the plane is designed to make things straight and flat, so using a curved cutter seems [...]

Perhaps I’m the oddball here, but I’ve always found cutting tenons by hand to be more challenging than any sort of dovetailing. Tenons require a lot of precision sawing if you want to [...]

Strong Shelves You love wood–we know that. You love wood so much you’ve got piles of it all over your shop, just waiting to be turned into a masterpiece … if only you can find those boards you [...]

Years ago I got a phone call from plane maker Larry Williams that changed the way I look at long planes. “Do you have the book ‘American Furniture of the 18th Century?'” he [...]

This thing is a work of art, and if you have an extra $375 it can be yours. Sadly, I have already sold my share of plasma this month or I’d buy it myself. What’s really cool about the [...]

A great value in premium hand tools   by Tom Caspar         “I’m really getting the itch to use good hand tools, so what kind of plane should I buy?” [...]

Ripping boards by hand is a lot like working. And so I’m always looking for different techniques (other than buying a Bowflex machine and steroids) to do it with less effort. This weekend I [...]

Dovetail maestro Rob Cosman again makes us all feel inadequate with his latest video in which he cuts a half-blind dovetail joint in 6 minutes and 52 seconds. Cosman uses Northern white pine, [...]

My search for a coping saw that will hold its blade setting is starting to feel a little like an episode of “In Search of…” with Leonard Nimoy. The solution might be as elusive [...]