Archives

Tool: Magnetic Straightedge Shop Now  Manufacturer: Lee Valley MSRP: $7.50 Don’t have a drafting table? Can’t draw freehand to save your life? Here’s a tool from Lee Valley that lets you [...]

Why you’re better off to look this gift horse in the mouth. There is a trap lurking within the pages of our magazine. It is also in most woodworking magazines, and many books. It is called the [...]

Measured drawings for some, story sticks for me (and others). I once had a job making a couple of wainscot chairs and chests for the National Park Service. After barely surviving the paperwork it [...]

A swing of an arc is the solution to many layout and construction problems. If you think a compass is only for drawing circles, think again. This simple and inexpensive device can divide almost [...]

As with woodworking skills, design and drawing skills take practice. For many woodworkers, design seems like a leap into the unknown. It’s one thing to teach our hands to saw to a curved line; [...]

Adapt a furniture plan with your eye. I think of plans as sort of a roadmap. They were a big part of my early work as a machinist and later as a woodworker. We had an unwritten rule in the …

It will take more than one drawing to get it right – and that’s OK. My best days in the woodshop are with my 4-year-old grandson, Seth. He’s just tall enough to see over the benchtop and quick to [...]

Isometric views help keep your designs grounded. The kite leapt into the wind and I frantically uncoiled string that burned and chafed my hands and fingers. The thin wooden crossbeams bent almost [...]

I’ve spent the last few months staring at photographs of pieces from the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA) collection, while working on the drawings for our new book. While [...]