For the cost of one large piece of machinery, you can set up a complete shop with hand tools. Here’s what you need to get started.

We have all seen them: those chisel handles that have crumbled from years of use. Here’s how to easily restore those handles to their former glory.

A few weeks ago one of our remarkable 8th grade students approached me during class and with a sad face as he presented two pieces of steel that just a few moments earlier used to be a vintage socket chisel. He remorsefully said that the chisel broke while he was shaping a round tenon at…

I started my woodworking career 40 years ago shaving ladderback chairs based on the methods of Jennie Alexander as outlined in Make a Chair from a Tree. Green wood, split from straight-grained logs, aligns perfectly with drawknife work.

Three years ago while teaching a woodworking class at Peters Valley I met Blacksmith Eric Dennis, who was at the time the studio assistant in the iron shop. When I entered the noisy, coal-smoky, old building, Eric was in the middle of forging some impressive looking tool. Coincidentally, that very summer I was trying to…

A few weeks ago Veritas tools (Lee Valley) released their most recent plane. The squirrel-looking plane (there are actually two versions of it: a limited edition stainless steel, and a continuous production cast iron) is by far one of the smallest planes around.

by Megan Fitzpatrick page 20 If you’re frugal when it comes to tool purchases, check out the U.S.-made Buck Bros. “Professional Wood Chisels,” available at Home Depot. A set of three (1⁄2″, 3⁄4″ and 1″) is less than $20. (I bought several sets from three locations for comparison purposes.) While nowhere near the fit and…

We rethink the Western bench plane system. All you need to know is that there are three tools, three setups, three jobs and three surfaces. by Christopher Schwarz excerpted from the Winter 2009 issue of Woodworking Magazine Some days I think that every bench plane should come with a decoder ring to help the user…

You don’t have to own a lathe to make replacement handles that will feel like an extension of your hand. by Roger Holmes pgs. 84-88 From the February 2002 issue #126 Buy the issue now A few months ago I had to face the unpleasant truth about my chisels. Given to me years ago by…

by James McConnell pg.14 The Veritas (Lee Valley) mortise chisels are awesome in every sense of the word. They’re big, heavy and can plow through a mortise in just a few good passes. The size, shape and substantial thickness of the blades bring English “dagger”-style mortise chisels to mind, while the overall shape and length…

I sharpen all of my plane irons and chisels at 35°. Here’s why: I do this to keep my sharpening regimen as simple as possible. I don’t want to pick up a tool and wonder: What angle is this sharpened to? I also don’t want to sharpen a tool, discover that I used the wrong…

Roughing, flattening and smoothing lumber are fundamental hand tool woodworking skills. Before you can properly perform these tasks, you need to know how to shape your plane irons.The shape of the edge of a bench plane iron across its width is determined by its function. For roughing, the edge of the iron should be cambered (curved…

One of the Tricks of the Trade in the June 2015 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine discusses how you can use denatured alcohol to stop crumbling end grain while chopping out dovetails. The trick states it’s best for softwoods, which is where you see the most crumbling. As my students are always worried about this…

You do not need a complete set of 11 chisels from the 1/8” up to the monster 2”-wide chisel. Sure, the part of you that also collects Hummel figurines really wants a complete set, but most of the chisel sizes will go unused – even if you are an active woodworker. Your work and your…

Q: Whenever I buy a blade, like a tablesaw blade or a router bit, it’s always sharp. How come when I buy chisels they’re duller than a math lecture on the last day of school?   A: Although it seems reasonable to expect new chisels to come sharp, there are three good reasons why they…

It goes without saying that there is a renewed interest in hand tool woodworking, and much has been written on the topic, and that’s great because there really is a lot to know about these tools that are “new” to many woodworkers. That said, my experience with hand tools has taught me one thing –…

The difference between school and real life is that in real life the tests come first and then the lessons. This is especially true of woodworking; you never know how far you should take one step of a project until you are knee-deep in the next step. That’s when you realize you didn’t fuss enough…

There was a time when nearly even adult male in the United States owned a Stanley #4 smooth plane. The one I have was passed down to me by my dad (a chemical engineer) who got it from his dad (a tool and die maker). When I was a kid, dad dragged the thing out…

The first time someone showed me a photo of an infill handplane, it was bewilderment at first sight. “That’s a handplane?” I asked. All I could see were a bunch of odd lumps of wood and some steel. This was years before both the Internet and modern toolmakers made this form of tool a common…

When I teach woodworking, I talk a lot about monogamy. Not to your spouse (that’s your problem) but to your tools. I think it’s easier to learn to saw, sharpen and plane boards if you don’t jump around and use different handsaws, sharpening systems and bench planes. And when it comes to chisels, I’m super-monogamous…

When it comes to doing precision work that has to be performed over and over again, it’s easy to fall into the siren whine of the router. The router is probably my least-favorite woodworking tool. I don’t like how it is noisy. It never produces a ready-to-finish surface for mouldings. And it can destroy a…

Woodworking, like fishing, covers a lot of territory, so the audience for our magazine and web site is a diverse lot. When I learned how to make stuff out of wood, the Internet didn’t exist and there was only one magazine and few books available on the subject. Lacking these modern resources, I was forced…

Honestly, I’ve tuned so many dang metal planes in my lifetime that I’ll never worry about having enough iron in my diet. They might mine my carcass for the mineral when I’m dead. For me, it has always been an analog process: Do it by hand with inexpensive supplies. Today I spent the day tuning…

The most embarrassing jig I’ve ever owned has been photographed, measured and pondered more than any single piece of fine furniture I’ve built. It’s a stupid little block of wood with stops on it for many common chisel sharpening angles I use with my side-clamp honing guide – sometimes called the “Eclipse” guide because that…

These traditional tools are a throwback for a thoroughly modern maker.

By Christopher Schwarz
Page 14

Perhaps the last tools I ever expected to come out of the Blue Spruce Toolworks are the most traditional set of modern bench chisels I have ever used.

After all, Dave Jeske of Blue Spruce has spent all of his toolmaking career building gorgeous tools that have a definite modern and West Coast flavor. His knives, chisels, awls and even his mallets are about as close to contemporary sculpture as you can get (and I mean that as the highest compliment imaginable).

I can build a six-board chest entirely by hand in about 10 hours of shop time. That time starts with one 8’-long and one 12’-long board and ends with a paint job. In fact, I just did. The above statement is not a boast. Instead, it is a way to encourage you to build one…

Unlike many hand-tool woodworkers (and turners), I’m not much of a steel nerd. I’m not on a quest for the steel that promises the ultimate in edge life. The reason I’ve not experimented with lots of exotic steels is that every time I used CMP-10V, CMP-3V, D2 or whatever I found that these steels achieved…

In hand-tool woodworking, brains almost always trump brawn. For example, when I need to remove a lot of material from a localized area, I need to think like a tree assassin and exploit its weaknesses. Think about it for a minute: Trees are much stronger in the vertical axis than they are in the horizontal….

