I have used an illuminated tracer dozens of times since starting at Lost Art Press last year. The one we’ve had at the shop is an Artograph and is reliable but bulky, and it can get hot if I use it for too long.

My dad used this Tracer brand in a class he recently took and became fond of it (Chris here: I was mostly amazed at its price. These new light boxes are incredibly cheap compared to ones from even a few years ago). It’s a less expensive lightweight design that can still get the job done. So let’s somehow incorporate a cat into this and review this sucker.

Pencil:

Pen:

I only had printer paper on hand when I tested this; lightweight paper would work better in real-world situations.

The pencil drawing barely showed up even, with me holding the paper down to the light. It’s easier to see the different brightness settings with the pen drawing. I only see a small difference between “off” and the most-dim setting. There was a significant difference between the brightest setting and the default.

The dimming feature could be much better. To turn it on and off, you tap the power button. To change the brightness you have to tap and hold the power button. There’s a bit of a delay when the machine starts to change brightness and then it goes to full brightness really fast. To dim the screen you have to press and hold again, which has the same delay and then speedy change. You are able to choose a brightness in between the minimum and maximum, but it’s tricky because of the sensitivity of the button and how fast it changes after the annoying delayed start.

Though it only took me a few minutes to figure out the dimming, I found it finicky, so it’s something I would never really use unless I need the brightest setting.

The tracer is incredibly lightweight and feels like it would get mauled by the books and binders you would put in your backpack with it. It doesn’t come with a protective sleeve cover for the screen.

It comes with a 4-1/2" long USB-C to USB cable but no charging block for an outlet, which I know is typical for cheaper electronics.

I left the tracer on the brightest setting for 15 minutes and neither the front or the back felt warm to the touch.

There’s a helpful (and accurate) ruler on two sides of the screen, which the Artograph does not have.

For use in the shop, I’d rather stick with the bulky one. The lightweight tracer slides around more when I work on it which can screw up paper alignment.

I think this would be a great starter tracer or a good one for traveling. It would take up less room during travel and if it breaks, at least it wasn’t the expensive one.

Chris’ Addendum to the Review

I totally agree with Katherine’s assessment above. The Tracer is lightweight and feels a little flimsy. But if you are not a hard-core artist (like Katherine), this is a great tool for tracing details from photographs.

One of the frequent design exercises I do uses a lightbox, tracing paper and a photo of a piece of furniture I adore. By tracing every bit of it, I learn a lot about the object’s proportions and details. This activity forces your brain to “see” things through the pencil that your eyes miss.

Before these cheap LED lightboxes came on the market, you could expect to pay $200 or so for a good one. And it would be a little small. So these LED panels ($27 for a big one?) are a pretty good deal for the occasional user.

What is a Pullshave?

The so-called pullshave (made by Veritas), is a tool designed to smooth concave areas, such as chair seats.

I often use it after roughing out a seat with an adze or inshave, though it is marketed as a tool that eliminates the need for an inshave and travisher, and that can handle both the rouging out and smoothing.

The tool is similar to a convex spokeshave, except that its handles are on the front and back of the tool rather than the sides. It has two adjustment thumbwheels for quick and easy depth-of-cut adjustments.

The A2 blade that I use is 1/8" thick, bedded at a 45° angle in a ductile cast iron body. The pullshave retails for about $180 with a PMV-11 blade; 01 blades are available for about $28 (the A2 blade appears to no longer be available).

The retail price of the tool is less expensive than most inshaves and travishers currently on the market.

How it Performs

After working with the pullshave for an extended amount of time and having carved several seats with this tool, here are some of my findings. It was my only chair-seat smoothing tool until I got a travisher not that long ago.

My opinions are mixed. It does the job of hollowing out and smoothing, but not without issues.

The main issue is that the tool visually obstructs a large area of the area where you are working. The tool handle and knob make it difficult to see ahead of and behind your cut. This “blind area’’ is about 4" long, meaning you don’t see the area you just carved until the tool passes another 4" toward you.

