Tools

Discover what really matters when choosing a handsaw. You don’t have to be a saw maker to think about saws like one. Some of the most important decisions made when making a saw get surprisingly [...]

An essential part of your turning tool arsenal. There’s a theory in woodturning—popularized by some British turners—that wood “prefers” to be cut rather than scraped. While I agree with this [...]

I recently came across another handy solution to prevent jaw-racking when clamping a workpiece on the side of a vise. Most parallel vises tend to rack in such scenarios, but there are situations [...]

Battery compatibility across brands has been on the wishlist of many a woodworker over the years, and a new alliance announced today is going to make that a reality for 15 different brands. The [...]

Vintage woodworking machinery can be a great bang for your buck.  Vintage woodworking tools have always held a certain appeal to me. Earlier this year, I was out in California with David Marks [...]

Last week I showed how to modify — using only two copper shims — a tap wrench handle and turn it into a high torque handle to drive augers. This week I will show how to improve this wrench even [...]

If you like working with hand tools and enjoy timber framing, bushcraft, and other off-grid activities, your typical drilling device is a hand brace.  Since most modern hand braces have limited [...]

Until recently, my go-to glue-spreading tool for small joints was always a cheap nickel-plated steel brush with natural bristols. I still use these brushes, but ever since I discovered the [...]

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 [...]

It’s an age-old question I hear uttered hundreds of times a year: What hand tool should I buy first? Without context, the question is impossible to answer. Most times, I fire back several [...]

One of the first things that many people notice when advancing the blade of a Preston/Record style shoulder plane (today’s Clifton and Lie Nielsen planes are based on that design) is a scratching [...]

A few years ago, my friend Cambell Albritton gifted me with a small Clifton #410 shoulder plane that he no longer needed. The plane was still in its original box but unfortunately developed a few [...]