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My tight finances forced me to devise an alternative to an expensive bench vise. This simple leg vise – cobbled together from a board, a 3⁄4“-diameter pipe clamp, and a short length of [...]

Maximize your drum sander’s potential. 1. Skip the Scrape Eliminate laborious hand scraping of dried glue: contrary to popular belief, you can take glue-ups directly to your drum sander. [...]

An Introduction to Whittling Part 2: Push and Peel Knife Maneuvers • Part 3: Parting and Pulling Techniques • Part 4: Rounding the Tree • Part 5: Sculpting the Branches • Part 6: Attach to The [...]

As a professional woodworker, I know firsthand the significance of capturing the beauty and craftsmanship of our projects through photography. Whether it’s for showcasing our portfolio, [...]

An experiment uncovers cutting edges of the past. “How did they sharpen their tools back then?” I’ve asked this question myself and I have been asked the question, and I’ve never felt comfortable [...]

When crosscutting a series of short pieces from a longer board using the table saw’s miter gauge, it’s dangerous to use the rip fence as a stop. The freed pieces can get jammed between the blade [...]

Here’s a dirt cheap way to store your saw blades and keep their carbide teeth from knocking into each other. Slip the blades onto a 3/8″ dia. landscape nail, using plastic coffee-can lids [...]

A Delaware Valley foot and a Pennsylvania ring-and-vase turning combine to develop a period-style design. Years ago, when I first began my business as a period furniture maker, a close friend and [...]

I use bench holdfasts because they’re so convenient and provide such a tremendous amount of clamping force. However, in the process, they can mar workpieces, especially softwoods. The traditional [...]

For this work, hand tools are better than power tools. Fitting butt hinges is exacting work. For precision, you might think that power tools are the way to go, but I always turn to a small set of [...]

How do you know when your miter gauge is set exactly at 90°? Here’s a method I learned years ago, before I could afford a precision square to check the cut. You’ll need a 24″ [...]

The blade of a marking gauge must be as sharp as a scalpel in order to cut a fine line across the grain. Sharpening it can be very difficult because it’s so small. I solved that problem by [...]