A New Lessons From an Old Workbench

Sometimes the best innovations are so simple it's a wonder that they aren't everywhere. This week, Mike Siemsen of Chisago City, Minn., sent me an e-mail about his new workbench that opened my head like a can opener. Siemsen, who runs Mike Siemsen's School of Woodworking, recently completed building a very close copy of Peter Nicholson's workbench featured in the early 19th-century classic: "The Mechanic's Companion,... 

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Shhh! Don’t Tell My Scraper That

It’s funny what you can accomplish when you’re ignorant. No one told me I couldn’t cut joinery with a hacksaw, which has fine teeth and little set. But that’s exactly what I used to do -- until I took a class in hand joinery and learned all about backsaws. Same thing goes for scraping. For years I used a card scraper on pine until I read somewhere that you can’t scrape softwoods. You can scrape... 

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I See the Light Now

It’s easy to get grumpy about the way you work in the shop and resist the newfangled features that appear on tools. To be sure, some of these “innovations” are boneheaded (the bench chisels with rasp teeth on the blade spring quickly to mind). But other ideas are great, and you just have to give them a chance. This month, I embraced two innovations that I resisted for a decade. I actively mocked ... 

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An Editor in Error and Other Mistaken Tales

The August 2000 issue of Popular Woodworking is one of my favorites. On the cover is a secretary that Troy Sexton built that was the result of a lot of hard work by the entire staff. We worked with Troy over almost an entire year to pull together the story about his excellent design. So you can imagine my dismay when the magazine went out to subscribers, and my phone started ringing off the hook with angry readers on the other end of... 

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Why We Hate Paint

Yesterday I finished up work on the dry sink that is the cover project for the Spring 2009 issue of Woodworking Magazine (Issue 13). As always, the finishing part of the project was as much an adventure as designing and building it. The project is made from Eastern white pine, so we knew that coloring it with a pigment or dye would result in blotching. My first gut feeling was to paint the thing – I've seen a lot... 

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Andrew Lunn’s Super-tuned Dovetail Saws

There are so many fine Western sawmakers today that it's hard to believe that there were virtually none in 1996 – the year Independence Tool was founded. New sawmakers are cropping up so quickly that it's tough for me to keep track (and heck, it's my job). I do try to stay on top of the market as best I can, and during the last couple years I've gotten to use saws from almost every maker – thanks to the... 

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Tested: The Benchcrafted Wagon Vise

These last couple weeks I’ve gotten to break in my new Benchcrafted wagon vise while building a dry sink for the next issue of Woodworking Magazine. The dry sink is enormous (it looked so small on paper). And every surface has passed under a handplane. The wide stock was prepped entirely by hand. The narrower stuff I processed first with a powered jointer and planer – and then handplanes. I’ve been... 

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Knot a Problem

On Halloween night in 1993 I went to the lumberyard in search of wood to build a sitting bench for our kitchen in Lexington, Ky. Like any good woodworker, I sorted through the entire pile of 1 x 12s to find boards that were straight, flat and looked good. I was frustrated that night because I couldn't find wood that looked right. It was all too boring, clear and knot-free. Yes, that sentence is correct. There is something ... 

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The Sawbench: A Silent Shop Slave

I really need to start keeping a list of all the things I use my sawbenches for. Sure, I saw stuff on them. And I stand on them while go-go dancing in the shop to amuse visitors. Those things are obvious. What's not so obvious is how often they get me out of weird jams with my handplanes. On Monday as I was planing down the face frame of this dry sink, the sawbench was the obvious choice to lend a hand. I wedged... 

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Taming the Wild Pine

When I first got serious about woodworking after college, I remember reading a dire warning in a woodworking book about working with pine: “If you work with pine, be sure to purchase your material, mill it, cut it and assemble the entire project all in a single day. If you let pine sit overnight, it will warp and be unusable.” At the time, the warning flummoxed me. Sure, the pine from our home center tended ... 