A travisher doesn’t have this problem because its handles are on the sides.

The depth adjustment works very well, just like any spokeshave made by Veritas. You can make aggressive cuts with the blade extended, and remove a lot of material this way.

It handles a bit like a reverse jack plane, but with a tiny sole. The radius of the blade is similar to a jack plane with a cambered iron.

Learning Curve

The fact that the tool has such a short sole makes it hard to determine how to hold it and how to work with it effectively. There is a bit of a learning curve before you can use the tool properly.

I would argue that learning how to use an inshave or a travisher is more intuitive. But overall, the pullshave is not that difficult to learn.

Here are some tips to get it started.

1. Make sure the blade is sharp (duh).

2. Adjust the blade until it is just protruding the mouth. You should be able to get an equally thin shaving on both sides of the blade. Test with a small strip of wood.

   

3. Place the pullshave on the workpiece and move it forwards and backwards (horizontally). This is where the awkwardness starts.

4. Tilt the tool handle upwards or downwards to find the sweet spot where it makes a cut.

   

   

5. Once its cuts, you are in business. Now you can adjust the depth of the blade for a more aggressive cut.

Read more

The Maine company that makes our joiner’s rule is getting out of the flat ruler business. Skowhegan Wooden Ruler Co. told us that once their current stock of rulers has been sold off, that will be the end of that part of their business.

They will continue to make their wooden growth ruler, and they left the door open to continuing to do custom work for us.

If you have ever wanted one of their rulers, now is the time to buy them. These are excellent woodworking tools. Well-made, well-marked and perfect for benchwork.

We are sorry to hear this news. They are very nice people who are great to deal with.

Check out what is left here in their etsy store.

We use the Lie-Nielsen 60-1/2 block plane to shape all our chair sticks, plus the myriad other tasks a block plane is great for.

We use the 60-1/2 in particular because it has an adjustable mouth. That means you can tighten the mouth aperture to the point where tear-out is greatly diminished or eliminated. But the 60-1/2 is too big for some students’ hands, and I’ve long looked for a good block plane to recommend.

We’ve always loved the bronze Lie-Nielsen 102. It’s 1" shorter and almost 10 ounces lighter than the 60-1/2. It’s perfect for smaller hands. But there’s one snag: the 102’s mouth aperture isn’t tight enough for dealing with tough grain reversals.

Decades ago, Thomas Lie-Nielsen had experimented with a No. 102 that had swappable mouth plates so the user could tighten up the mouth by putting in a different mouth plate. The plane was too fussy to put into production. A couple weeks ago I asked Thomas about that experiment, and he replied that they had come up with a different solution to tighten the mouth.

Read more

Many years ago, as a young and foolish new homeowner with a new nail gun, I bought an inexpensive 2-gallon air compressor at a big box store1. It worked fine as far as driving nails, filling tires and the like, but it was louder than any of the much larger machinery I used at work. My best guess is that it was around 120 dB at the end of its life with me, and it always gave me a headache, despite my zealous commitment to ear protection.

I kept that thing for a decade. It was so loud that I would shut the cats in my attic before running it in the basement, three floors below. And I had to go outside when it was loading just to escape some of the noise. As I got ready to renovate my kitchen last fall, I knew it was time for me and that compressor to part ways.

I started researching “quiet air compressors,” and settled on a California Air Tools 8010A – an oil-free, ultra-quiet, 8-gallon compressor that has a 1-horsepower (hp) motor, 2.2 cubic feet per minute (CFM) at 90 pounds per square inch (psi) and a max psi of 120 – more than enough air and oomph for my modest home-shop needs. It is also billed as “lightweight” and has wheels to make it easy to move around, though at 49 pounds, it’s a bit difficult for me to move up and down my winding stairs.2

It has a single “push-to-connect” female push connector that is moderately stiff. It’s not easy to use, but it’s not a struggle (more on that below).

