Wax Paper Lubrication
An old-timer showed me this trick years ago and I’ve used it ever since. Plain old waxed paper is great for lubricating my tools’ cast iron tables and miter gauge bars. Whenever I start to feel [...]
Tallow Tales & the Black Handplanes of Britain
Puzzling lubrication. Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the August 2010 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine I ran out of mutton tallow this morning! I searched my tool [...]
Slippery Paraffin
With all the high-tech, expensive tools in my shop, I still find a dozen uses for a simple, inexpensive hunk of paraffin wax. I use it anywhere I need lubrication to slide material: the tops of [...]
Practical Paraffin
Ordinary paraffin canning wax has dozens of uses in my shop. It’s cheap at a few bucks a pound, available at any grocery store, and easy to cut into small chunks. Unlike candle wax, which often [...]
Finish Care
My grama always used lemon oil to clean and polish her wood furniture. Either she just enjoyed having everything clean and dust free or she believed everything she read on the label. Many [...]
In Search of the Perfect Wax Finish
My four-decade-long desire to identify, understand, replicate and develop new analogs to historic furniture-making materials has led me on some interesting quests and situations. Included in [...]
Make Yourself a Nice Polissoir
Reader Greg Merritt of Parkersburg, W. Va., drew up plans for making a nice-looking polissoir using broom corn and tarred nylon. The polissoir features two knots – a constrictor knot and a [...]
Polissoirs: New Models & a Long-term Test
Last weekend during the Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event in Charleston, S.C., I completed three try squares and even applied the finish right at the bench using a polissoir (French for “polisher”). [...]
The Redneck Polissoir
Whenever I teach a class that involves turning, I like to show them how well the French “polissoir” can finish off your work on the lathe. A polissoir (say it poly-swaar) is a bundle of broom [...]
