Draw a straight line on a piece of paper. If it’s easier, put two dots on the paper and connect them. Not too bad, right? Now draw a circle. Freehand, no compass or tracing the bottom of a can. Does it look like a circle? Not as easy as a line. I remember trying to lay out curves for the side of a hanging shelf I built a long time […]
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Skewing the body of the plane lowers its effective cutting angle, which can work in your favor or against you. Skewing also changes the relationship of the cutting edge to the wood fibers, which can change the surface finish of the wood. While the above two statements might seem obvious, I’ve watched a lot of students struggle with the topic of skewing. Part of the problem is that any discussion […]
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The August 2015 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine mails soon. It features the first installment of a two-part series on building a tool chest with a marquetry panel. The chest was a joint project between me and Jameel Abraham of Benchcrafted. I built the carcase; he built the carved marquetry lid, which will be featured in the October 2015 issue. Before sending the chest to its final destination, I shot […]
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I’m always looking for ways to protect my pieces as I work on them at the bench. Simple things such as a moving blanket (see my entry on that here) can save you a day of clean-up on a project before you apply the finish. Now I have an additional defensive weapon. Earlier this year I did a collaborative project with Jameel Abraham of Benchcrafted. I built the tool chest […]
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I’ll just come out and say it: I’m a hopeless antiquarian. For those of you who already know me, that will come as no surprise – but you should know it wasn’t always that way. My fascination with all things pre-industrial didn’t blossom into its present potency until I attended the National Institute of Wood Finishing in Rosemount, Minn. The founder/instructor of that school, Mitch Kohanek, was like a father […]
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“Handplanes” is the third-most common topic of question we get at the magazine. (First is “workbenches”…specifically, “What wood should I use to build one?”* Second is “finishing.”) For those just getting into to handplanes, I usually recommend Christopher Schwarz’s article, “Coarse, Medium & Fine” (which first appeared in Woodworking Magazine, and is included in the book “Handplane Essentials.”) And I send it, free. So here it is for you (click […]
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