If a leg vise has a disadvantage – and I’m not quite willing to admit that it does – it would be its parallel guide. The parallel guide is a strip of wood at the bottom of the leg vise …
The wrench through solid 1 inch plywood .This will be going to a museum in the north west of england this week for showcasing. Took 2 hours to do but this still amazes people world wide. [...]
A stop block provides the most accurate and efficient way to crosscut multiple workpieces to the same length on a miter saw. For safety, the “keeper” section of the workpiece is normally held [...]
Last week marked the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, and as such we received a number of requests for the “Titanic Deck Chair” article, which originally ran in [...]
Among the many tools of Christopher Schwarz’s that I covet is his vintage English brass mallet with wood inserts, a tool he calls “Mongo.” Now, I can cross one venial sin off my [...]
I’m not a hand tool guy. There, I’ve said it. If I can find a way to use a power tool, I will. That said, I, like most woodworkers, do use hand tools on a regular basis. My experience [...]
I make a lot of wooden toys and find my disc sander indispensable for both shaping and smoothing small parts. Unfortunately, this calls for the use of both coarse and fine discs, and I have only [...]
If you enjoy making your own woodworking tools, as I do, here’s a good-quality marking knife you can create from a humble used-up spade bit and a small scrap of wood. To make the knife, begin by [...]
When mortising I found it difficult to remove waste left at the bottom of the mortise by my hollow-chisel mortising bit. Prying it out with a bench chisel often damaged the shoulder of the [...]
I recently converted a common #220 Stanley block plane into an effective rabbet plane. I think a block plane’s comfort, low profile and blade angle can provide precision for paring tenons, [...]
I was intrigued with Nick Engler’s Ingenious Jigs article from December 2001 that showed you how to make a jig for cutting perfect dados in the sides of case pieces. After my last project, where [...]
Many years ago my carpenter square mysteriously disappeared at the start of my basement finishing project. So I started using a butt hinge to mark lumber. It worked better than I had hoped. My [...]