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Trouble Outside the Norm

Cabinetry is made of chunks of wood that are fairly standard in size. Most of your parts are going to be shorter than 48" long. It’s rare that individual planks will be wider than 12", or that your casework is going to be much deeper than 24" or so. And so most of our tools, workbenches and shops are set up to deal with parts and assemblies that fall into those ranges. What’s really amazing to me, however, is how ... 

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Now Available: ‘The Workbench’ DVD

Lie-Nielsen Toolworks has just released a DVD that is based on the theories, research and building that I did for the book "Workbenches: From Design & Theory to Construction & Use." The DVD – titled "The Workbench" – shows how I use (and adapt) three different workbenches to work on the faces, edges and ends of boards. Shot during a week in Maine, this DVD demonstrates how to accomplish basic (and some advanced) workholding... 

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‘When Beetles Attack’ Vol. I

Our shop is thick with the sweet odor of Eastern white pine this week as I’m milling about 70 board feet of the stuff for the next issue of Woodworking Magazine. The smell (Megan Fitzpatrick would say “redolence”) is worlds better than the funky fish and burned popcorn smell that wafts daily from our cafeteria. But with that great smell comes great mystery. In the first batch of Eastern white pine we brought... 

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Blue Tape Brings on the Silence of the Schwarz

Anyone who works with me in the shop knows that I'm a bit of a bully when it comes to the stereo. I'll get to the office early, plug my iPod into the crap-tacular shop stereo (which hasn't actually played in stereo since Kool & the Gang were on the charts) and hit "shuffle." But since early October, the iPod I take to work has been on the fritz. The 1/8" jack has been acting up, and the music has been cutting... 

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Benchcrafted Vise Hardware Now on the Roubo

When I first built my Roubo-style workbench, I wanted to see if I could work without an end vise. So for the first year or so I used my planing stop, holdfasts, battens and geometry to steady my work as I planed it. But I got tired of the whack-whack, shuffle-shuffle necessary whenever I needed to plane across the grain of panels (called traversing) or plane diagonally on any size board. So I started... 

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First Photos of the New Stanley Planes

Though the new Stanley premium handplanes won't hit stores for a month or more, the company has released these photos of the planes that are going to be used on some packaging. These photos were taken by the company's United Kingdom employees. Up until now, we've only seen computer renderings of the planes. Though the resolution of the photos here don't really allow you to see all the detail, the tools look quite ... 

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My Soon-to-be-nice Wagon Vise

This week my pesky highly rewarding day job has been interfering with the installation of my new Benchcrafted wagon vise. Our February 2009 issue of Popular Woodworking is riddled with typos (or it is written in Pig Latin). So Managing Editor Megan Fitzpatrick and I have been cleaning up our poor verbiage this week while the real work has sat dormant in the shop. Here’s a quick update: On Monday I did nothing... 

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New Stanley Planes Coming in 2009

The new line of premium Stanley planes should be available in January or February 2009, according to Stanley officials. The planes were originally planned for a November 2008 release, but a company official said they needed to fine tune the finished appearance of the tools – plus Stanley ran into a couple mechanical snags. The premium line of planes – two block planes, a smoothing plane, shoulder plane and low-angle... 

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A Big Rut for the New Wagon Vise

This weekend I'm installing the Benchcrafted.com wagon vise hardware on my Roubo-style workbench. But before I could pull my old prototype wagon vise hardware off the bench, I had one more task for it to perform: Making the new end cap for the new wagon vise. The new end cap on my benchtop has to be beefier than my original end cap, so I had to glue up some 8/4 maple into a slab about 3" thick. I planed it all flat... 

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Top-quality Vise Hardware On Sale. It’s Time

Barring some tryptophan- or ale-induced trypanosomiasis, I'm going to start modifying my Roubo workbench this weekend to add some new vise hardware. I'm replacing the metal leg-vise screw with a beautiful wooden-vise screw from Joe Comunale at BigWoodVise.com. And I'm replacing my hillbilly-style wagon vise with the stunningly machined wagon vise hardware from Jameel Abraham at Benchcrafted.com. Both of these... 

