Understanding Cordless Tools
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, [...]
Lathe Maintenance 101
Regular attention to a few simple procedures will keep you turning smoothly. A lathe, like any other piece of woodworking equipment, is exposed to wood shavings, dust and other substances as well [...]
Labor of Love
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 [...]
Brush Care 101
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 [...]
Faster Cleaning
Here’s a quick way to get all the dust out of your machine’s nooks and crannies. Most shop vacuums have one port for vacuuming and a second port for blowing. Hook up a hose to each [...]
Use Glass to Set Jointer Knives
A piece of thick plate glass is dead flat and it’s easy to use to align standard jointer knives that have gib screws. A couple of rare-earth magnets secured to the glass with double-sided tape [...]
Fighting Rust with Brass and Bronze
The summer is here in earnest, and with it came the rising humidity. Humidity and ferrous-based metals such as carbon steel and cast iron don’t get along that well, and the result of the [...]
Flattening a Plane Sole, Part 5 – The Tools I Use to Measure Flatness
To conclude this series of entries about lapping/flattening the soles of metal planes (read them here #1, #2, #3, #4), I wish to share some information about the precision tools I use. The [...]
Launder Your Sanding Belts
When I’m sanding pitchy wood or removing old finish, my sandpaper gets really gummed up and I can’t get it clean with the rubber eraser-type cleaner. I used to throw it away and buy more. [...]
Flattening a Plane Sole, Part 4 – Lapping a Leviathan
Read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. The #8 Record plane I bought a few years ago was the most prominent, heaviest, and the longest plane I have ever lapped; it was also a plane for which …
Flattening A Plane Sole, Part 3
In previous entries, I explained how to lap short-bodied planes using diamond stones and sandpaper rolls (click to read parts 1 and 2.). This entry is dedicated to lapping larger planes and [...]
Flattening A Plane Sole, Part 2
Last week I talked about the diamond stone technique for lapping the soles of small block planes. This week I will talk about another popular method – using abrasive tapes over a flat [...]