New Video: Modifying Scrub Plane for Coopered Lid Fairing

Currently, the project getting most of my woodworking time is a pair of small pieces, not sure whether to call them large boxes or small chests! Anyway, they have coopered lids. I'm duplicating an antique the client

Online Saw Sharpening Resources

 Here is a set of links on saw sharpening. I have sharpened rip teeth fairly well for 25 years, but I have never been happy with

All I Have Is a Hammer

As a long-time woodworker, when I need to do or make something, my first thought about approaching the challenge is usually in the form of wood. (Within reason. Show me a clogged drain and I'll get the plumbing tools.)

Recently my challenge has been mounting a variable frequency drive and a

File Files So Files Don't File Files

We all know, or should know, to not let files and rasps bang against each other or against other metal tools.* They'll get dull, we're told. This is received wisdom; I admit I haven't ever questioned it, let alone tested it. But some of my Auriou and Iwasaki examples are too

Some pictures of planes. First a Record #07, late production with plastic handles and screw-type cap (as opposed to a "lever cap")

Next, a Miller's Falls #10 (equivalent to Stanley #4-1/2). Note the articulated lever cap, which seems to focus the pressure on the front edge of the iron more effectively than a plain cap:

Further Adventures in Workholding, Episode IX

Ms. L. is returning to work for another school year, so it's time for me to write a brief essay on "What I Did over Summer Vacation."

We spent each weekend

Videos Worth Watching: Workholding Without a Vise

This is one of my 10 favorite woodworking videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvhn-PAfEW4&t=10s

Why do I hold it in such esteem?

1. Mike Siemsen is clearly

Shop Report

Here's what I have going on in the shop these days. As with anything, there's more going on than you hear about in any one place!

Here's the Shaker-inspired table we built in

Videos Worth Watching: "Medieval Wood Riving"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BE2klxBE8QM

A museum team in Sweden shows excellent axe techniques for felling, bucking, riving and hewing as they duplicate 40-foot-long rafters in a medieval Swedish church.

The segment on controlling the riving is my favorite. Early in the video you can see that the tree used for the original rafters has considerable twist, and the crew shows how to overcome that.

Lately I've been following the "Finnish Vintage Axes" account on Instagram, and  now I see what all those long-headed axes are for. It also looks like "mortising" axes have a more general use during the controlled riving.

The best woodworking videos give me an itch to get busy. This one does that, in spades!

Stacked Birch Bark Knife Handle: New Video

I recently made and posted this video to YouTube: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2zDllohj-Q

The process of making the handle was quite enjoyable, and the result is wonderful. The handle is grippy, resilient, and warm in the hand. Even when wet! I will be making more.

If I Should Die, Think Only This of Me: "How Much Can We Get for His Table Saw?"

A better title for this entry might be "The Woodworking Aspects of Estate Planning." 

I have been aware of Chanel Reynolds for a few years now. I get a monthly email from her that says, in essence, "Prepare To Die!" And someday I'll do that. Maybe this is the year I finally make my will!

One thing I have done as an initial, feeble, wobbly movement in Chanel's direction, is to start

Splitting Wood into Thirds

Oh, yes you can!

There are three points to this post:

Video: Roughing out Spoons at the Bench

I made a video showing my vise, chisel, hammer method of roughing out spoon blanks. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XT7PdrXYYOI

More Adventures in Workholding

I've been working on a change to my spoon-carving process, scooping out the bowl earlier in the process with the blank held by a clamp rather than in my hand. 

I tried it out with this tiny salt spoon, made from

Spoon Blanks by Hammer and Chisel (Without a Hatchet!)

Unrefined spoons, just captured in the wilds of northern Wisconsin!

Let's say you have

Video Worth Watching: Wille Sundqvist on YouTube

My teacher Drew Langsner has posted a video I love on YouTube. On several of my visits to Country Workshops, I have watched this on a VHS copy Drew has in the shop's video library. 

This is basically raw, unedited footage made in 1982 by Rick Mastelli for a projected video by Taunton Press. For reasons I don't know, the project wasn't completed. I believe several black and white stills from these sessions were used in a Fine Woodworking article on the basic knife grasps.

I assume this was Wille's second trip to the U.S., when he taught the first spoon and bowl course at Country Workshops. Here you see a craftsman at the height of his powers, working in a new environment and explaining what he's doing and why in his second (third?) language. Clearly he's a master of both the work and teaching it.

Along with Wille's book, Swedish Carving Techniques, and the later Taunton video by his son Jögge, this video will give anyone interested in carving with hand tools, beginner or more advanced, plenty of food for thought. I still have new "aha" moments every time I look these over. Wonderful "ahas" I feel not just in the brain, but in the hands: one of life's great pleasures!

More Spoon Carving: Red Maple Serving Spoons

Here are photos of two spoons I made at my

Dovetails Again

Here is an excellent, short video that mostly is about cutting dovetails.

There is an astonishing quantity of b.s. propagated about dovetailing. So much so, that when I saw this, I decided to share it - - yes, I'm reblogging somebody else's work - - in the name of giving a boost to the good stuff so that the b.s. can begin sinking to the bottom.

Chris Hall's blog is worth following, too.

That's all!

Build a Workbench in a Weekend

This past weekend was my second “Build a Workbench in a Weekend” class at Highland Woodworking. Five students and I put in two very full, very busy days of work and produced 6

Long Workpieces on a Short Workbench

If you don't have a long bench but need to work on the edge of long boards, here's a trick (or what the computer-semi-literate call a “hack”). I have a good iron tail vise on the end of my short but heavy bench. This works well for the typical work I do and the space I have to do it in. The photo shows how I handle workpieces too long to rest on the bench lengthwise.