Read more

About 12 years ago, Australian woodworker Robert Howard handed me a tiny bag with a knurled bit of metal inside. It was a replacement for the blade adjuster on a Lie-Nielsen 60-1/2 block plane. He asked me to give it a try, and I said I would.

When I returned to the States, I took out the new adjuster and gave it a look. The knurled part was brass, unlike the steel knob on my Lie-Nielsen. But the real difference was at the front of the adjuster. Howard had added a bearing to the brass knob. The bearing dropped into the cavity on the underside of the plane’s blade.

Howard had effectively moved the motion of the adjuster from the rim to the shaft of the adjuster. The result was that the blade adjustment was smoother.

I put the new bearing adjuster on my plane and eventually forgot about it.

Fast forward to January 2026 when I started teaching classes on the road again. I didn’t want to take a chance that I would lose my Lie-Nielsen 60-1/2 (I think I bought it in 1998). So I bought a second 60-1/2 to travel with. And all this year I’ve thought: “Boy, this new block plane is more difficult to adjust. I wonder why?”

Then I remembered the Howard adjuster, and it all made sense. I don’t think Howard sells them anymore (if I’m wrong, please let me know). But James Wright of Wood by Wright offers a nearly identical adjuster for the 60-1/2, plus a second version for the Lie-Nielsen No. 102 (the adjusters are made by Jeffrey Warshafsky of REED planes). We brought in a couple to try.

The adjusters are simple to swap (for the most part; read the instructions closely). And the blade drops right onto the bearing. Then you put the plane back together and go to work.

The difference is noticeable. The blade adjustment is indeed smoother.

For me, the biggest difference was when I put the REED adjuster on the Lie-Nielsen No. 102. Yes, the bearing made adjustments smoother. But the bigger difference was in the diameter of the adjustment knob. I think the adjustment knob for the 102 is a bit small at just under 1/2" in diameter. The REED adjuster is .72" in diameter, and that extra diameter is welcome. The 102 is noticeably easier to adjust with the aftermarket adjuster.

The REED adjusters are $39 each plus shipping. Should you buy one?

Read more

One of the most useful gifts I’ve ever received from Chris is a 50 Piece Mini Drill Bit Set (#20575) from Rockler. I can no longer find it on the Rockler site, but there’s a similar set (possibly the same set, different branding) available right now from Garrett Wade.

Why would I want so many of the same size bits? Well, for me, they are darn handy when teaching, since several of the projects I teach involve cut nails and/or square-shanked nails, for which you must drill pilot holes. These bits cover the pilot hole size for most (though not all) of my nail pilot-hole needs.

And these bits are small – small bits break more easily than large ones. So even if you don’t teach and thus have a need for eight 1/8" drill bits at one time, I’ll bet you eventually break a 1/8" drill bit (I have), so it’s nice to have another on hand.

And for less than $30, why not?

– Fitz

Just like tuning a handplane, tweaking a piece of machinery can induce semi-orgasmic levels of serotonin.

I love a machine that barely shrugs when you turn it on. No vibration. No weird rubbing noises. Just the hum of the induction motor.

This review is not a how-to guide to tuning your machines. But it offers a gateway to that world. Step 1: Align the drive pulleys of your machine. Not just “kinda” align them. Align them like you align the rails and stiles of all your door parts on your workbench when you are done for the day. You know, like the way you align all the pencils on your desk.

Step 2: Replace the machine’s V-belt with a Fenner Drives’ PowerTwist belt.1 Sometimes people erroneously call this a “link-belt” (another brand name entirely, actually) because the belt is made up of lots of links.2

These red belts are superior to the old-fashioned V-belts in many ways. When the PowerTwist belts break, you simply replace the broken link. When they stretch, you just remove a link or two to tighten things up. The belts reduce vibration and noise. They don’t slip. And they don’t develop a “set” like regular V-belts.

