Archives

Why you’re better off to look this gift horse in the mouth. There is a trap lurking within the pages of our magazine. It is also in most woodworking magazines, and many books. It is called the [...]

Over the years I have used about every type of marking gauge made. I prefer the newer wheel gauges because they’re easy to adjust and tighten, but I think they’re hard to grip. To solve this [...]

You’re measuring wrong, and making it more difficult to do good work. If the title has you expecting high-tech procedures or suggestions for expensive measurement gear that’ll get you closer to [...]

Tool: STSQ4 4-1/2″ Trim Square Shop Now • STSQ7 7″ Carpenter Square Shop Now • STSQ7-L 7″ Carpenter Square with Level Shop Now Manufacturer: Stiletto MSRP: $74.99 • $84.99 [...]

Establishing Depth Reference A recent project required making a series of small wooden panels with shallow concave faces. For efficiency and accuracy, I decided to make a series of preliminary [...]

Woodworkers are both cursed and blessed with our hopelessly archaic system of measuring. When it comes time to divide any distance in half, like marking the center of a board’s edge for resawing, [...]

When I first started teaching the 8th-grade stool-making class, I needed to find an easy method for my students to mark the leg length accurately before trimming them to a parallel surface with [...]

Sometimes it’s fun to build a gadget just because it’s a neat idea. There are many ways to draw a centerline, for example, but this method is very clever. It doesn’t require any measuring or [...]

From the PW archives: Megan Fitzpatrick covers the essential measuring tools for beginners, and shows you how to choose ones that will provide accurate results. …

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 [...]

Tool: FitFinder 1/2 Gauge Shop Now   Manufacturer: MicroJig MSRP: $34.99 Dialing in a saw blade, router bit, or other cutting tool to make a cut exactly half the depth of stock seems like a [...]

To mark the exact center of a board, I measure an equal distance from both ends and make two marks. This distance is just an approximation—it doesn’t matter if it’s longer or shorter than exactly [...]