The Renaissance Woodworker

The piece I’m dubbing my Studio Table was the first project I have completed with my Roubo workbench completely finished. After investing so much time in building this bench it was a very affirming experience to build a piece of furniture using my newest and easily most valuable tool.
Granted this little Stickley [...]

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I would estimate that I am doing 85-90% of my work with hand tools these days. Because of that I am constantly looking for better lighting so I can truly see my work. Lately I haven’t even been turning on my over head fluorescent lights instead favoring to turn on the incandescent work [...]

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So here is the final work holding touch to this workbench. Really an accessory to help with wide panels or edge work on long boards, but something that is indispensable when those needs arise. Much of the work is the same as the leg vise except for the sliding mechanism which I detail [...]

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I have spoken a lot about the custom filing that Mark Harrell does to make his Bad Axe tenon saws so incredible to work with. Here is an example of what I’m talking about. Ash is very hard and when you are cutting a 3.5″ thick piece like this one it can wear [...]

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I mentioned on Twitter yesterday that I have been working in Ash for a year now as I slowly build my workbench. Rob Bois, @theboisshop, commented that I must be really good at sharpening after working with such a hard wood for so long. You know I hadn’t really thought about it, but [...]

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I know I talk a lot about hand tools on this blog. And honestly I use tools of the unplugged variety much more than the ones with those long tails and pointy plugs…a lot more. My bed time reading is comprised of old tomes of furniture collections and eclectic trade manuals of working [...]

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I have completed all the functional aspects of my workbench and it has already greatly improved the quality of my woodworking. Now it is time to turn my attention to some of the creature comforts. I find myself crossing back and forth across my shop to get a bench hook or a shooting [...]

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Just when you thought it was safe to go back to work on Roubo…

Click To Play

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Hand tools allow us to work in way not possible with a machine. Have you ever glued up a part and then thought, “dang, I should have chamfered those edges at the router table first”. While you can’t run a carcase across a router table easily, you can very easily use a block [...]

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How many times have you heard a fellow woodworker say that they are behind “schedule” on a project or, “I can’t believe how long that took to make!”
I am plagued with this all the time. I did a podcast many months ago on organizing yourself when working on multiple projects. In [...]

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