Even if I have an entire shop filled with power equipment, I like to cut my rabbets by hand. Why? It’s fast and fun. Once you master a rabbet plane or a moving fillister plane, your router table and table saw will get a lot less use. To push you along this path, I wrote…

Some woodworkers would rather stick their hand into a running disposal while naked than turn on a dry grinder. So when they need to correct the skew angle on a skewed plane iron or skewed chisel they are at a loss. I even met a guy who would just buy a new blade rather than…

Ever since Roy Underhill wrote about the joys of mutton tallow as a tool lubricant in Popular Woodworking Magazine in the August 2010 issue, readers have been asking where to purchase the stuff. Or, even more alarming, how to render it themselves. The good news is that Lee Valley Tools has started to carry McQueen’s…

Almost every system for sharpening tools works just fine, so the differences between the systems come down to speed, expense, portability and mess. In December, Lee Valley Tools started carrying diamond lapping film for sharpening edge tools. I kind of ignored it as I was busting my hump building a Campaign Secretary under a tight…

If you read this blog, you are probably interested in hand tools. And if you are at the beginning of your journey, this blog entry is for you. Popular Woodworking Magazine commissioned me to make a series of 10 to-the-point videos about hand tools that try to strip away the confusion so you can get…

I have a palm-grip random-orbit sander that I’ve used for many years on household projects that could not be planed because they were too big, such as 16’-long runs of base moulding nailed to a wall,  or weren’t designed for handplaning, such as plywood that is covered in paper-thin veneer. A couple years ago, the…

When you buy vintage Stanley planes in the wild, one of the most common problems is the tote – and sometimes the knob – are trashed. My first No. 5 had a crude replacement tote that was so poorly rasped that it looked like it was furry. I’d always intended to make a replacement but…

The shows from the latest season of Roy Underhill’s “The Woodwright’s Shop” can now be viewed online for free through this link. What, you are still here and reading my crap? Click the link and get over there and watch all 13 episodes. That’s more than six hours of Roy, with less than an hour…

In the great battle to make the best router plane (what, you weren’t aware of the war?), Lie-Nielsen has raised the stakes by introducing two new closed-throat routers. For those of you who don’t follow router plane minutiae like I do, the throat of a router plane can be either open or closed. Closed-throat routers,…

My favorite honing guide is the one you can find at almost any woodworking store. The guides are inexpensive and poorly made, but you can easily tune them up to make them work. One of the major faults of these guides is that when you tighten a tool between the jaws, the jaws tilt up…

There is a lot of nutty, stupid boasting in our craft. Examples: I can build that highboy in a weekend. I can rip faster than a table saw. I can eat more pies than you. But one of the boasts that gets the most eye-rolling is this: I can cut mouldings faster than you can…

Exotic woods don’t blow my skirt/kilt/skort up much. In small doses they can look beautiful, but for the most part I find them oily, difficult to work and far too wild looking for full-size furniture. I’ve always preferred hardwoods and softwoods from the Northern hemisphere. Quartersawn beech is exotic to me. Quartersawn sycamore is too…

When I inspect an antique tool – especially one that hasn’t been messed with much – I always take a look at the cutting edge. How was it sharpened? What is the shape of the edge? Did they do any work on the unbeveled face of the blade. Usually, the edges of most vintage tools…

Whether you love them or hate them, the English form of the infill plane has remained almost unchanged since it was invented in the 19th century. An infill plane is a metal shell that is stuffed – or infilled – with beautiful wood that supports the iron and helps you grip the tool. Perhaps this…

In my book, Jeff Miller might just be one of the keys to the future of woodworking. The furniture he’s built during the last three decades is decidedly contemporary. It has clean lines, simple curves and impeccable joinery and wood selection. Yet Miller manages to fold a surprising number of traditional tools into his tool…

When sharpened steel knocks into anything else, the result is usually dull steel. That’s why woodworkers protect sharp edges by wrapping our tools in canvas or leather tool rolls. Or we stuff them in smelly socks. Or we wrap them in special rags and refuse to even look at them for fear of them becoming…

I’ve been using rabbet planes for years and I have made my peace with them. However, there are thousands of woodworkers out there who are driven to distraction by these simple and essential planes. I hope to help you eliminate the two most common errors that lead to rabbets with sloping shoulders and angled cheeks….

I am married to a very smart woman. This has its advantages – life is never boring. It also has its disadvantages – she does not suffer fools (such as myself) lightly. What the heck does this have to do with woodworking? Plenty. In the world of woodworking tools there are two overarching varieties: the…

A dedicated shooting plane is a luxury item, much like a European table saw with a beautiful sliding table or a full keg of beer by your bedside. For many years, I’ve used my jointer plane to shoot edges and ends, and I’ve never wanted a fancy tool for the task. But after some arm-twisting…

The best things about the craft of woodworking – the things that bring pleasure in the work – are beyond my skills as a writer, teacher or friend to explain. Example: Powered jointers are – in my opinion – the most sensitive machine ever invented. They are like Phil Donohue with an induction motor. Beginning…

Quick reminder: I’ll be in southwest Michigan this Saturday (June 4) giving demonstrations and generally mopping up the drool in my vicinity at the open house of tool collector John Sindelar. Sindelar is going to open crates of tools that haven’t seen the light of day in decades. And his tool museum is outrageous. Words…

Anything – a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g – that reduces the time I spend sharpening my tools makes me giddy. Care Bear giddy. Monchichi giddy. Making tools dull is more fun. A few years ago I found a way to use a thin ruler to help me stone the faces of my card scrapers. It’s an adaptation of David…

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 the many debates that twist the knickers of modern woodworkers. The truth is that you can work with your tools set up…

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 guys I got to spend some time with was Raney Nelson of DAED Toolworks. He’s been making…

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 stones aren’t magic. He simply knows how to dance. The trick to keeping your stones flat is in how you hold 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 planes – give me anything from a No. 2 up to a No. 4 and I won’t…

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? When it comes to sharpening tools, I am not meditative. I am not slow. I am not interested…

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 laying out this moulding using a No. 4 plane. Cavetto, which means “to hollow,” is sometime called a simple…

I’ve been meaning to write up a review on Veritas replacement blades and cap irons for months, but every time I sat down to do it I realized that I didn’t have the tooling here at work for photography – it was at home and getting the snot used out of it. Veritas has done…