Downside: They are more expensive. But they are worth it.

I’ve been using the Fenner Power Twist belts (made in the USA) for almost 30 years and have no complaints. In fact, whenever we work on a machine, replacing the belt is one of the first operations on our to-do list.

Recently I noticed a competitor to the Fenner belt: Accu-Link, which is headquartered in Italy (the belts may come from Europe, North America or Asia). They are usually green. Harbor Freight sells them under the Accu-Link name, and they are one-third the price compared to the Fenner belts (only at Harbor Freight; see below).

Also, Amazon sells other similar belts in a variety of colors, and at a lower price than the USA-made Fenners. These are sold under the Poweka brand, and it’s not clear where they are made.

So I will purchase some Accu-Link belts and Poweka belts and see how they compare to the original PowerTwist belt. (Note also that a lot of sellers call their belts “power twist” belts, but they aren’t the real deal unless they are from Fenner.)

Final tip:

Read more

Chris is busy building a chair (shocking, I know), so you’re stuck with me for this Swag Week Giveaway – but that’s appropriate, because this time, we’re giving away a set of Frederick Parker Collection chair playing cards, courtesy of Derek Jones, and a blue-bound copy of Peter Nicholson’s “Mechanic’s Companion,” a 19th-century book on woodworking and allied traded that I scanned and painstakingly cleaned up in Photoshop just after my exit from Popular Woodworking. I then had 2,000 copies printed and mailed lots of them from my dining room…then made a book box tower of the remaining copies in my living room and front hallway. (My cat JJ loved climbing on that edifice.)

When I joined LAP full time, Chris and John bought the remainder of my copies and after they sold out, reprinted the book with a tan cover.

And the playing cards? Derek brought those with him last time he was visiting Covington to teach a Cricket Table class. The face cards feature chairs from the Frederick Parker Collection, 200 chairs from the 17th-century to the present, now managed by the U.K.’s Furniture Makers Company.

What is Swag Week?

As a thank you to our readers, the first week of every month, we’re going to give away something nice, unique or rare from our vast collection of books, tools and ephemera.

We’re going to select – at random – a paid subscriber from our three substacks. We’ll announce the recipient here. And then we’ll send the item out anywhere to them on planet earth.

If you’re a paid subscriber, you’re eligible. There’s nothing you need to do. If you subscribe to more than one substack, you will be even more eligible because your name will be in the pool of subscribers two or three times instead of once.

So if you’re a paid subscriber, do absolutely naught!

The winner will be announced on August 10.

– Fitz

Few tool reviews seek to dismiss an entire class of tools, but that is what I’m about to attempt.

I first heard about Stanley’s No. 4-1/2 plane in the mid-1990s from a fellow hand tool explorer. The story went that Stanley developed the No. 4-1/2 to compete with the heavier infill planes in the British market. (Patrick Leach offers his take on this at his excellent Blood & Gore site.)

Whether that’s truth or apocrypha doesn’t matter because the No. 4-1/2 size plane shows up during every class I teach. Sometimes students own a vintage one. But usually they have a modern one made by Veritas, Lie-Nielsen, Clifton,1 Wood River or one of the other No. 4-1/2 models from overseas.

How ubiquitous is the modern No. 4-1/2? When Veritas started making bench planes, the No. 4-1/2 was the first plane the company manufactured. All the other bench plane sizes came later. When Lie-Nielsen chose to make a special plane for the company’s 25th anniversary, they made a No. 4-1/2 in bronze. And when I first met Rob Cosman in the 1990s, the No. 4-1/2 was the plane size he recommended to all his customers (I don’t know if that’s true anymore).

I admit I bought into the marketing and purchased a few tools in the No. 4-1/2 size, and I used them in my day-to-day work at the bench. They were heavy (about 5-1/2 lbs.), and that was a good thing. The mass reduced vibration. And it helped keep the plane planted on the board so it could slice through difficult grain.

I don’t disagree with people who love these planes for their mass.

