The Renaissance Woodworker

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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I have been using a Veritas bevel up smoother for a few years now with no complaints. The stock 25 degree blade was great but I switched over to a 38 degree for a combined 50 degree “York” pitch after a while and dedicated this plane to tough grain situations. I have a [...]

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I added a new toy to the tool cabinet this weekend. An Iwasaki Carving File purchased during the big Woodcraft sale. These files are extremely sharp as they have been chemically etched. Their diagonal tooth pattern cuts much like a plane would cut including a form of tiny chip breaker which actually [...]

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Here in the US we tend to be a little ethnocentric. Call it American swagger, call it geographic isolation but we often forget that things are different elsewhere in this big world. So it is nice every once in a while to be shaken out of our preconceptions.
Last weekend I made [...]

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It’s time for another hand tool tip. You have crosscut that board and now you notice it isn’t square or parallel to the opposite end. Yes you can use a shooting board to fix it, but this gets hard with larger boards. A shooting board is really just a jig that makes [...]

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In typical Wood Whisper panache, Marc has put up a nice video announcing our Guild build and the dedication to Duane. As promised he has also included a donation link at the bottom of the page. Get over there and check it out.
I’m proud to say that since yesterday’s post we [...]

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I have mentioned before what a valuable resource The Wood Whisperer Guild is to me. It seems that it is time to give back. Marc Spagnuolo thought it would be fun to organize a group build where all of us guildees could build a simple project and help one another out during the [...]

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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 first used one of Mark Harrell’s new tenon saws at the hand tool olympics at the Woodworking in America design event last August in St Charles, IL. At the time my dovetailing skills were actually better than my tenoning skills because I had spent more time practicing dovetails. Needless to say I [...]

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