If you had only one bench plane, it would be nice if that plane could do both roughing and smoothing chores. Woodworker John Wilson tackled that problem in our April 2011 issue with his adjustable-pitch jack plane, which can be switched from 45° pitch to 52° pitch in less than a minute. I’ve had the…

I love “before” and “after” photos of things. This week I picked up a nice 3/16” side-bead plane from Josh Clark (aka Hyperkitten). The tool is a gem. The boxing is perfect. The sole is straight. The wedge fits great and the iron’s profile is the right shape and is – gasp – sharp. But…

When I’m trying to explain why I like hand tools to a hostile crowd – usually at a woodworking show – I like to pull out a Record 043 plow plane to demonstrate. First, it’s cuter than socks on a squirrel. Second, it’s a drawer-grooving little monster. In just a  minute or two, I can…

The only complaint I every hear about the Veritas bevel-up planes is that the rear tote isn’t as comfortable as that on an old Stanley or new Lie-Nielsen plane. If you are one of those people who prefer a curvier tote (and I am one of them), then I have some excellent news for you….

I finished setting up the eight new Stanley chisels this morning and will put them to work on some dovetails on Thursday morning. After re-grinding the three chisels that had their backs rolled over at the edge, the tools polished up quickly and nicely. They should – they are old school high-carbon steel. The box…

I finally found the time (it was between the couch cushions) to set up the new Stanley socket chisels. I’m working on the backs today, and here’s the news so far. Of the eight chisels, I’d rate two of them as “very good” – almost dead flat. Three are “good,” meaning they need another 20…

Many woodworkers fear the act of grinding. And “fear” might be too kind a word. I’ve had several woodworkers send me tools to grind for them (please don’t do this). Other woodworkers spend hundreds of dollars on fancy tool rests or other grinding jigs to ensure that the tool will not catch fire, steal their…

I don’t get to read much fiction anymore, but I do read old woodworking books almost every night (last night I finished the potboiler “Cabinet Construction” (1937) edited by the great J.C.S. Brough). And the reason I keep reading these books – even basic ones – is that there are gems to be found. Several…

After a number of delays and revisions, Stanley has released its long-awaited line of 750 series of chisels for woodworking. One of the first sets arrived on my desk on Monday, and I’ve been examining them during endless conference calls. I’ll be setting up the chisels during the coming week, in between filling in for Megan (who is on…

This morning has been frustrating. I’ve been scouring the shop for my bradawl, which I’ve owned for ages, but it’s just plain gone. And earlier this fall, one of our students accidentally took my favorite claw hammer home with him (he returned it). And I also lost the very first Starrett 6″ rule I ever…

I dislike using other people’s tools when I travel. And I dislike it when all my tools fall tips-first into the concrete. Oh, and I also dislike all of the tool rolls I’ve encountered. I’ve bought flimsy, poorly designed, ill-stitched tool rolls all my life. None really worked and so I have just taken to…

If you are curious about or struggle with moulding planes, planemaker M.S. Bickford has recently launched a new blog that will open your eyes: Musings from Big Pink. Using SketchUp drawings and full-motion video, Bickford has been using his blog to demonstrate how to create various profiles with hollow and round planes. The illustrations show…

I’ve always held the No. 95 edge-trimming plane like a block plane. The lever cap faces up to the sky. The fence of the No. 95 is then vertical. So I was surprised to see a little tip in the February 1942 issue of The Woodworker (a U.K. woodworking magazine) that showed the plane being…

If you’ve ever met Dave Jeske at Blue Spruce Toolworks, then you don’t have to read the next sentence. You already know he is one of the nicest, most honest and talented toolmakers working today. Jeske sent out his tool newsletter this week and there was a new item offered: tool rolls. I saw Jeske’s…

Tomorrow, Clark & Williams, which has been in business since 1996, will relaunch as a newly incorporated business called Old Street Tool, with Larry Williams and Don McConnell as the owners (and planemakers). Bill Clark (the “Clark” in the former name), is leaving the company to pursue other interests. The new company will offer the…

Those of you who follow my personal woodworking blog know that I have been selling off a lot of my excess tools and upgrading my shop at home. Since August, I’ve sold more than 100 tools that have been cramming up my home shop – everything from a sliding compound miter saw to awls. I…

When I teach people to sharpen I notice a bad habit that many of them have: They think that rubbing the tool against a stone is sharpening. The more they rub, the sharper it gets, no? Well, no. I think that sharpening is more about seeing and feeling than it is about rubbing. (Snakes alive…

It looks like the folks in New Britain, Conn., want to get things right. After Stanley’s first generation of the No. 62 low-angle jack plane had some problems, including a fatal bed error and a mouth that wouldn’t close, the company sent me a replacement. It had the same problems. And New Britain fell silent…

Stanley’s Sweetheart socket chisels should be for sale in the United States in about six to eight weeks, according to a company product manager. The chisels are in the final testing stages in the United Kingdom right now. The chisels were unveiled at a press conference in June. Since then, I have been hammered by…

For the last week or so I’ve been researching the science of smacking the snot out of things. I’ve been reading lecture notes from a Harvard course on “fracture mechanics,” learning what the Timber Construction Manual has to say about “design values for bearing on end grain” and hearing about the construction of escrima (a…

Some wide chisels and narrow plane irons don’t work well with the cheap-o side-clamp honing guide. They are too narrow to fit between the walls on the top of the guide. And they are too wide or thick to fit between the dovetailed ways in the guide. And setting the tool on the guide bars…

When it comes to powered machinery, I’m a fan of using carbide inserts in the cutterhead instead of traditional straight knives. The cutters last longer, they do a better job on figured woods and they make the machine quieter. M-Power Tools of England decided to put this same technology to use in chisels. The company…

Sometimes when I write, I come to a question that paralyzes me – and I cannot continue until I get it answered. As a newspaper journalist, I was trained to “write my way around the problem,” which probably is one reason I don’t work for newspapers anymore (the other reason: there aren’t any newspapers). A…

Reason No. 50 that I dislike chipbreakers: They can prevent your iron from retracting all the way into the mouth of the tool. Sometimes I think chipbreakers are a cruel joke on the woodworking community. Before chipbreakers (and the invention of pants) everyone was dandy. Nobody had a problem with setting their breaker (or with…

People gripe that the vintage tools and books I write about often go up in price after I post an entry. I actually think the effect is mild and temporary, except in two cases: Robert Wearing’s “The Essential Woodworker” and the Stanley No. 47 Adjustable Bit Gauge. (No, I don’t have any extra. No, you…

When your handplane won’t create a perfect surface, there are several things to check. Here’s how I diagnose the problem when it looks like I’m making plane tracks in my work. 1. Is the iron set properly in the mouth? Using a little slip of wood, I’ll try to confirm the position of the iron….

