Chairmaking requires its own unique tools and skillset. It may be daunting, but building a Windsor chair opens up a whole new world within woodworking. Here’s how to do it.

While design is dominated by the eye, the hand plays an important role. Most of what I’ve written about design has focused on how we look at it. Yet good design often has multiple layers that speak to all of our senses. We tend to think of the visual sense as the dominant player, but…

From the Middle Ages until the dawn of the 20th century, wooden planes were the dominant bench plane form in the Western world. But when I started woodworking (in the hand-tool dark ages of the late 20th century), this traditional form seemed practically extinct. As I became interested in planemaking, I found plenty of information…

After talking about the look and feel of the new Richter Chisel (including its test companion the Stanly #750) and last week’s entry on how I sharpened them, we have finally reached the finale of this three-part saga – the actual slicing duel.  Test methodology Bench chisels are meant mainly for sheering wood fibers, either…

After my initial inspection of both the Narex-Richter and the Stanley 750 chisels, I was ready for the sharpening process. Before sharpening a new blade I like to check the back for flatness with a small precision square or a knife-edge straight edge. This gives me an indication of whether the back is convex or…

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 the loss of feel and sensitivity with gloves. So I came up with a simple solution to avoid getting cut by these edges. I cut…

In late January Narex, the reputable Czech hand tool manufacturer sent me a box that contained three chisels for review. The sturdy but old fashioned stapled together gray cardboard box held three sleek jet black capsules that contained the new Richter line of bench chisels. It took me a few months and now I am…

Make these French moulding planes that are essential for every hand-tool kit. Hollows and rounds are making a strong comeback in the hand tool woodworking world. However, many woodworkers are scared off from jumping in by either a limited tool budget or the limited availability of antique ones in good condition. Don’t let that hold…

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.

The best rationale for these ultra high-end tools might not be what you think. Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the December 2015 issue of Popular Woodworking Over the past decade, I’ve made somewhere approaching a couple hundred custom handplanes, both for my own enjoyment and (since 2010) as my full-time occupation. I’d like…

When I was a kid, the first saw I bought was a Craftsman coping saw with a chrome frame and red-stained handle. For years I did everything with that saw – crosscuts, rips, curves and even joints. But I made none of those cuts particularly well. Part of the problem was that I was 11…

Just keep saying ‘micron.’ Woodworkers who use hand tools to lay the quality touch on their work know what can be accomplished with these wonderful inventions. Along with skill, supplied of course by you, a good hand tool is an exquisite blend of simplicity and sophistication that is capable of sweetening your work well beyond…

Learn the techniques to carve this traditional flowing drapery design. Backpacking across Europe as a college student, I experienced the awe-inspiring splendor of magnificent cathedrals and castles. I took every opportunity I could to visit these buildings, and I was afraid to blink for fear of missing some intricate and important detail; I just could…

This classic furniture piece offers lots of storage in a small footprint – and it’s a simple hand-tool build I need some additional storage space in my 7′ x 13′ shop, however, space in my shop is at a premium. At the moment, every inch of floor and wall space is occupied, except for a…

We may receive a commission when you use our affiliate links. However, this does not impact our recommendations. Custom-fit your tools to your hand. One of the best uses for a lathe is making tool handles. Most production tool handles leave something to be desired. The good news is that the handle is the part…

  From 1977-1983 I made my living as a studio furniture designer and maker. In addition to making furniture, I found most of the hand tools available at the time so uninspiring and inconsistent with the craftsmanship values I was trying to impart in my furniture, that I made my own. The roots of my…

In my job as a woodworking teacher I do not only have command over the pedagogical content of our program, but also on the daily maintenance tasks of tool sharpening and general shop upkeep. Some of our tools, and especially the gouges, see heavy use that requires me to sharpen them quite often. If possible…

Tool: Veritas Butt Chisels Manufacturer: Veritas Price: Starting at $70 Butt chisels have shorter blades than bench chisels and are generally made in wider sizes. They’re typically used for efficiently wasting out large areas, such as the mortises for installing butt hinges. These new butt chisels from Veritas’ are beautifully made and a pleasure to use. Though…

From the Editors and Contributors In an effort to inform our readers about the latest and greatest, Popular Woodworking has surveyed the rich landscape of tools and equipment available and made our picks of woodworking tools of note for 2019. Here’s our top ten, plus one tool storage accessory thrown in for good measure. Auto-Jig…

Whenever we visit our friends in Toronto, I always make sure to stop by at least one of the three Lee Valley stores in town. This month as we headed North I came up with a really good excuse to jump on the streetcar to visit the downtown Toronto store: I wanted to look at…

Using digital tools, you can make this handy tool tote in less than an hour. Learn how to build and customize your own tote.

