Archives

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 [...]

As I mentioned in the previous post, one of the primary reasons for a missing knob base is a traumatic fall that results in the bending of the knob screw (or threaded rod, depending on the plane) [...]

As a collector and restorer of numerous bench planes, all stemming from the classic Stanley Bailey design, I can confidently say that the two components most prone to breakage or damage over the [...]

In my school’s woodworking program, we have a variety of chisels, ranging from wood-handled to plastic-handled. We even have a chisel without a handle, which is a full-tang hybrid between a [...]

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 [...]

Moby Dick, the Great White Planer The newspaper advertisement was brief: “PLANER, 24″, $450. Call.” My friend Charles Poth and I had been looking for just such a machine. We found the [...]

Practical solutions to common plane problems. When a plane is working right, it can produce a silky-smooth surface that absolutely glistens. When it doesn’t work, you get an ugly surface covered [...]

As woodworkers, we rely on electricity to alleviate some of the heavy lifting burdens of milling, sawing, and drilling. Many of us use these machines quite often and I believe we would benefit [...]

Last week I showed how to source and install a missing swivel pad over the ball of a clamp’s screw. That kind of pad only works in a ball and socket situation, so what can we do with clamps that [...]

I recently was gifted a few old bar clamps from a fellow member who belongs to our local FreeCycle group. FreeCycle.org is an internet-based group that promotes the free exchange of items and [...]

Finding and restoring vintage shop machinery. Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the October 2016 issue of Popular Woodworking You pick up an old handplane at the local flea [...]

Two years ago I wrote about the ordeal of finding spare parts for the popular (but now discontinued) US-made Jorgensen rapid action vises. Unfortunately, after many years of smooth operation, the [...]