In a bar outside Philadelphia, Thomas Lie-Nielsen, John Economaki and I are having a drink and talking about the people who are getting rich selling tools. I’m on my second beer and running on four hours of sleep. I fumble and drop the veil of fairness and impartiality. “You know who is getting rich? The…

Before After When setting up bench planes, the enemy is plane tracks – the ugly step created on a board when one (or both) of the corners of the tool’s cutter digs into your work. In my opinion, plane tracks are uglier than tear-out, rotary-cut plywood and a Cincinnati Three-way. There are lots of ways…

About 10 years ago I was at The Hardware Show in Chicago visiting manufacturer’s booths to see what new stuff they had coming out for Christmas. Some of these tools would stretch credulity. Some of them never saw the light of day. Some of them were so awful that even women in bikinis (so-called “booth…

No one told me that setting up and using a scraper plane was a pain in the butt, so I didn’t think I had done anything special when I got my Stanley No. 80 to take perfect shavings my first time out of the gate. That was 14 years ago. Since then, I have answered…

After last weekend’s orgy of tools, woodworking and back-breaking workbench moving at Woodworking in America, I decided to take a break today and buy some tools and old woodworking books , and move a huge metallic garden bench. This morning I woke up at 5 a.m. and headed down to Louisville, Ky., with Megan Fitzpatrick…

I’m off to the airport in a few minutes to head to Metten, Germany, the headquarters of Dick GmbH. I’ll be teaching a class called “Classic Joinery” and we’ll be building a small Shaker cabinet using only hand joinery. I’ve built a few of these cabinets and they are great fun. If you mess something…

This is, as far as I know, a first. This month M. Power Tools will introduce new chisels that have a replaceable high-speed-steel tip. According to the company’s literature, you should be able to change from a dull tip to a sharp one in less than a minute using only a screwdriver. And to make…

One of the world’s biggest tool collectors is bringing his brand-new traveling tool museum to Northern Kentucky on Oct. 1-2 to show it off to the public at the Woodworking in America event at the Northern Kentucky Convention Center. John Sindelar of Edwardsburg, Mich., has spent his entire adult life amassing some of the world’s…

I wrote a short review of Karl Holtey’s No. 982 smoothing plane for the October 2010 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine (which is mailing now to subscribers). And you don’t write a review of a tool that costs $10,500 without bracing yourself for some comments from readers. Overall, I quite liked the tool, which was…

Learning to sharpen has little to do with your sharpening stones. It has a lot more to do with being able to see your progress and knowing when to stop. Showing a class of woodworkers what a sharp blade looks like in the flesh (a real poor choice of words) has proven to be tricky…

My first Stanley shoulder plane (a No. 93) was the worst plane I ever bought. The sole was more than 1/8″ out of alignment, and it took me a couple hours on a belt sander to even get the tool working. That dog of a tool was built during the sunset days of Stanley’s U.K….

I don’t relish handing out bad reviews of tools. But as someone who gets stoned occasionally by an angry mob, I know that a critical review can help improve the quality of my work in the future. During the last year I reviewed new premium planes by both Wood River (Woodcraft’s line) and Stanley. I…

Router planes are the Starsky. Handsaws are the Hutch. These two tools work together all the time in my shop. In fact, all the sawing classes I teach are actually classes on the router plane in disguise. So I have seen a lot of woodworkers struggle with sharpening the router plane’s L-shaped iron. Some woodworkers…

So we shot two 25-minute episodes of “The Woodwright’s Shop” today. So you are probably wondering what the heck I did with the other 23 hours of my day. Manicure? Pedicure? Facial? Crystal Meth bender? Nyet. I woke up this morning at 6 a.m. at Roy’s place , he lives in an old mill, and…

I’m packing up all the tools I’ll need in North Carolina for the coming week, and I was a bit shocked this morning as I went through my checklist. One of the “Woodwright’s Shop” television programs Roy Underhill and I are shooting this weekend will deal with the typical toolkit of a joiner circa 1839….

Isshi Yamada never said much to me when I was dating his daughter in college. To us Western students who studied Eastern religions, he was an enigmatic Zen Buddhism professor who was famous for giving exams that bordered on the surreal. Most of my memories of Dr. Yamada put him sitting at his dining room…

Bob Baker, a furniture and tool restorer and excellent planemaker, died unexpectedly last week. I had the pleasure of meeting Bob in February of 2006 when we hosted a gathering in Cincinnati for many of the best planemakers and gave each of them the opportunity to present their work to one another, and to talk…

Thanks to the steady stream of tools that flow in and out of our shop, I do a lot of sharpening. I set up more tools from scratch than I care to admit. And I wear out sharpening stones. Last week I noticed that my #1,000-grit Shapton Glasstone was getting wafer thin. This is the…

When I worked at a liquor bottling plant one summer, the bosses found out I was in college and decided to put me in charge of the robots. I had to summon the robots from the warehouse, pick up an entire pallet of coffee liquor with a giant robot arm and load it on the…

I can make my own beef jerky, but that doesn’t mean I want to apply veneer-making techniques to a hapless bovine. So when I found out that long-time woodworker Bill Rittner was making knobs and totes for vintage Stanley planes, I jumped at buying a set for my vintage No. 6 fore plane. That plane’s…

Until we get some sets of these chisels in-house, there’s no way to answer all of our (or your) questions about these tools. However, thanks to Publisher Steve Shanesy, we now have more details from the Stanley press conference and , if you can stand it , a little speculation on my part at the…

This is by request. And for me this is like showing you my basement. Did you see the pawn shop’s basement in “Pulp Fiction?” It’s like that , but without the Spandex, leather and shotguns. A reader asked to see the angle-setting guide I use for setting my tools in my side-clamp honing guide when…

Stanley Toolworks unveiled three new hand tools today at a press conference in New York City , two different kinds of chisels and a shoulder plane. I couldn’t attend the press conference, but Publisher Steve Shanesy is there (as I type this) taking photos with his phone. I don’t have a lot of details yet,…

In the world of infill planes, there are several tools that stand out as iconic designs, including Karl Holtey’s “bad arse” A13 and his groundbreaking No. 98, which laid the groundwork for all the modern bevel-up planes. On this side of the Atlantic, few planes are as distinct as Stephen M. Thomas’s “Loopy” infill. It…

Some days I forget that not all woodworking tools are designed by woodworkers (see: many of the honing guides on the market). And I forget that some tools are just designed to trick your family members into buying them for you at Christmas (see also: the battery-operated tape measure and C-clamp). This weekend as I…

John Sindelar, who owns the most jaw-dropping, drool-inducing tool collection I’ve ever seen, is bringing a big chunk of it to our Woodworking in America show Oct. 1-3 in Cincinnati. And here’s the best part: The collection will be displayed (in a traveling trailer) that will be on the floor of the Marketplace. If you…

When I was assisting a woodworking class this April, a student asked why anyone would buy an infill plane. They are more expensive than a premium plane from Veritas or Lie-Nielsen, and perform at the same very high level. “Well,” I answered. “I build stuff by hand. When people occasionally buy my stuff it’s expensive….