But I do think fans of the No. 4-1/2 are missing some counterpoints about the practical downsides of mass and surface area.

Before we get into that, however, it’s only fair to mention something you probably already know. As bench planes get longer or wider, they cost more.

So there is an argument that the marketing world prefers the No. 4-1/2 because it is the largest and most expensive smoothing plane. And if I were a crass, bare-knuckled marketer, I might chalk up the No. 4-1/2’s popularity to margins and manufacturing. But I’m not that base. I think people who love the No. 4-1/2 are genuine in their affection for the tool.

And if you are one of those people, I’ve got nothing more to add. I’m not trying to argue. But if you are still looking for the right smoothing plane, read on.

Surface Area

Surface area – both of the wood and the plane’s sole – is the enemy when smoothing a board. One 20"-wide board takes considerably more effort to plane smooth than 10 2"-wide boards.

Why? The wide board is likely to have lots of high and low spots because of the different kinds of grain (quarter, rift and flat) that respond to changes in humidity differently. The 2"-wide boards will almost certainly have the same kind of grain along its length, so it won’t have high and low spots that are super dramatic.

(Also, and this is getting into the weeds a little, the 2"-wide board can be planed smooth faster because you can start the plane with the middle of the iron directly over the long edges of the board. This takes a lot of the plane’s sole out of the equation and gets the board smooth almost immediately.)

The other aspect of the surface area problem is the size of the plane’s sole. Wide and longer plane soles try to flatten the board as well as smooth it. When it comes to smoothing a case side, I don’t care much about flat. I just want it clean and smooth.

My favorite smooth plane ever (a Wayne Anderson infill smooth plane that I sacrificed in a trade) has a sole with a surface area of less than 10 square inches. My No. 3 has a surface area of 18 square inches. A No. 4 has 21 square inches. And a No. 4-1/2 has 29 square inches of surface area.

The surface area of the sole makes a significant difference when planing up wide boards, such as a case side, tabletop or sizable drawer fronts. To demonstrate this, I let students begin planing up a case side with a No. 4-1/2. Then I hand them the smallest smoother on hand. These small planes hug the hills and valleys of the board instead of trying to make them flat. So a small smoother gets the job done in far, far fewer strokes than a larger plane.

Read more

The written word is nice. But the engraved word lasts longer.

There are many times that I need to save important information about a tool. And writing it down, even in “permanent” marker, just isn’t enough.

So years ago I sprung for this inexpensive engraver, and I’m surprised how much I use it to record things such as sharpening angles or the exact composition of a piece of tool steel (A2, O1, M2 etc.).

Sometimes I engrave important information for my future self, such as “do not power grind” on tools that are laminated steel. Other times I engrave who the tool belongs to or where it came from. When I used to build a lot of campaign furniture, I would engrave the hardware to record its position on the piece – that made it easier to reassemble the piece after finishing.

But mostly, I engrave bevel angles and steel composition. All of our inshaves are ground at different angles and need to be polished at that angle. So engraving it on the metal shaft between the blade and handle makes my sharpening chores easier.

And most manufacturers don’t record what sort of steel is in the chisel or plane blade (some do, and thank you for that). So when I get my mortise chisels out, the engraved “M2” is a reminder that I’m going to need to use a diamond stone to turn a burr on the tip.1

I wouldn’t say the electric engraver is an “essential” piece of woodworking gear. But it does make my life in the shop a little less frustrating. And for $25 (give or take, depending on the brand), I’m happy to have it around.

P.S. This is a lightweight review – I know. Look for something upsetting later this week.

This summer, I had to build six knockdown workbenches for a class I’m teaching at Etherfarm, a beautiful farm in the Driftless region of Wisconsin.

The workbenches needed to look swanky and also serve as worktops for other sorts of classes (cooking, art, fly tying, insect taxidermy). I didn’t have time to make six yellow-pine workbenches, such as the one in “The Anarchist’s Workbench” (a free download). So I took a different path.

