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This weekend I finished work on a traveling version of my “Anarchist’s Tool Chest” that will fit in my hatchback and will carry (almost) a full set of tools. The last detail of the entire project [...]

When you write for a woodworking magazine, there are several pat phrases that you use all the time. Such as: 1. Joint and plane all your stock flat and square. Cut all the pieces to the sizes [...]

Ah, Thursday – day four of a woodworking class. This is the day that most students hit a wall. They take naps at their benches. They sneak off to their cars to lie down. They disappear in the [...]

The first lesson of handwork is this: Most things that you think are important are not important. Most surfaces do not need to be true. Most edges do not need to be square. Most boards do not [...]

Years ago when touring Winterthur, I saw a lot of wacky Pennsylvanian dovetails on old chests. These joints had been wedged through their pins – a feature I had not seen in person before. While [...]

If you ever want to try out a lot of different workbench designs before you settle on building one for your shop, you might want to take a class at Kelly Mehler’s School of Woodworking. During [...]

I’ve hauled my tool chest all over the United States and Canada, and I remain impressed – deeply impressed – by how it has handled all the miles. I’ve even dropped it from a height of 36” – fully [...]

Though I like to work out of a full-size tool chest (38” x 24” x 24”), it’s obvious that a chest like that would be too big for a job-site carpenter or for someone who needs to do only household [...]

When I inspect an antique tool – especially one that hasn’t been messed with much – I always take a look at the cutting edge. How was it sharpened? What is the shape of the edge? Did they do any [...]

I’ve always liked artwork and woodworking pieces that were executed by someone with a good deal of talent but a lack of formal training. Some people call this “outsider” work, so I guess that [...]