Archives

Hole saws provide an inexpensive way to bore large holes, but they have a maddening tendency to clutch the drilled disk afterward. I’ve found that the best approach for removing a stuck disk from [...]

Today’s array of bits has nothing on historical practice. In my attempts to recreate period work, I’ve many times come across the need to make holes that no modern tool can practically create. My [...]

Discover a bit about clean, accurate boring. There are many tools in modern woodworking you can use to bore holes: powered drills (both corded and cordless), drill presses, hand-powered eggbeater [...]

Vintage hand drills – sometimes called “eggbeater drills” – are common, useful and easy to fix up using stuff you already own. You can buy hand drills all day long on eBay and never deplete the [...]

When I build a reproduction, I try to remain as faithful as I can to the construction of the original – even if my modern brain says it’s not ideal. The original builder of this early [...]

First a warning: Don’t read this blog entry if you already obsess too much over the details of your furniture. This entry could only make things worse. Years ago, a high-end finish carpenter [...]

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. [...]

File this one under: Tricks that everyone knows but me. Whenever I work against a fence on my drill press, I constantly huff and sweep the table clear of shavings. Why? If even one errant shaving [...]

In my blog earlier this week on drilling holes for bench dogs and holdfasts I mentioned a 3/4”-diameter up-cut spiral bit we use in a plunge router to make perfect holes. Several readers have [...]

Update: Thanks very much to those of you who placed a bid (and especially to rwyoung, who has the winning bid) and to those of you who posted entertaining comments. To those of you we offended, [...]

Peter Follansbee and Mike Siemsen have cleared up the mystery of the pinwheel-shaped wooden nails. The pinwheel shape of the nails is caused by the shell or gimlet bit used to make the hole. The [...]

Wiktor Kuc and I have an unusual relationship. I’ve never met the man, but I send him articles about tools for his web site, WKFineTools.com. And occasionally, out of the blue, he’ll [...]