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I dislike using other people’s tools when I travel. And I dislike it when all my tools fall tips-first into the concrete. Oh, and I also dislike all of the tool rolls I’ve [...]

If you’ve ever met Dave Jeske at Blue Spruce Toolworks, then you don’t have to read the next sentence. You already know he is one of the nicest, most honest and talented toolmakers [...]

When I teach people to sharpen I notice a bad habit that many of them have: They think that rubbing the tool against a stone is sharpening. The more they rub, the sharper it gets, no? Well, no. I [...]

Stanley’s Sweetheart socket chisels should be for sale in the United States in about six to eight weeks, according to a company product manager. The chisels are in the final testing stages [...]

For the last week or so I’ve been researching the science of smacking the snot out of things. I’ve been reading lecture notes from a Harvard course on “fracture [...]

Some wide chisels and narrow plane irons don’t work well with the cheap-o side-clamp honing guide. They are too narrow to fit between the walls on the top of the guide. And they are too [...]

When it comes to powered machinery, I’m a fan of using carbide inserts in the cutterhead instead of traditional straight knives. The cutters last longer, they do a better job on figured [...]

Sometimes when I write, I come to a question that paralyzes me – and I cannot continue until I get it answered. As a newspaper journalist, I was trained to “write my way around the [...]

In a bar outside Philadelphia, Thomas Lie-Nielsen, John Economaki and I are having a drink and talking about the people who are getting rich selling tools. I’m on my second beer and running [...]

About 10 years ago I was at The Hardware Show in Chicago visiting manufacturer’s booths to see what new stuff they had coming out for Christmas. Some of these tools would stretch credulity. [...]

After last weekend’s orgy of tools, woodworking and back-breaking workbench moving at Woodworking in America, I decided to take a break today and buy some tools and old woodworking books , [...]

I’m off to the airport in a few minutes to head to Metten, Germany, the headquarters of Dick GmbH. I’ll be teaching a class called “Classic Joinery” and we’ll be [...]