Yoav Liberman demonstrates how to hone and sharpen the new spoon bits from Gramercy Tools. Learn how to keep your spoon bits sharp and effective.

Spoon bits are meant to bore wood with the help of a brace drill. Join Yoav Liberman as he puts the new spoon bits by NYC’s Gramercy Tools to the test.

These once-standard tools still have a place in the modern shop. Here’s what you need to know about the use, care and keeping of drawknives and spokeshaves.

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.

Bench planes come in a wide range of lengths and widths. Do you need them all? Which ones are most useful? And if you only had to buy one….

“I was looking for a tool tote to set beside my shave horse when doing demos with the SCA East Kingdom Foresters Guild. I attached the cover with hinges and added tool slots for use when working. Chisels store in till when traveling.” –Bill Childs

This is an excerpt from The New Traditional Woodworker by Jim Tolpin. In traditional Western-style woodworking, the workbench was central to nearly all the woodworking processes. This is where the artisan planed surfaces and trued edges; ripped and crosscut short lengths of stock to size (with smaller-sized panel saws or bow saws); made precision cuts…

Chris Schwarz shares a dovetailing method perfect for beginners. This method helps build good habits when sawing and helps you fix any mistakes.

Shop organization is likely a recurring topic throughout anyone’s woodworking career. That’s why we devoted several articles to the topic in our Woodworking Essentials column in Popular Woodworking Magazine back in 2007. The column has returned as a new book compiling those articles into one handy volume, “Woodworking Essentials: Timeless Techniques for Woodworkers.” While some of…

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…

Buying tools from antique sellers or junk dealers is always a gamble. Keep these tips in mind the next time you’re out and about hunting rust.

Traditionally, installing a planing stop on your bench involves a big square mortise and a recess for the stop to lay flush with the top when it’s not in use. I didn’t want to modify my bench that much, which is why the BT&C planing stop caught my eye.

Getting a mirror finish on the contoured profiles of carving gouges can be a real hassle. Fortunately, making a custom gouge strop is easy.

I have seen students try to unclog planes with steel rulers, paint brushes, even nails and screws. Enter the Simplest of Tips, ever.

  The right techniques and tools (plus a few tricks) will give you a good start on mastering this fine traditional joint. Dovetails have long been recognized as the premier joint for casework and drawers – and for good reason. They’re the strongest way to join the corners of a box, and they look great….

A while ago I blogged about a Breast Drill that I bought on eBay and restored. I also mentioned that it is hard to find a good quality drills with concealed gears on the market today. After I wrote the blog I found a supplier of drills who held (and still does) a few tools…

For an upcoming “Tool Test” in the February 2018 (#237) issue of the magazine, I reviewed the Lixie Dead Blow Mallet (the 30 ounce version, with 1 1/2″ diameter heads). While we’ll post the full mallet test when the magazine hits newsstands, we wanted to take the time first (before writing the review) to put…

Cutting miters so they are ‘just right’ is a problem faced by all woodworkers. Here’s how to sneak up on the perfect miter with scrap wood and a plane. by Don McConnell You find yourself in a quandary. To ensure that you don’t cut a miter too short, you end up cutting it just a…

I know, I’m getting older and turning into one of those guys who watches the History Channel way too much, but I’ve found that there’s some pretty good woodworking to be learned from history. Crown moulding is one task that many of us grumble about. It is almost impossible to remember which way to place…

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…

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…

As an editor, my work involves poring over woodworking books. And as guy who’s trying to learn a bit of woodworking and build a few things in my spare time, that’s not a bad way to spend the workday. In addition to the books I develop for Popular Woodworking, I also look through our library…

I have a confession to make. I am not a hand-tool woodworker…but I want to be. I have been around only power tools for most of my life. I worked for a contractor through college. The only hand tools we used in my shop class were a rasp and file. The furniture business that I worked for…

