Me at work: A 57 second video

In this one minute video you can see how I find materials, how I design, and the building of a new piece. The piece that I built was made from glass that I found on the street on [...]

Workbenches: Balancing the Base and Top

On the first day of my woodworking classes at Dictum GmbH in Bavaria in June, I began with a confession. “I’m afraid that after three years, my German language skills are still crap,” I told the [...]

Knocking Together a Workbench

On the final day of a workbench class, the students either assemble all their benches or pack up the parts in their cars to assemble things at home. Assembly is easy. I usually do it by myself, [...]

Mafell Chain Mortiser. Dang.

My least-favorite joint to cut by hand is – hands down – a deep mortise. But when you build a French-style workbench, you need to make about a dozen of them. And if you do it by hand, you are …

Workbench project

  Is underway.   i started with some old, nail-sick, UGLY beams from a garage that fell down, old age.    enough for four legs and some other [...]

Where to Buy Big Wood for Big Workbenches

During the last few years, I’ve been using giant 6×6 softwood timbers to build workbenches for classes and customers. These big hunks look old school and make the construction process quick [...]

The Lazy Man’s Drawboring Delight

I’ve drawbored hundreds and hundreds of joints since 1999, mostly on workbenches I’ve built for myself or with students. That doesn’t mean I know jack buddy about drawboring, as last weekend [...]

Workbench Assembly. With Glue.

Assembling workbenches in the old-school manner is a nail-biter. If the drawbores are too close together, then you drive the peg in and nothing happens. The tenon isn’t pulled into the mortise. [...]