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Woodworking in America: The Official Slideshow

Truth is, I barely remember our Woodworking in America conference in Berea, Ky. The whole thing is a blur. And that has nothing – nothing – to do with all the beverages that people thoughtfully brought to me (one bottle of whisky, two cases of Canadian beer and very special bottle of Belgian ale – thanks Blaine). All of us were working hard to keep the conference running smoothly that we had little time... 

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A Close Look at the Veritas Premium Block Plane

The unveiling of two new Veritas block planes this week has thrilled some customers with their sleek design, and confused others. Is Veritas – a company historically focused on function more than form – changing its course with these new planes? "It's not a direction change at all," says Robin Lee, the president of Lee Valley Tools and Veritas (the company's tool-making arm). "We have four planes coming out soon... 

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Veritas Dovetail Saw in Ebony

If you are among those who are put off by the modern look of the new Veritas dovetail saw, take a look at the photo above. Using the power of Photoshop, Art Director Linda Watts made the bubinga handle look like ebony. I think that perhaps some of the aesthetic objection to the tool comes from the transition from handle to spine. It is in an unexpected place. Replacing the handle with ebony (or a black-dyed equivalent)... 

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Veritas Rethinks the Dovetail Saw

This weekend I spent some time working with the new Veritas dovetail saw, which I first picked up at our Woodworking in America conference. The saw has a radical love-it-or-leave-it look that is whipping up the proletariat on the messageboards. No matter how it looks, wouldn't you like to know how it cuts? I thought so. Check out this short review that I've just published on our web site.— Christopher Schwarz,... 

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Sick of Saws Yet? No? Read On

Several readers have asked what the differences are among the Kenyon saw that showed up at Woodworking in America, the Gramercy dovetail saw and the Lie-Nielsen dovetail saw. In what I promise is my last post about saws this week, here are some observations.1. Weight. The Kenyon saw (the bottom saw in the photo) weighs 7.8 ounces. The Gramercy (the top saw in the photo) weighs 6.2 oz. The Lie-Nielsen comes in at 11 oz.... 

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Wenzloff & Sons to Make an Early Kenyon Saw

Good news for those of you who went wild with lust over liked the early Kenyon dovetail saw featured earlier this week. Saw maker Mike Wenzloff says he will manufacture very close copies of this valuable and rare saw for sale during the next few weeks. The saw surfaced at our Woodworking in America conference in Berea, Ky., when an attendee brought it in and asked Wenzloff if he could sharpen it or replace... 

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Woodworking in America: The Saws You Need

During the Woodworking in America conference, I moderated a discussion on saws between toolmakers Mike Wenzloff, from Wenzloff & Sons, and Joel Moskowitz, from Tools for Working Wood. Both men are knowledgeable and have firm opinions about the topic of saws. The discussion was spirited and at some points contentious, though no blood was drawn. It took a long time for the three of us to navigate the technical details of the... 

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Woodworking in America: A Shocking Saw

As the Woodworking in America conference wound down on Sunday, I dashed out the door with Louis Bois to fetch a six pack of beer he had chilling in his rental car. As my hand touched the exit I heard a voice call my name. I waved back to the guy. The reply was not what I expected. “I have something that you have to see.” I stopped for a second and then plunged into the cold with Louis, who draws the technical ... 

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15 Woodworking Questions That Need Answers

The handplaning jigs are packed and ready to load on the truck Thursday morning. Only one more restless night in bed, and I'll be headed down to our Woodworking in America conference in Berea, Ky. The entire staff of the magazine is looking forward to the show, but we also know that we're in for a wild ride. We've never put on a conference before, and we know expectations are high. And... 

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Auriou Rasps Available Now

Find your credit card. You know the one. It's one your spouse always hides when you get caught reading my blog.Auriou, the venerable French toolmaker that closed it doors last year after a labor dispute, re-opened for business on Friday. Thanks to new owners and the same plant manager, the new Forge de St Juery is making and selling many of the most popular and useful woodworking rasps on its web site. ... 

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