Learn essential woodworking skills and methods.
My grandfather could run a hand saw straight through a board without it sticking once. I watched him do it and thought it looked easy. I was younger and stronger than him, so I was sure I could push harder and cut faster. I tried. The saw jammed. I pulled it free, pushed again, and … Read more
Nine handheld types plus drill presses and mag drills, compared in one table – and the two that cover almost every hole a home workshop drills.
A drill drives screws perfectly well, provided it has a torque clutch and you actually set it. That numbered collar is the entire difference.
Your eye cannot judge vertical as well as it believes. The fix is never to try harder – it is to give the bit something physical to follow.
The first shelf I put up with one of these brackets nearly came down on me. The bracket was not the problem. It was the fourth design on this page, glued and screwed, and it was solid. I hung it with a plastic wall plug and an ordinary drywall screw. It held fine for a … Read more
Bottom-loaders take the strip legs up, top-loaders legs down. Both mechanisms in five steps, plus the leg-length chart that stops the jams.
Ten lap joints for a wooden cross, with a table for choosing between them. Most people want the cross-half lap – here is why, and when the other nine beat it.
Yes, with a disc rated for the grinder. Never with a woodworking saw blade. Which attachments work, which one causes the amputations, and when to use a saw instead.
A drill bit will not start on a slope. Every method here is really a way of solving that first quarter-second.
You cannot sand stain smooth. That rough feel is not stain sitting on top of the wood. It is wood fiber. The liquid in the stain soaked in and lifted those fibers, like hair standing up. If you sand them off now, the color comes off with them. That is why people end up with … Read more