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Kitchen Kalamity The cherry salad tongs I’d made needed repairs. They were steam-bent, so they would “spring” when you squeezed them together. But the top portion where the two arms attached was [...]

The basics of staining are easy – it's when things don't go as planned that staining becomes a difficult, frustrating task. Here are ten of the most common staining problems and how you can avoid [...]

I often lubricate the soles of my planes with paraffin wax to make them slide easier. While ripping a board that was insistent on pinching just enough to make sawing difficult, it occurred to me [...]

Efficient, cheap and simple to make. This magazine puts a lot of emphasis on hand tools – that is, tools without motors. Common subjects include handplanes, chisels, scrapers etc. But when it [...]

Back in the early 1920’s, my grandfather, John Rudzki, built wooden truck bodies in Pittsburgh, PA. Customers would order the chassis for a refrigerated truck, a moving van or some other kind of [...]

Clamp-Ka-Bob This morning I glued up a 4′ x 6′ tabletop made of maple 2x2s on my assembly table. I positioned 6′ pipe clamps alternately on the top and bottom faces of the [...]

While visiting the local Habitat for Humanity store I noticed a woodturning lathe. The store manager told me it had come from an estate and was almost new, so I bought it and took it home in the [...]

The past few months have made me thankful for a lot of things. A partner who loves to cook and bake and keep me fed, even when I’m not always upholding my end of the bargain. A partner who knows [...]

There are only four categories, so it’s easy. There are probably more myths surrounding furniture polishes than any other single aspect of wood finishing. What makes this topic confusing are the [...]

When needs change, there’s no shame in repurposing. I have a confession to make: I don’t do nearly as much woodworking as I should. As someone with limited time and resources, I like to do things [...]

Strength, patience and a sharp saw turn scraps into treasure. The hardwoods I use are almost always riven or split from a log. When I need thinner pieces than usual, I split them again. But there [...]

While design is dominated by the eye, the hand plays an important role. Most of what I’ve written about design has focused on how we look at it. Yet good design often has multiple layers that [...]