Jennie’s hacking knife, which fell into my possession. After Jennie Alexander died in 2018, she left a house full of tools, chairs and bits and pieces from her long life of woodworking, research and writing. For several months, her friends and family sorted through the possessions and distributed them so they would do the most …
Editor’s note: I usually start this gift guide in November, but November got away from me. Apologies. I started this guide after my kids began asking me what I wanted for Christmas. Some of the suggestions I gave them ($3 Bessey mini clamps, blue tape etc.) were so useful and appreciated I thought that others …
2019 Anarchist’s Gift Guide, Day 1: Cork Sanding Block – Read More »
I get a lot of odd email through my personal website, and most isn’t worth mentioning. But there’s one email I get every week that I want to put to bed. It goes like this: Someone told me you host classes where people build a roubo bench for a week with you and take it …
In these latter days of war it is sometimes difficult to hold firmly to the vision that was ours in times of peace. We may be craftsmen who once had high standards of accomplishment which the rush and tear of wartime production, or lack of proper materials, have insensibly lowered; or we may simply be …
One of two known banners of the Fancy Chair-makers. Illustration from the Memoir prepared for the celebration of the completion of the Erie Canal by Cadwallader D. Colden, 1825. New York Public Library Digital Collections Pride in Craft and Accomplishment The completion of the Erie Canal, the first navigable water link between the Northeast and …
Reading Robert Wearing’s “The Essential Woodworker” was one of three lightning bolts that have struck me since I began woodworking. The first shock was cutting my first perfect dovetail. Then there was the moment when I processed my first board entirely by hand. And the third came one afternoon while I was sitting in my …
Coming this Summer: Robert Wearing's 'The Essential Woodworker' – Read More »
The grain-painted card table is a wonderful example of vernacular construction and decoration. This is an excerpt from “Hands Employed Aright: The Furniture Making of Jonathan Fisher (1768-1847)” by Joshua A. Klein. The grain-painted card table was a surprising new acquisition donated by a descendant of a Blue Hill family. The donor’s family understands that Fisher made the …
I suspect that I learned more about math, civics and language from “Schoolhouse Rock!” than I did from school itself. The magic of “Schoolhouse Rock!” is the magic of all good education. That is: It is so engrossing that you don’t realize you are learning heavy and important lessons. Practical geometry is one of those …
The spinning carbide took a chunk out of the metal jointer guard when it fell on the blades – now imagine the mess those blades can make of flesh. Or rather don’t – it’s not pretty. The following is by Steve Latta. Steve makes contemporary and traditional furniture, and teaches woodworking at Thaddeus Stevens College …
About a year after I built The $175 Workbench, I built The Power Tool Workbench for the August 2002 issue of Popular Woodworking magazine. The issue featuring The $175 Workbench had done particularly well on the newsstands (the bench had been on the cover), and so my fellow editors were willing to let me stick …
Workbench Tour No. 2: The Power Tool Workbench – Read More »