Read Part 1 Here After the terraced rhombus was formed, it was time to start coving. The required radius for the coves, as dictated from the original handle was 1”.  But, since the only round plane I have produces a cove of about 1-1/2”, I had to also rely on gouges, a 1” radius scraper and…

Read Part 2 Here The dresser A few months ago I received an email form a person who wanted to know if I could build two walnut handles for a Mid-Century walnut dresser that she cherished. She reported that she and her husband purchased the piece 48 years ago when they got married and that it…

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…

In “Choosing, Refurbishing & Using Moulding Planes”, Bill walks you through the classifications of moulding planes, discusses what to look for when shopping and then takes you step-by-step through the process to bring the iron back to cutting shape (and how to make a new iron if it’s missing).

Woodworking author and instructor Tom Fidgen is the mastermind behind the Unplugged Woodshop web site, the online hand tool woodworking school An Unplugged Life, and author of two bestselling books: “Made by Hand” (currently available at ShopWoodworking.com) and “The Unplugged Woodshop” (Taunton). He teaches woodworking with hand tools internationally. This September Fidgen will be teaching at Woodworking In America….

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…

4 Hand Tools for Stringing Find out more about using hand tools to make stringing inlay. Stringing reached its peak as an art form way back in the late 18th century, long before power tools. In those days, both the grooves and the strips were made by hand with great precision. You can use those…

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…

Let me be honest: I do know how to use a handplane, and I have used a jointer plane once or twice. But it was a metal-bodied plane – only remotely similar to a wooden-bodied plane as used during the 18th century. I liked the feel of the plane, and its long body made sense…

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…

Tomorrow, we’re shooting a cover for a new (and updated) edition of Michael Dunbar’s venerable book, “Restoring, Tuning & Using Classic Woodworking Tools” (due out from Popular Woodworking Books later this year). So I was asked to go through the boxes of tools I inherited from my grandfather to find some suitable candidates for the…

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…

As editors, we search our two web sites (popularwoodworking.com and shopwoodworking.com) constantly for information for the online extras portion of all  articles and most columns – the information, we hope, is both relevant and interesting. While searching the sites, I often come across books, articles and DVDs that have scads of interesting information, including tips…

Woodworking in America is just a week away, so it’s best if you register for the conference (great woodworking information), or purchase your ticket for the marketplace (great tools) right away. For the editors of Popular Woodworking Magazine, this means we are all head-deep into preparation for our sessions, getting setups ready and dragging the…

This week I was in the shop working on an upcoming magazine article. On the case back there are two dados that locate and hold the drawer dividers of the project. For me, that generally means I pick up my router and get busy. This time, because I needed two matching slots, I decided one…

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…

For the April 2013 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine, we tested the new Hock Tools scratch stock – you can find that full tool test free online by clicking here. The video below shows you how to use this simple tool (with the note that you can also clamp your workpiece in place).   —…

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…

I don’t generally think of power tools in the same reverential, (perhaps) overly romanticized tones that come to mind when I consider hand tools. I can stare at my grandfather’s 8 oz. Kentucky Bluegrass claw hammer for hours daydreaming about what may have caused the nicks and wear. Or imagine the unknown maker who’s hands…

I’ve turned hollow mortise chisels into square punches, refashioned chisels and their handles, made a number of scratch stocks, ground steel bar stock into embossing punches and a made a few other quick tools. And I’ve built a few wooden, Krenov-style handplanes over the years – I had a fine time and wound up with…

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…

On behalf of Roy Underhill and the entire Popular Woodworking team, I am delighted to announce that we now have four seasons of Roy Underhill’s “The Woodwright’s Shop” DVDs available to order at ShopWoodworking.com (and we’ll soon have the streaming video site live): Season One; Season Two; Season Three; and Season 20 (which Roy says…

One of the sure signs of getting old is finding out that the kid who works in the next cubicle never heard of the TV show “WKRP in Cincinnati.” Another sign is remembering something that is taken for granted today was at one time brand spanking new. Our web guy wasn’t even born in 1982…

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….

