To modern eyes, old-school workbenches look like they are going to self-destruct. The legs are tenoned into the benchtop (which moves with the seasons). And stretchers (that don’t move) are [...]
After a little tweaking of the mortise, the first leg went in. You can see a gap at the shoulder (it’s about 1/16″ now). That’s actually what’s left of the rough underside [...]
I started cutting the mortises and the dovetail sockets in the benchtop today and I can tell you a few things: 1. The dovetail socket takes about half the time and effort to make compared to the [...]
Things I hate: Gouging my own eyes out with a spoon, and being pulled away from a project for more than a couple days. It’s been a week since I’ve been able to devote any time to the [...]
All week I’ve been itching to saw these joints that connect the legs to the benchtop. I’ve never cut a 5″-deep dovetail joint in a 6×6, so I wasn’t sure what to [...]
A few weeks ago I posted a blog entry about using a flush-cut saw to slice tenon shoulders. I must have written it poorly because several readers requested a video of the process. So here you go. [...]
I’m think I’m a decent dovetailer. My joints are tight and I get things done. Heck, I can even teach dovetailing to others when pressed. So why don’t I post a video of how [...]
Many woodworkers think it’s bonkers to use a curved cutting edge in a jointer plane. After all, the plane is designed to make things straight and flat, so using a curved cutter seems [...]
Perhaps I’m the oddball here, but I’ve always found cutting tenons by hand to be more challenging than any sort of dovetailing. Tenons require a lot of precision sawing if you want to [...]
My next project is a close copy of a walnut side table from the White Water Shaker community. We’ll be publishing the plans in an upcoming issue and donating the finished project to the [...]
Dovetail maestro Rob Cosman again makes us all feel inadequate with his latest video in which he cuts a half-blind dovetail joint in 6 minutes and 52 seconds. Cosman uses Northern white pine, [...]
My sister-in-law killed her college landlord with a voodoo doll, so don’t try tell me that curses don’t exist. The curse du jour is an innocent flat-panel door I’m building for [...]