Learn essential woodworking skills and methods.
I treated my outdoor garden bench with coffee. It gave the wood a darker, richer look, and I liked it for a while. But it did not last. The color faded, and the wood went dry and thirsty-looking. In the end, I painted the bench, and the paint has lasted far longer out in the … Read more
Drill a pilot hole sized to the screw’s shank — the solid core — not to its thread. That single change stops most splitting, because a screw doesn’t split wood by taking up space; it splits wood when its thread wedges the fibers apart faster than they can compress. A hole the width of the … Read more
Shallow passes, grain direction, and shifting your weight front to back as you go. Plus snipe – the dip at each end – and the two mistakes that cost me a plank and several blades.