Tricks of the Trade

Many new chisels, especially most premium-quality chisels, have sharp lands (the beveled side edges). Some people wear cotton gloves to protect their hands when using these, but I don’t like...

I learned this in engineering school and soon found out it worked for my router. It is called the “right-hand thumb rule.” When trying to remember which way your router...

Here’s a tip on how to cut curves on the bandsaw. When cutting a circle or an odd shape from a square piece of lumber on a bandsaw, you’ve probably...

When you don’t need an absolutely accurate line drawn on a piece (say for a shooting/nailing line or layout line) all you need is a wooden folding ruler, a pencil...

Tools for measuring. Tools for Accuracy. Precision Instruments for Woodworkers is a 4-part series. I’ve been working as a furniture maker for quite a while, now. Along the way, you...

I needed to cut long boards on the table saw, but had only a small table for the outfeed and none for the infeed. So I built this handy infeed...

There’s really no substitute for a nice, dialed-in shooting board. It’s a bench appliance that every woodworker with a handplane should have for sneaking up to a line and making...

Over the years, we have amassed a huge collection of handy tips from the Tricks of the Trade column in our magazine. We recently started to film some of these...

I recently completed a seven-drawer dresser. The drawers featured hand-cut dovetails and are of graduated heights from top to bottom. Cleaning up the drawers with my handplanes was initially tough...

Instead of storing your freshly sharpened scrapers loose in a drawer (or tight in a wallet), this easy-to-make storage unit, shared with me by my friend Bob Lee, holds them...

Featherboard Ripping Stop I’m always on the lookout for different ways to use the things I already own. I found that I didn’t need to buy or make an extra...

If you’ve got the right tools, frameless kitchen cabinets are easy to build. They’re just boxes, and if you don’t want to use any fancy joinery, you can glue and...