Those of you at the Lie-Nielsen show in Chicago may have seen me and Christopher Schwarz pestering Jeff Miller to demonstrate his slick tenon jig and mortise jig – the ones about which he’s written for the June 2012 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine. If you were one of those who asked me when the…

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…

Another video on sharpening? Ugh! No, wait…this one’s kinda different. In fact, this video isn’t about the cutting edge of the chisel. What?! It’s true. “Chisel Sharpening with Harrelson Stanley” is about the ergonomics of the body and its relationship to the chisel. Japanese tool and sharpening expert Harrelson Stanley discusses how to hold your…

I’m not a hand tool guy. There, I’ve said it. If I can find a way to use a power tool, I will. That said, I, like most woodworkers, do use hand tools on a regular basis. My experience has been that most woodworkers who have an aversion to hand tools (like me) weren’t taught…

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…

From mastering hand tools to router basics, 18th-century joinery to Japanese hand tools and joinery, you’ll find it all among the five new DVD selections now available  to order at ShopWoodworking.com (and four of them are on “pre-sale” which means you save 20 percent if you order before the DVDs arrive in the warehouse). “Handsaws:…

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…

Christopher Schwarz and Lucy May are pleased to announce the newest addition to their family. Length: 18”. Weight: 9 lbs., 4 oz. Birth date: Feb. 15, 2012. Delivered by: Peter Ross, blacksmith and white smith. After more than seven years of searching, I have finally found a bench holdfast that works effortlessly with a French-style…

Anyone who has ever read Joseph Moxon’s “Mechanick Exercises” (1678) has puzzled over his pictures of saws. There are some frame saws, a whipsaw and a fancy handled saw without a back that Moxon, as far as I know, doesn’t discuss in his text. That fancy saw has always caught my eye. What was it…

Last year when we moved the crates for the Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event into our former shop, it was a half-hour production with a lot of grunting, sweating and jerry-rigging to get the 3,000+ pounds of Lie-Nielsen goodies off the truck, through inconveniently narrow gates to the “loading dock” outside our doors, over the annoyingly…

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….

“The Joinery Challenge,” a new DVD from Ron Herman, is now available for pre-order at ShopWoodworking.com (and on sale for $5 off the regular price through the end of June). This exercise is one Ron had to pass when he was in his apprenticeship on his way to becoming a journeyman housewright (he’s now a…

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…

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 recently shot a couple of videos for us; one on sharpening saws and one on a joinery exercise. He’s working on an…

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 glimpse into the future of woodworking. You may see new tools on display for the first time, which tools are getting…

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…

Jim Tolpin’s newest book, “The New Traditional Woodworker” teaches the reader how to work with hand tools by using them to build useful bench and shop tools. Each project builds on the skill learned in the preceding chapter. This process makes for an easy and fun learning curve. One of the more attractive project tools…

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…

I just received my advance copy of Jim Tolpin’s new book, The New Traditional Woodworker, and even though I was very involved with putting the book together, it’s always a pleasant surprise to see the finished product. I’m proud of this one! Beyond the fact that Jim has put together an excellent teaching platform for…

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…

Here’s my theory: if you get good using one tool, learning the next tool you pick up will be easier. Good woodworkers connect a piece of wood on the bench and their brain through their hands and the tools in their hands. Learn how to make that connection and you will easily pick up new…

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…

Working on this little block has been an interesting experience, and I hope you’ll give it a try. Explaining it on the blog has made me think about a lot of basic things that have become habit over the years. The Gottshall block is a hand tool education, and one of the lessons is that…

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…

One of the greatest moments in marketing history was the mass adoption of power tools following World War II. Before then, the standard thinking was that just about anyone could pick up a saw and cut a piece of wood. Within 20 years that notion became an eccentricity. If you want to sell anything to…

When you work with power tools, machine set up is everything. The quality of your joinery, and your entire project is based on your level of accuracy at that stage. With hand tools, layout is everything. You can’t depend on your table saw’s fence to make certain that every cut is the same, so how…

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…

One of the things that can overwhelm a beginning woodworker is the sheer number of choices to make about the simplest things. It doesn’t help that there is always someone waiting to tell you that there is a better, faster, easier, or morally superior way to do it. That improved method usually involves a new…

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….

If you’ve taken the bait and are willing to make a Gottshall block, I suggest you ask yourself two questions before you start. What kind of woodworker do you want to be, and how will you know when you get there? There aren’t any right or wrong answers; this is something we do for fun…

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…