Archives

Over the last 40 to 50 years, Pfeil (Swiss Made) has become a highly respected brand in the woodworking community, widely recognized as the benchmark for premium-quality carving tools. This Swiss [...]

Make your bench indispensable. Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the February 2004 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine. Christopher Schwarz has published numerous [...]

Learn to set up and wield one of the most useful (and inexpensive) handplanes. Also check out: A primer on adjusting wooden planes. Kevin Drake, a furniture maker who trained under James Krenov, [...]

Old chisels can be brought back to life using these simple steps. If ever there was a type of used hand tool that was a good candidate for restoration, it’s a chisel. Lots of good deals on old [...]

From the Archives: You don’t have to own a lathe to make replacement handles that will feel like an extension of your hand. A few months ago I had to face the unpleasant truth about my chisels. [...]

Build a tool chest that’s worthy of your tools. Customize it to fit exactly the tools you want. Project #2115 • Skill Level: Intermediate • Time: 4 days • Cost: $250 I have a confession. I like [...]

Basic steps for beautiful joints. Dovetails. They get put on a pedestal as a sign of quality. And while not every project or furniture style warrants them, I enjoy sitting down, listening to an [...]

Hand tools complement and complete work begun with power equipment. Most folks I talk with in the woodworking hobby seem to follow a similar path. They start out by emulating what they see on [...]

The difference is more than just pushing or pulling. It’s been over 20 years since the Western handsaw, a tool that cuts on the push stroke and was the pride of the English-speaking world, [...]

A Sharpening Handbook: What Every Woodworker Needs to Know About Sharpening If there’s one thing to be said about woodworkers, it’s that we’re old school and prefer to pick up a book (or a [...]

Below you can see pictures of the restoration of the rosewood knob, which belongs to my Record SS plane (read part one here and part two here). After gluing a piece of rosewood onto the knob’s [...]

The cost of this stock is physical exertion, but it’s fun and rewarding. The riven oak that I use for joinery work is the best stock available; but it comes at a cost – the labor invested to [...]