Tools

Last week I showed how to modify — using only two copper shims — a tap wrench handle and turn it into a high torque handle to drive augers. This week I will show how to improve this wrench even [...]

If you like working with hand tools and enjoy timber framing, bushcraft, and other off-grid activities, your typical drilling device is a hand brace.  Since most modern hand braces have limited [...]

Until recently, my go-to glue-spreading tool for small joints was always a cheap nickel-plated steel brush with natural bristols. I still use these brushes, but ever since I discovered the [...]

The awl is one of the most useful tools in woodworking and perhaps the most basic of them all. Awls help to initiate indentations into which screws, nails, and drill bits will bore. We use them [...]

It’s an age-old question I hear uttered hundreds of times a year: What hand tool should I buy first? Without context, the question is impossible to answer. Most times, I fire back several [...]

One of the first things that many people notice when advancing the blade of a Preston/Record style shoulder plane (today’s Clifton and Lie Nielsen planes are based on that design) is a scratching [...]

A few years ago, my friend Cambell Albritton gifted me with a small Clifton #410 shoulder plane that he no longer needed. The plane was still in its original box but unfortunately developed a few [...]

Demystifying volts, amp hours, and types of cordless tool motors. More and more, cordless tools are becoming everyday fixtures in the woodworking shop. The most common of these is the drill, [...]

After 50 years of woodworking, I’ve got a confession to make. I enjoy fixing up an old machine or rearranging my shop more than woodworking itself. A few years ago a friend gave me an old [...]

How to choose, condition, and clean a finishing brush. It’s really tempting to buy an inexpensive brush for finishing. Say you spend $4 on a standard paint brush and throw it away rather than [...]

An ancient European tool that still has a place in the modern American shop. Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the November 2008 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine. Why [...]

This versatile hand tool should be every woodworker’s first plane purchase. As a “professional woodworker” I often get asked what’s the best bang-for-the-buck tool by people getting into [...]