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One of the personal agonies of writing this blog was dealing with tool reviews. I love my tools, and I adore the people who have made them for me. But I always struggled with the fact that tool [...]

I’m leaving the world of woodworking magazines after 22 years as an editor, writer and builder. But I don’t think I’m a rat fleeing a sinking ship. I still think printed magazines have a place in [...]

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After 13 years and thousands of entries, it’s time to shutter this blog and move on to other things with my research, writing and – above all – woodwork. But before I stop, I’d like to say a few [...]

One of the great frustrations of using dowels in woodwork is that they are rarely round and they are almost never the exact size that you require. Why are they oval? Dowels, like, all round [...]

Three-legged folding stools need a “tri-bolt” to allow the legs to fold in and out. Years ago, Tandy Leather offered an inexpensive tri-bolt, but it has been absent from the company’s inventory [...]

Laying out accurate angles on your work is critical. So it’s funny to me that we spend $100 on a Starrett square for 90°, then spend $1.59 on a plastic school protractor for every angle that [...]

I’m a big fan of a soap finish for certain projects. It doesn’t provide a lot of protection to wooden objects, but it is completely safe, easy to apply and quick to repair. But this week I [...]

I’ll probably get in trouble for this one, but here goes. Don’t waste your money on the digital indicators that people strap to their planers, drum sanders, drill presses and routers. They are [...]

No matter how nice your band saw is, it’s still a fussy instrument with a lot of settings that are shaken loose by vibration. A block of rosin can improve things immensely. Rosin is a tree-sap [...]

Finding quality used hand tools in the wild can be a challenge in the Midwest. Usually the best strategy is to attend a regional or national meeting of the Mid-West Tool Collectors Association [...]

I use Southern yellow pine for a lot of shop projects, especially for building workbenches and sawbenches. But I also use it for some furniture. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned in a [...]