The subject of skew block planes gets people’s bodily juices going. When I announced at our weekly staff meeting that we had received a new skew block plane from Veritas, two of the editors who use primarily power tools sat up straight and said “Really!?” and “Cool!” After many years of working here, I can…

After a couple of weeks of working with the legs for this new workbench, I am certain the material is not pine. Yes, I know. Shocker. The good people at Home Depot were mistaken. What is it? Heck if I know. My best guess is that it’s Douglas fir or hemlock, based on my experiences…

The world needs more makers of new wooden handplanes, especially moulding planes. Vintage moulding planes can, in my experience, be testy. The narrow stocks can be twisted or bowed, the irons can be rusted to oblivion and many wedges need to be replaced. If you read my article on Clark & Williams planemakers in the…

Several weeks ago I was planing a piece of palm when my hand slipped, and a deep sliver of the nasty grass dove into the middle finger of my left hand. I dug out as much of the splinter as I could. But now almost six weeks later, the foreign object (as my doctor calls…

One of the great mysteries of the hand tool world is how Roy Underhill never seems to get older. (Is there a cursed painting in your attic, Mr. Underhill?) The other great mystery is about the unbeveled faces of vintage irons in handplanes. If you’ve even bought an old plane you know of what I…

One of my first handplanes, a Stanley No. 5, had a shopmade tote that was all kinds of wrong. Wrong shape, wrong wood, wrongly made. So as soon as I could, I bought a replacement front knob and tote. These also were all kinds of wrong. Wrong wood, wrong glossy finish, wrong high knob. But…

There are still some spots open in the woodworking classes I’m teaching this winter. If you’ve recently come into a little money (thank you First National Bank of the Plasma) and have a little time available, here are some details on these classes. Handplanes and Workbenches Feb. 26 at the Woodcraft in Alpharetta, Ga. (suburban…

If you’re parsimonious, tardy or just plain wary, then this post is for you. My book “Handplane Essentials” is now on sale for the first time since its release this summer. Until Feb. 15, you can get “Handplane Essentials” for 20 percent off, plus free shipping in the United States. The book is normally $34.99….

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 … let’s say “counterintuitive.” But the more I use a curved iron, the more I like it. I’m always stumbling on little…

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 asked. I sure did. I had rescued a damaged one that my company was throwing away back in 1996 when the book…

We’ve just received our shipment of our newest DVD: “Handplane Basics: A Better Way to Use Bench Planes.” And despite my needing a haircut when we filmed it, I’m pleased with the result. Check out the trailer above for a quick preview. (Yes, there is banjo music.) Thanks to Megan Fitzpatrick’s, ahem, firm direction and…

I’m a mediocre guitar player. But because I’m a fair judge of craftsmanship, I have an immense respect for real-deal lutherie. Have you seen one of Jameel Abraham’s ouds in person? They walk that fine line between something that looks and feels both handmade and perfect. On the other side of the equation are musical…

After years of development, Lie-Nielsen Toolworks is planning on making a No. 51 chute-board plane that should be released in the first quarter of 2010, Thomas Lie-Nielsen says. Tool collectors and users have been requesting this rare tool for many years, and Lie-Nielsen has found a way to produce it by using many existing parts…

Legendary English craftsman Alan Peters used a Stanley No. 7 for every bench plane operation. David Charlesworth uses a No. 5-1/2. Joseph Moxon says you need a fore, jointer and smoothing planes. And many woodworkers use just a bevel-up jack plane. After years of teaching hundreds of people to use bench planes and answering thousands…

Today most of the magazine’s staff spent the day with Ron Herman, a seventh-generation housewright in Columbus, Ohio, who has spent the last 29 years building, remodeling and restoring homes and historic sites , in many cases using only traditional tools. His small shop north of the city is one of the wonders of the…

Hi. I’m a long-time reader and a first-time caller. I really want to start using handplanes in my work. I’ve been looking at some of the premium handplanes from Veritas and Lie-Nielsen and wow! I can’t afford that. Could you tell me where I could get some planes that are just as good as those…

Sometimes I feel a tad guilty for owning tools from Veritas, Lie-Nielsen and Blue Spruce. But then I pick up my very first chisel and I get over it. I’ve had that chisel since I graduated from college , it’s a 1/2″ chisel I bought at WalMart and it’s branded Popular Mechanics (is that an…

In the interest of full disclosure, the following book , “The Perfect Edge” , is being published by my parent company, F+W Media. Also, I consider the author, Ron Hock, a good friend. Oh, and once I got on stage and shook it with a belly dancer in Greece after too many grape leaves and…

I like it when the name of something is eponymous, it fits. Was there ever a woodworker who was more aptly named than the late “Art Carpenter?” When I was working as a newspaper reporter, I dealt occasionally with a spokesman named “Woody Forrest.” I don’t even know if that guy was a woodworker. Why…

I crossed the border from Missouri to Arkansas this afternoon, and I knew immediately I was home. For starters, the land is achingly beautiful. I miss the Ozarks I grew up with, which are surprisingly unspoiled by development. Every curve in the rugged terrain brings a new vista. You might be high over a lake…

I drove to Indianapolis last weekend for dinner. Chris was demonstrating there at a Lie-Nielsen show, a friend who lives in California cashed in some frequent flier miles and flew in, and it’s always fun to see Angie and Alex and the rest of the show gang. And Chris has been raving about Brugge Brasserie,…

When I bought my first smoothing plane at a flea market in Burlington, Ky., I could fit everything I knew about handplanes into one of the Elvis Presley shot glasses I stumbled upon that weekend. One vendor had a lot of smoothing planes on his table, so I picked up each one, took it apart…

In a move that will please traditionalists and people who pare, Lie-Nielsen Toolworks has started offering some plane irons and chisels made using oil-hardened (O1) steel , in addition to the more modern A2 steel. The O1 steel is available right now in the 2″- and 2-3/8″-wide bench plane irons, according to Thomas Lie-Nielsen. And…

I’ve always been an advocate for low workbenches, especially for planing operations. My workbench is at 34″ (and while standing on my horse stall mat it’s 33″). And I’ve become quite fond of Megan’s bench, which is at 30″ (horse mat included). But I can tell you that 16″ is just too low. Yes, you…

