And at Age 11, I Hosted my Own Woodworking Show
Roy Underhill looks over the rim of his beer at the City Tap – the bar behind his woodworking school – and asks me the following left-field-what-are-you-doing-inside-my-skull question. “You built [...]
Shop-made Vortex Dust Collector Woks On
From the August 2011 issue #191 Buy this issue now In April 2011, I blogged about a new dust collector from JET (read it here). I also wrote about the new collector design in the August 2011 [...]
Scrape Your Saw Clean
I have always been fastidious about keeping rust off my tools. I have to be. My shop is partially underground and we live in a humid river city. Blink, and your tools will turn to iron oxide. The [...]
Spiral Blades: Good for Dovetailing?
While packing my tools to teach a toolbox class in Germany, I knew two things: 1. The students had to cut a lot of dovetails in 7/8”-thick material. 2. Coping saws are uncommon on the Continent. [...]
Can You Pass Ron Herman’s Joinery Challenge?
“The Joinery Challenge,” a new DVD from Ron Herman, is now available for pre-order at ShopWoodworking.com (and on sale for $5 off the regular price through the end of June). This [...]
Planes are Stupid; Saws are Smart
I am married to a very smart woman. This has its advantages – life is never boring. It also has its disadvantages – she does not suffer fools (such as myself) lightly. What the heck does this [...]
Test-drive: Two New Saws from Bad Axe
Mark Harrell of Bad Axe Tool Works corralled two of his new saws for us to test; he calls them Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp, and optional quartersawn mesquite handles play to the Western theme. [...]
The Lie-Nielsen No. 51 in Use
A dedicated shooting plane is a luxury item, much like a European table saw with a beautiful sliding table or a full keg of beer by your bedside. For many years, I’ve used my jointer plane to [...]
Things I Cannot Teach About Woodworking
The best things about the craft of woodworking – the things that bring pleasure in the work – are beyond my skills as a writer, teacher or friend to explain. Example: Powered jointers are – in my [...]
Jeff Miller’s Incredible Tenon Jig
During the Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event in our shop this spring, furniture maker Jeff Miller came over to my bench and started asking questions about the Wenzloff & Sons no-set backsaw I had [...]
Don’t Forget About Sindelar’s Event This Weekend
Quick reminder: I’ll be in southwest Michigan this Saturday (June 4) giving demonstrations and generally mopping up the drool in my vicinity at the open house of tool collector John Sindelar. [...]
A Trickier Ruler Trick
Anything – a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g – that reduces the time I spend sharpening my tools makes me giddy. Care Bear giddy. Monchichi giddy. Making tools dull is more fun. A few years ago I found a way to [...]
