Archives

Drawbore it for a joint that will last centuries. I once had a visitor to my shop remark that he’d like to see a book about all the types of joints that I use. I told him it’d be a …

Rebuilding a toy chest is a connection to the past and the future. I do not stem from woodworking lineage, at least not the kind you hear about. My dad wasn’t overly handy. While growing up, I [...]

Cordless Curler As I leaned over to press down while drilling some holes in a board, my long hair slipped into the drill’s vent slots and got caught in the motor. Before I could release the [...]

The perilous flight of the world’s most valuable tool. Half of the airplane’s hydraulic system had failed at take-off; the other half failed as the plane was 10 minutes from the Atlanta airport. [...]

Back Leg Boo-Boo My wife asked me to repair a wobbly kitchen chair. All the joints below the seat had failed, so it didn’t take much to knock apart the legs and stretchers. The joints were a bit [...]

How one woodworker got over her fear of dismemberment: more fear. Industrial Technology. That was the name of the course I took in the autumn of 1993. Beats me as to why it was entitled thus, [...]

Beating it requires knowing the right way to nail a board. When I was about 8 years old, I decided that I needed to construct a sturdy fort to protect myself from the army of aliens (who cleverly [...]

There are many things we do wrong but we don’t know they’re wrong. In woodworking there are two kinds of mistakes: There’s the garden-variety gaffe where we simply cut a board too short or botch [...]

Measured drawings for some, story sticks for me (and others). I once had a job making a couple of wainscot chairs and chests for the National Park Service. After barely surviving the paperwork it [...]

Planer-Puss After my friend Jason and I purchased a truckload of rough lumber, we headed for his garage workshop to plane the boards before divvying them up. All of Jason’s tools are on mobile [...]

A 12-step program for regrowing forearm hair. I head through the main doors, down the stairs to the basement, arriving at the third door on the right. Like everyone else, I grab a cup of coffee [...]

Both fast- and slow-growing wood present good opportunities. Wood selection is an important part of any woodworking project. I sometimes feel like I take it to an extreme, like I’m some kind of [...]