This week I’m building the sitting bench for the White Water Shaker community; the bench will be featured in the Winter 2009 issue of Woodworking Magazine. The version I’m building is a very close copy, so it will be 13′ long. The version we’ll show in the magazine will be 4′ long (who really needs…

If you liked the video of me walking up a wall, you might enjoy this alternative treatment sent in by a reader who we like to call “Cheeseburger, No Meat.” If you are offended by references to my bum, or to masked avengers, then please do not click on the video. – Christopher Schwarz

You know, at our Woodworking in America event last week I didn’t get to talk to a lot of the toolmakers. In fact, I didn’t even get to see some of them. That is what a madhouse it was. So that’s why I’m particularly pleased to announce a couple additional toolmakers who are coming to…

In my book, there is one rule for buying vintage tools: Buy them from someone who will take them them back if the tool stinks. That rule keeps me on my toes on eBay, at auctions, flea markets and at garage sales. If I can’t completely inspect, disassemble and use a tool before I buy…

One of the weaknesses of the so-called transitional handplanes is the way the tote attaches to the metal frame of the tool. The tote comes loose when you touch it, look at it or even think about it. I’ve seen many of these tools with replacement totes , everything from a custom-made fancy doo-dad to…

This year I’ve made friends with my chisel plane. In fact, I don’t think I could have installed the Benchcrafted wagon vise as a retrofit without it. Today I got another lesson in chisel-plane use from Carl Bilderback that I’d like to share with you. Carl is a woodworker, semi-retired carpenter, tool collector and active…

For me, there is something that is far more interesting than the purported uses of “the nib” of a handsaw. And that is: The origin of the term “jack plane.” In my book “Handplane Essentials,” we reprinted a short bit about the origin of the term. For those of you who don’t have the book,…

I never got to meet James Krenov, and so last week I hesitated to write anything about his death. But as I drove home on Friday afternoon I forgot to turn on the stereo in my car, and my mind drifted to a long weekend in 2006 when I was sure I knew the man….

When I teach people how to sharpen and set up a handplane, I can jabber endlessly to little effect. Sure, I’ll get in a few jokes about lemurs and frogs (and their forbidden love), but I really don’t earn my keep until I start the “show and tell” section of the lecture. That’s when I…

The first time I ever met toolmaker Ray Iles, we got into a conversation about the planes made by Karl Holtey. I asked Ray: Have you ever used one of Holtey’s planes? How do they work? “Use one?” Ray replied, with a dismissive tone. “Why, they’re just bloody perfect!” Ray’s comment confused me. That was…

It’s little wonder that Stanley chose to bring its No. 62 low-angle jack plane back to life when the company decided last year to re-enter the premium handplane market. After all, the original No. 62 is highly prized by tool collectors , and Lie-Nielsen Toolworks and Veritas have both improved the plane and made it…

When I began teaching at woodworking schools several years ago, it was the most selfish act imaginable. I didn’t do it to share what I know about woodworking. I didn’t do it to inspire other woodworkers. I didn’t do it for the travel or the all-you-can-eat breakfast bars in mid-priced hotels. I began teaching so…

Several customers have asked why the pages in their brand new copy of “Handplane Essentials” have a slight wave to them, like David Hasselhoff’s hair in a botanical garden. The good news is that the wave should go away in a couple weeks. If you want to know why this happened, read on. Because paper…

I got wind last week of a new German-made smoothing plane from Kunz and , surprise , today it landed on a table while I was signing books at our Woodworking in America conference. It’s called the Kunz Plus, and it’s a 9-3/4″-long smoothing plane that is quite obviously a departure from the company’s planes…

I got to spend a little time in the Marketplace area of the Woodworking in America conference this morning and got a first look at some new hand tools that will be available soon. First stop was with Dave Jeske at Blue Spruce Toolworks. Dave has a new line of try squares coming out this…

When the new premium planes from Stanley arrived, it was agony. I was in the middle of another project and had to just stare at them for a week before I could get my mitts on them. The first tool I set up was the No. 4 smoothing plane, which I reviewed for the October…

Time to drop my drawers and lose all my Neander-cred. My favorite planing stop for drawers and casework is the rip fence on my $1,200 Unisaw. The rip fence is completely adjustable, at the right height for me (34″) and 100-percent stable. Also, the benchtop (cast iron and melamine) never needs flattening. I’ve used the…

Some things about sharpening everyone knows (it’s two metal surfaces, an abrasive and friction). Other things nobody knows (such as the best system ever). And there is a third category of sharpening facts: Things that everyone should know, but some people don’t. I’ve been doing a lot of sharpening these last few weeks, both for…

A shooting board is one of the most essential accessories for a handplane , everyone should have one. But not every woodworker is confident enough to build one or isn’t able to build one accurately. Rob Hanson of Evenfall Studios now offers a custom shooting board of his own design that is well-made, accurate and…

All custom planemakers are judged against the work of Karl Holtey. His work has the precision of a Swiss watchmaker, and the tools are finished to such a degree that some might classify them as jewelry , if they weren’t such hardworking tools. Many people have wondered how Holtey makes his tools, and all the…

As a beginning dovetailer, I had a crappy set of plastic-handled chisels, a newspaperman’s salary and a copy of the Japan Woodworker catalog. All three things conspired to make me miserable. I wanted to cut dovetails with bold angles, but my crappy chisels had side bevels that were as big as Cheddar Mountain at Bonanza….

Look around your neighborhood. The next time you see a truck belonging to a contractor or cabinetmaker, there’s a good chance that the company uses a handplane in its logo. Though the image of a plane is the mark of the craftsman, there are few craftsmen who really know how to use the tool. Has…

Editor Christopher Schwarz is out of town , so we’ve commandeered his blog for a few days. Don’t worry , the socks on squirrels and monkey references will soon return. When The Schwarz first handed me the M.Power PSS1, I was intrigued because sharpening has always been my woodworking Achilles’ heel , if you’re looking…

When you pick up an old plane in an antique store or swap meet it is sending off clues. This is (I’m told) a bit like speed dating , your job is to weed out the twitchy, drooling, camo-wearing sociopaths to find a suitable mate for life. If you’re not an expert in planes, you…

After being in and out of print during the last several years, David Finck’s “Making & Mastering Wood Planes” is finally available for sale again directly from the author. This 192-page, full-color book isn’t just for the person who wants to build handplanes based on the designs of James Krenov. I read this book when…

We’re received the much-anticipated new planes from Stanley Works and are beginning to set them up for a review in a future issue of the magazine. In the meantime, here are some of the details on the tools that will help clear up some of the misinformation and confusion on the Internet. The Stanley No….

