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Last Memorial day weekend, I returned to Peters Valley School of Crafts to teach a Live Edge furniture-making class. Our class was on the short side; concise and intensive. My three students [...]

Before we start carving, here are a few basic carving principles. Stop cuts are cuts that protect areas you don’t want to remove. These simply sever the fibers and define shapes, allowing you to [...]

Create artistic signs the old-fashioned way. You can churn out lettered signs by the dozens with a router and a set of letter templates or produce them by the hundreds with a CNC machine. So why [...]

After creating the facets (drawing and image below), we need to round over the mouse’s back. To read the first part of the story click here. Add two additional guidelines above and below [...]

This coming Saturday I am going to teach a remote whittling class for children, hosted by Peters Valley School of Crafts. Unlike in-person teaching, where the teacher is present in the class/shop [...]

With the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, I was obligated to change my curriculum and put our traditional shop work on hiatus. Since I wasn’t able to use our benches, vises, and clamps I [...]

Learn techniques for ‘shallow relief’ and ‘applied’ carvings. Have you ever been involved in something where you get completely absorbed in it? Where hours go by without realizing it? Those are [...]

I use strops all the time to hone our many carving knives, our plane, and chisel blades, not to mention my pocket knife. Strops maintain our edges and gift them with pinnacle sharpness that lasts [...]

This kitchen workhorse presents a surprising and rewarding challenge. A wooden spoon – you can get one for a dollar in many places. It’s just a stick with a hollow shaped at one end. Why go to [...]

I was first introduced to branch hooks and their organic beauty while reading Peter Follansbee’s excellent article on the subject in Popular Woodworking magazine. Peter showed how to turn a [...]

Not Your Average Rotary Tool As a woodworker and self-proclaimed tool connoisseur, I have found a big difference between the “consumer” and “professional” grade tools. [...]

The “Swiss Army” family of knives, and their contemporary descendants – the Multi-tools, are a good solution for on-the-go situations. Although these tools can never really be a perfect [...]