Plane Truth – Part 2

Two additional, specialized, planes to add to your tool chest – – the Scrub Plane and the Toothing Plane. The Scrub Plane (Stanley No 40) is used to remove large quantities of wood in a short period of time. Working diagonally or across the grain. It is...

Three Days In July

One Saturday late in July 2014 I called up a friend and fellow woodworker John and asked if he was doing anything. I told him I was heading to Avoca NY, about 2 hour drive west.  While Avoca is in the heart idyllic country, it is no tourists destination, but people...

Plane and Simple

Planes are the epitome of fine woodworking and have four jobs in the shop: to straighten, flatten, smooth and remove wood. Simple, but many woodworkers are confused by all the different sizes of bench planes available.  Stanley has at least 15+ planes, from the tiny...

Woodworking Humour – How NOT to Hammer a Nail

For Christmas I was given a set of Audel’s Carpenter’s & Builder’s Guide Vol. 1-4 1923 and have been working my way through them. Vol. 1 covers planes to chisels to saws to drills to measuring tools Vol. 2 covers builders math and drawing and...

Honing Stones and Sharpening Part 2

If there’s one thing that can frustrate the beginner woodworker and prevent them from achieving the goal of producing the finest work, it is, without doubt, the sharpness of your tools. In this post I will look at how, with minimum time and equipment,  you can...