A curved cutting edge is critical to most operations with your bench planes. The curve prevents the corners of the iron from digging into your work, and it allows you to correct the flatness of the face or edge of a board. But how do you create this curve, sometimes called a “camber?” And how…

The little side-clamp honing guide is my favorite bit of sharpening equipment. But it frequently is criticized for two shortcomings: – It is poorly made and sloppily painted. So you have to tune the little sucker up before it will perform reliably, especially with chisels. This is a 100-percent valid critique of this honing guide….

As a hand-tool woodworker, I try to avoid bookmatching my panels. Bookmatching creates a panel where the grain in one board runs one way and the grain in the other board runs the opposite. When you handplane that panel, tear-out is almost inevitable. Bookmatching is, in my opinion, better left to those with sanders and…

Instead of writing about the flatness of plane soles, perhaps I should talk about something less controversial, such as religion or politics. When purchasing a vintage plane, the flatness of the sole can be critical when making a purchasing decision. So I’m going to man-up here and talk about how I approach this potential problem….

Cincinnati is not a tourist destination like nearby Big Bone Lick, Ky., So when people come to visit our shop I try to accommodate all their requests so they consider their journey to “Porkopolis” to be worth the gasoline. This weekend, one of the visitors to our shop pointed to the anvil by my workbench…

Whenever I teach a class on handplanes, I’m amazed at what the students bring to set up and use. I’ve seen Holtey planes and Harbor Freight planes in the same class. And there’s always at least one student who brings an entire box of vintage planes that he or she bought at a garage sale…

Sometimes it seems like there are 100 things that can go wrong with a handplane before it will do one thing right: Eject a perfect and fluffy shaving. Lately I’ve been using a lot of bevel-up planes on softwoods and have become attuned to some of their peculiarities. Maybe I’m the new dumb kid on…

The vintage Stanley No. 48 plane was one of the most gizmo-tastic planes in the company’s arsenal. It’s a single tool that can cut both the tongue and the mating groove. All you have to do to switch the plane from one function to the other is pivot the fence 180Ã?°. I’ve had a No….

If you have been putting off buying an insert from toolmaker Paul Hamler that converts a bench plane to a scraper plane, you might want to start checking your couch cushions for change. Hamler reports that he has 40 of the inserts remaining that convert a Bailey-style plane to a scraper plane, and one insert…

The most miserable aspect of hand work is setting up the tools for the first time. Removing the coarse manufacturing scratches from the unbeveled faces of your edge tools can be grueling, boring and filthy work. (One side note before someone spanks me about David Charlesworth’s “ruler trick.” I really think you need to remove…

I spent most of this weekend on my knees, and it had nothing to do with a lengthy visit to Chicago’s Hopleaf gastropub or the large cooler of Julius Echter wheat beer that a reader brought to us. Instead, I spent most of the weekend on my knobby knees at the Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event…

I’m fairly well convinced that my ears are different than yours. The music I like isn’t going to sound the same to you. It’s almost impossible for me to share with another person what the Heartless Bastards sounds like to me. Language is too imprecise. Same goes with the eyes (and tastebuds). How you experience…

While teaching a class on handplanes this weekend, one student in particular was having a heck of a time with his Veritas No. 4-1/2 smoothing plane. Let’s call him Mr. Papanicolaou. (I just hate it when writers use simple names for pseudonyms.) Papanicolaou was trying to dress a board with the plane, but the plane…

This weekend I assisted Thomas Lie-Nielsen during a class on handplanes at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking. Thomas brought along some of the new tools they are working on and talked to the class about new tools in the pipeline in Warren, Maine. Here are some details: Panel saws: Lie-Nielsen is starting to ship…

There are lots of people who will show you how to handplane the edge of a board. A few less who will show you how to really flatten the wide face of a board. A smaller number will show you how to flatten a glued-up panel (stay tuned , that tutorial is already written) and…

With the release of the new Veritas Small Scraping Plane last week, lots of people are saying: Cool! I want one! Do I need one? Good question. Scraping planes are curious birds. The large scraping planes are typically used to dress tabletops and large panels that have unruly grain. Scraping planes can ignore grain direction,…

The hardest thing about dovetailing isn’t the sawing or the chiseling or the layout. It’s the seeing. I don’t think I can teach anyone to see, but I can show you where to look. Developing your eye , plus your ability to sense the perpendicular , will do more for your dovetailing skills than any…

When most people think about cutting dovetails, they think: handsaws. However, there’s more to dovetailing than sawing. You also need to be mindful of your handplanes when you’re dovetailing. They can create gaps or help prevent them. This week I’m dovetailing a bunch of drawers and smallish boxes, so my planes are heavy on my…

Plow planes are some of the easiest joinery planes to use , once you know a few tricks to getting good results. I struggled with the tools until Don McConnell (now a planemaker at Clark & Williams) set me straight years ago with one simple piece of advice: “Each hand should have a separate job,”…

A couple years ago I finally got to go to Winterthur, the DuPont’s estate in Delaware that is a shrine to early American furniture. Right as our tour of the collection was about to begin, the docents segregated me from the gaggle of chattering blue-haired old ladies. In retrospect, the docents were probably afraid I…

When I glue up panels from several narrow boards, I use my jointer plane to dress all the mating edges. While our power jointer is fairly well tuned, it’s rarely perfect , we have a busy shop. So I find it easier to dress my edges by hand than to fuss with the powered jointer….

In my kindergarten class, someone was snitching cookies from the lunchboxes of the rest of the class. (Spoiler alert: It was the fat kid.) While the teacher’s investigation was ongoing, she gave us a speech that I still remember. “I once had a student who stole cookies,” she said. “Then he stole lunch money. Then…

There is no single best way to set a bench plane to take a proper shaving. I’ve seen people do it by eye, with their fingertips, using scraps of wood and even working on live stock and making adjustments on the fly. This last technique takes guts. It’s like working on a car while the…

Anyone who has worked with me for about five minutes knows that I really like chamfers on my work. Stop chamfers, such as those found on early English and American work, are particularly attractive to my eye. I also like through-chamfers, and my favorite tool for making those is the Veritas Chamfer Guide. This $22…

When you’re a professional writer, people tend to give you cranky manual typewriters as gifts. They don’t expect you to use them, per se. But they do expect you to display them in your home. Good thing I’m not an undertaker. For years I despised manual typewriters and rolled my eyes any time one of…

These days investing in premium tools might have less financial risk than the stock market. Just about every week I get an e-mail or phone call from a reader asking me if they think that premium handplanes from Veritas, Lie-Nielsen and Clifton are worth the extra expense. I think they are worth the money, and…

