Labor of Love
After 50 years of woodworking, I’ve got a confession to make. I enjoy fixing up an old machine or rearranging my shop more than woodworking itself. A few years ago a friend gave me an old [...]
Hand Plane Restoration
Bringing an old hand plane back to life is simple to do, and will yield a top-not tool. When I build a project, I use a variety of “fancy” tools (readers’ words, not mine). Lie-Nielsen, [...]
Don’t Let “Eventually” Become “Never”
If someone walked up to me and told me I wasn’t a very smart man, I’d have a hard time arguing with them. There are often times when I do something knowing full-well that the outcome isn’t going [...]
Jazz Age Mini-Lathe
Some years back, when the company I worked for relocated out of state, I lost my job. While hunting for a new position and feeling a bit down, I visited a shop that sold used woodworking [...]
Moby Dick, the Great White Planer
Moby Dick, the Great White Planer The newspaper advertisement was brief: “PLANER, 24″, $450. Call.” My friend Charles Poth and I had been looking for just such a machine. We found the [...]
Replace A Missing Clamp Pad, Part 2
Last week I showed how to source and install a missing swivel pad over the ball of a clamp’s screw. That kind of pad only works in a ball and socket situation, so what can we do with clamps that [...]
Replace A Missing Clamp Pad, Part 1
I recently was gifted a few old bar clamps from a fellow member who belongs to our local FreeCycle group. FreeCycle.org is an internet-based group that promotes the free exchange of items and [...]
Turning Over: Restoring an Old Peavey
One of the most unusual names in the lumberjack’s catalog of tools is a peavey. Named after Joseph Peavey this tool is a hooked and spiked lever used for manipulating logs, roll them over, pivot [...]
Zeda’s Nails
Years ago, I made a corner cupboard from black walnut. I thought the wood was magnificent, but a can of rusty cut nails I used in building it proved to be far more important, taking me on an [...]
New Life for an Old Table Saw
This article originally appeared in the June 2010 issue of Popular Woodworking. The dream of a “barn find” looms large in most people’s imagination, whether it’s 1,000 board feet of [...]
Extending the Lifespan of Your Jorgensen Rapid-Acting Woodworker’s Vise
We have about a dozen Jorgensen rapid action vises in our woodworking program which as being used by our students all the time. For the most part, my students try to treat our cast iron and steel [...]
