A woodworker is only as good as his tools. In a world with enough woodworking tools to fill entire big-box stores, it’s important to know what you should buy (and what to avoid) so you can produce the best pieces possible and save money. Our tool reviews are different. Rather than use pseudo-science, we use the tools in the shop (we’re all experienced woodworkers), and report back how they perform. So whether you are in the market for a new set of chisels or a powerful table saw, we’ve got the best tools covered.
From August 2006 Popular Woodworking Dado Wiz Zeros in on Perfect Fit for Dados or Grooves Our staff has an ongoing discussion about the best way to make dados. Whether using a dado stack [...]
From October 2006 Popular Woodworking Bosch Pocket Driver Offers Pint-sized Power I don’t care how many cordless drills you own, if you like tools, you’re going to need one more. The [...]
From October 2006 Popular Woodworking A Bigger Birdcage Awl Birdcage awls are outstanding and accurate tools for installing hardware. In essence, they are a boring tool: Place the tip where you [...]
From October 2006 Popular Woodworking Hitachi Revamps an Old Friend with Mixed Results For the past 17 years, the M12V plunge router from Hitachi has been a staple in many professional and home [...]
From November 2006 Popular Woodworking Adding a digital readout to a plunge router is more useful than adding a laser, but this digital feature alone might not be reason enough to give up your [...]
From November 2006 Popular Woodworking Build a Wooden Handplane , in a Day Making your own woodworking tools can be rewarding , but it can also be time-consuming and thus takes you away from [...]
From November 2006 Popular Woodworking Pint-sized Accuracy The combination square is standard equipment for many woodworkers, but it is overkill for most jobs. Most woodworkers need a well-marked [...]
From November 2006 Popular Woodworking I’ve never understood the “bigger must be better” philosophy in cordless screwdrivers. Yes, you need the power to get the job done, but [...]
From November 2006 Popular Woodworking A Small Digital Fractional-readout Caliper , Finally! Accurately measuring (both wood and machinery) in the shop is important for every woodworker, and most [...]
From November 2006 Popular WoodworkingFeatures Beyond the Bells and Whistles At first glance, the new “Digital Drill Press” from Ryobi seems like a run-of-the-mill machine tricked out [...]
From December 2006 Popular Woodworking First of all, these are very good brushes. I used the 2″ version ($34.95) to apply three coats of shellac to the Whale Tail Shelves in the December [...]
From December 2006 Popular Woodworking Planemakers have long used floats to shape and true the critical surfaces of wooden handplanes. But cabinetmakers also used floats, and after several months [...]