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Bottle Cap Jig Knobs I’m always trying to use up scraps and stuff that would otherwise end up in the trash. My latest devices are jig knobs made with plastic bottle caps, which have a grippy [...]

My grandfather made this foot-powered jigsaw during World War II. The Depression had taught him to be very frugal, so he built the saw from orange and grapefruit crates, which were made from [...]

Shop-made ply can achieve shapes and forms solid wood just can’t handle. The title of this article may sound silly, or perhaps us woodworkers have just run out of things to write about? Now that [...]

One of the most accurate approaches for checking a case or other assembly for square is to compare the inside diagonal measurements for equidistance. The easiest way to do this is using pinch [...]

There’s nothing more annoying than a vacuum hose dragging on the bench when you’re working with a router, sander or other power tool. These big hoses always seem to hang up on workpieces and [...]

Shop-Made Rocker Jaw One simple board, cut into the shape of a seesaw, can make a huge improvement to your vise. It allows you to firmly hold tapered work and long, upright boards off to the side [...]

A scraper’s edge is very delicate. I used to keep my card scrapers loose in a drawer, but to avoid nicking their edges, I decided to make a simple stand for them. I cut a few slots in a [...]

Learn to make your own and you’ll never have to compromise your design. Bandings and stringing are a dramatic and exciting way to dress up your period furniture. I see them as a way to highlight [...]

I saw stars the last time I dropped a bar clamp on my foot. Then I saw the light, in the form of a wooden handscrew. I’d been making my own handscrews—wood threads and all—for years. Why [...]

The bandsaw has always been the prima donna machine in my shop. It requires so much time and attention to make it work right; changing blades, adjusting tension and repositioning guides. It was [...]

Here’s a clever way to give all your friends genuine handmade woodworking tools. The materials for these little gems cost next to nothing and they don’t take long to make, because [...]

When using a sharpening stone to hone the flat side of handplane irons or scraper plane blades, it can be difficult to grip the metal. Take an old knob off a handplane and glue or epoxy a rare [...]