Need to clean up the corners of really wide rabbets? Then I have the plane for you. This Stanley plane is so rare it doesn’t even show up in John Walter’s “Stanley Tools Guide to Identity & Value.” You won’t find it at Patrick Leach’s Blood & Gore web site. Heck, I don’t even think…

For the Lie-Nielsen fan who has everything, you might consider getting a Lie-Nielsen tattoo for the arm that pushes your bronze and ductile iron beauties. Casual Lie-Nielsen fans can purchase the temporary tattoos Lie-Nielsen Toolworks sells at its web site ($5 for 10 of them). Or you can go all the way and get a…

Plastic mallets can be highly durable, but they always look like plastic. Wooden mallets look great, but they sure get beat up after a few years of use. Now Dave Jeske at Blue Spruce Toolworks has produced a mallet where every cell of the wood is infused with acrylic. This results in a mallet that…

Sometimes brand-new chisels and planes (even from the best manufacturers) don’t hold an edge well. I’ve seen some edges crumple like tin foil after two whacks with a mallet or two strokes on a board. Weak edges aren’t as common a problem as weak chin lines, but they do happen. When I teach a class…

Reaching underneath my tool rack can be like sticking my hand in a lion’s mouth. All of the dangling edge tools have alternately shaved, nicked and scared the bejeezus out of me over the years. So I try to protect the tips of my sharp tools whenever I can. And when a tool doesn’t come…

Dave Jeske’s tool-making shop in Oregon City, Ore., is in exactly the same place as his new bench chisel: halfway between the islands and toolmaking traditions of Japan and England. Like a Japanese chisel, the new Blue Spruce Toolworks bench chisel connects the blade and the handle using a combination of a socket and a…

There are still some spots available in the class on handplanes that Thomas Lie-Nielsen and I are teaching in April at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking. This is the only class I am teaching in 2009. The weekend class is April 25-26 at the school, which is just south of Indianapolis. The class is…

Last week I compared the Lie-Nielsen and Veritas small router planes and concluded that I really would like a Lie-Nielsen with a closed throat. So, of course, a reader showed me how it can be done. Tony Sutton closed the throat on his Lie-Nielsen router plane using some UniBond 5-minute epoxy. Sutton built up some…

The first time I saw a chisel plane was at an antique market in Kentucky. It was sitting out on a table with a bunch of common planes. Every person who walked up to the table picked it up to check its price tag, but the seller knew what he had. The original Stanley No….

Pint-sized router planes see a lot of use in my shop. Instead of using a trim router, I always prefer to cut mortises for hinges with a chisel and a router plane. So as soon as Veritas and Lie-Nielsen started making small router planes based loosely on the Stanley No. 271 about 18 months ago,…

The stuff I write about Stanley’s metallic scrub planes always gets me in trouble with the people who use the tool to dress the faces of rough lumber. You can find my stories here and here. You can find the floggings on any of the forum sites (just search under “Schwarz”+”pin-headed mouth-breather”). In any case,…

Though the new Stanley premium handplanes won’t hit stores for a month or more, the company has released these photos of the planes that are going to be used on some packaging. These photos were taken by the company’s United Kingdom employees. Up until now, we’ve only seen computer renderings of the planes. Though the…

The new line of premium Stanley planes should be available in January or February 2009, according to Stanley officials. The planes were originally planned for a November 2008 release, but a company official said they needed to fine-tune the finished appearance of the tools , plus Stanley ran into a couple mechanical snags. The premium…

The unveiling of two new Veritas block planes this week has thrilled some customers with their sleek design, and confused others. Is Veritas , a company historically focused on function more than form , changing its course with these new planes? “It’s not a direction change at all,” says Robin Lee, the president of Lee…

Handplanes with corrugated soles vex many woodworkers. If you find them on a vintage plane, should you grab it or should you shun it? If you order a bench plane from Lie-Nielsen Toolworks, should you spend the extra $35 to get a corrugated sole or is that money better spent on some Lehman Brothers stock?…

A lot of people ask to see my tool collection. I tell them I don’t have one , I’m a user, not a collector. If I say that again, however, I’ll be a liar. Somehow during the last few months I’ve started acquiring edge-trimming planes. I’ve owned a Lie-Nielsen version , a right-handed copy of…

Several years back I was fitting some 1/4″-thick mullions and muntins into a door and needed to plane the little suckers to remove their sawmarks. Planing thin stock can be a real pain. I’ve seen how other craftsmen do it. Lonnie Bird drives escutcheon pins into his benchtop (or a planing board) and works against…

One of the most powerful things about hand tools is that they allow you to work on small areas of a board with ease. Instead of running the whole board through an electric planer to remove a small area of ugliness, you can usually remove it with a couple well-placed swipes of a handplane. But…

Reader Tim Williams writes: I have a number of old Stanley planes that I’ve spent a lot of hours cleaning and refurbishing. I’ve read multiple places about how when tuning up a plane, it’s a good idea to flatten the mating surfaces of the frog so the iron beds well, with lots of contact, to…

Almost every day I get an e-mail or a phone call that goes something like this: “I’m a beginner. I want to buy some handplanes. But I have no idea where to start or what to buy. Help.” I’m happy to answer these questions (it’s my job), but I noticed after 12 years of answering…

Stanley Works will unveil a new premium bevel-edge chisel this year that bears some similarities to the company’s vaunted Everlasting line of chisels that were made between 1911 and 1942. Like the Everlasting chisels, the new Stanley chisels will have the blade, head and shank made from one piece of solid steel with wooden scales….

The new Stanley No. 4 smoothing plane. Stanley Works will release five premium-grade handplane models this year that are designed to compete with planes from Veritas and Lie-Nielsen Toolworks, officials said. The line includes new designs for a No. 4 smoothing plane, a low-angle jack plane, a shoulder plane and two block planes. All of…

Veritas has just released its much-awaited Side Rabbet Plane (at a special introductory price) and Veritas was generous enough to permit me to test-drive it here in our workshop. Though I still am getting comfortable with the tool, below are my initial impressions after trimming out about a dozen grooves and rabbets this week.About Side…

My first fillister plane was so pathetic it’s a wonder I’m not the poster boy for DeWalt routers. But then, I don’t look so good in yellow. Mom says I’m a winter. Abut a decade ago I bought a Sargent copy of the execrable Stanley No. 78. I know I’m being hard on a plane…

Lately I’ve been planing stuff that has been a lot nastier than your typical run-of-the-mill cherry, oak and walnut. First Senior Editor Glen D. Huey tried to torture me by bringing in some curly maple for the blanket chest on cover the Summer 2008 issue. Then I built the cover project for the Fall 2008…