Linseed paint will change the way you approach painting a project, but this wonderful finish takes a different approach than modern paints. The world of finishes is a complex one. When I find a finish I like, I tend to stick with it. For the last several years, I’ve relied pretty heavily on both acrylic…

A Disposable Brush And A Few Rags Build An Awesome Finish. Finishing is a challenging aspect of woodworking. There are many finishing materials and methods of application; within a single piece there may be several conditions requiring different approaches. It is one thing to get a nice finish on a small flat sample board but…

We all have to begin somewhere, and this is actually the most difficult time. Years ago I remember teaching a class about finishing that included one student who said he had never used a stain or finish, and to make matters worse, he had never even painted anything. This was a two-day class in which…

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, stood before his wonky-topped workbench one day many years ago and hesitated. His urge was to start flattening the benchtop by planing across…

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 audiobook, and cutting them by hand. Once you break down dovetails into a series of basic steps, I think you’ll find…

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, was surpassed as the tool most woodworkers reached for when they need a handsaw. It has been replaced by the Japanese…

Accidental musing on craftsmanship and building things to last. On a cold rainy day in December 2014, I was returning home from running errands in my Washington, D.C., neighborhood. Diane Rehm was discussing Russia on NPR. I was thinking about the leftover pizza I was going to eat for lunch before heading into the shop….

Joinery machines are much more than one-trick ponies. Here’s an intro, and why you should consider adding one in your shop. There are several machines that come up as “shop necessities”. Table saws, jointers, planers, and band saws are the most common ones. In my opinion, there’s a new class of machine that needs to…

Woodworking is sweet when everything fits right. Here are 10 ways to ensure your mortise-and-tenon, dado, dovetail, and edge joints close up tightly. 1. Cauls distribute pressure It’s not easy to get enough squeeze in the middle of a big box to force home dado or biscuit joints. Big cauls are the answer. A caul…

When using my miter saw, I’ve found that the easiest way to sneak up on a line is to use a stack of sticky notes. First, set a stop block to cut your part slightly oversize (1/16″ is plenty). Attach a thin pile of sticky notes to the stop block, make a cut, and then…

I use a portable circular saw to break down plywood and other sheet goods into manageable pieces before bringing them to the table saw for final sizing. I prefer to do the job on sawhorses rather than crouching on the floor. Unfortunately, you normally need three or four horses to provide enough support to prevent…

The next time you use your jigsaw, forget about hauling out the sawhorses or cantilevering a hard-to-hold workpiece off your bench. Extruded polystyrene insulation board, the rigid pink sheets used in housing construction, makes sawing easy, whether you’re cutting a small piece of hardwood or a full sheet of plywood. During the cut, the workpiece…

Here’s a simple, invisible repair for an all too common mistake. Say you’re flush-trimming a board and, for whatever reason, your router’s bearing dips into a dent and makes an unwanted divot. If you have a set of plug cutters, you’ll be back in business in no time. Just cut a face-grain plug that’s the…

My sharpening procedures involve a lot of buffing with compound. On one side of my buffer I’ve mounted a hard felt wheel, and on the other a paper wheel shaped to buff concave bevels. To prevent the buffing compound from flying all over the shop, I mounted my buffer in a simple plywood box that’s…

Over the years, I have often clamped stops on my drill-press fence to register hole locations in workpieces. Unfortunately, I always seemed to lose the stops. Flip stops always seemed like a good idea because they stay attached to the fence all the time so you won’t lose them. Plus, they flip up out of…

Tapping a New Thread When you can’t find the right thumb screw for an old tool (see Part 1 here), your best option is to drill and tap a new hole to accommodate a modern fastener. In the case of our antique divider, I found an old thumb screw from a lampshade retaining ring that…

Tool: No. 444 am Shop Now  Manufacturer: Skunk Tool Works MSRP: $129 As a rule of thumb, if something doesn’t have multiple uses in my shop, I don’t generally keep it around. That even goes for hand tools. The new No. 444 dovetail marker from Skunk Tool Works is an adjustable dovetail marker that covers…

Tool: Scriber Buy Now Manufacturer: Tooley Park MSRP: £28 20% discount on the scribers this week (ends Sat 8th Feb) with the code TPF1 at checkout! There are often times, where there’s simply no substitute for the right tool. A good scriber is one of those tools. Whether its leveling chair legs, scribing a cabinet, or…