The top is a 3" x 24" x 60" hard maple top from Alexander Bros. ($590 plus shipping). The base is a pair of cast-iron legs from JCS Casting ($926.25, which includes shipping). The vise is a 10" Milwaukee-made Morgan that I bought from Lake Erie Toolworks ($335 plus shipping). And then we bolted and screwed it all together.

Each bench took us less than 45 minutes to construct. If my time estimate is in error, I’ve overstated how long it took us. We used a cordless drill, a few bits and the Rockler Portable Drill Guide. Honestly, that is the entire set of woodworking tools you need to make the bench (plus a ratchet and wrench to snug the bolts).

The bench weighs 208 lbs. (237 lbs. When I add a carver’s vise to the benchtop). It is damn sturdy and doesn’t move under heavy planing work.

This is probably the fastest and easiest way to build a workbench that I would accept in my workshop. But it is not the cheapest. The total bill for each bench was $1,851.25, plus some bolts and some shipping charges. That makes it more expensive than an entry-level Ramia bench (which is really too flimsy for my work) but considerably less expensive than a bigger-and-somewhat-decent Sjöberg.

You could make this bench for a lot less money by purchasing a vintage quick-release vise. A vintage Jorgensen will set you back about $100 (maybe less). And you could make the top yourself. Figure on buying 35 board feet of hard maple ($175 in the Midwest), plus you will need machinery.

So you can slice and dice this idea all you like – cast your own legs in the sand at the beach if you like.

The purpose of this entry is to talk about the benchtops and the cast legs. I’ll cover the Morgan vise and the Rockler drill guide in the future after we use them some more. All I can say about them right now is that they work and they are the color blue.

Read more

I have been a natural fiber guy most of my life. It probably started when my grandfather’s 100-percent nylon or rayon dress shirts jumped out of the clothes dryer and tried to slay me with static electricity.

I also try to avoid plastics when possible.

So I was skeptical when chairmaker Peter Galbert began raving about the work pants he was wearing while I was teaching at his school in May. The pants were designed by one of his students and made in Portugal.

“Honestly, they are like wearing pajamas,” Peter said. “I never want to take them off.”

So I bought a pair of Task Pants from Part Wild in June and have been wearing them in the workshop and around town. And, despite my misgivings about some of their materials (Cordura, elastomer and hard plastic for the belt buckle) I also do not want to take these pants off.

Why? Let’s start with the belt. The Task Pants come with an integral belt that runs inside an elastic waistband. Now, before you start thinking “Sansabelt,” hear me out. When your pockets are loaded with stuff and your waist apron is pulling your pants down, what do you do? Usually you hike up your waistband and hope for the best.

With these pants, you pull the free tab on the belt and pull. The pants cinch up. This is better than sweatpants. To release the tension, you pull on the buckle. It’s ingenious, one-handed operation. And if you don’t like the included belt, the pants also have regular belt loops. You can wear another belt over the integral belt.

Next up, the fly. It has steel snaps. What? The snaps are easier to open and shut with one hand (unlike a button fly) and won’t chew up your underwear or naughty bits like a zipper. I like the snaps.

And the pockets. I dislike pants that look like you have 100 cloth baggies sewn to your legs. (And I knew a guy who once lost his lunch among the pockets of his pants.) These pants have but five pockets – four of them in front. One in the back with a snap catch.

The four in the front are unobtrusive, unlike the fun bags on cargo pants. Two pockets are hidden behind the extra layer of fabric that reinforces the thighs and knees. The other two are integrated into the pants’ side seams and have ripstop fabric pocket bags. All workpants should have ripstop in the pocket bags (and not single-ply tissue).

All these features are in pants that don’t feel too heavy. They move easily (thank you gusseted crotch) and breathe fairly well in summer heat (thank you, 75 percent organic cotton).

If you are OK with a little plastic in your life, this is a good place to allow it. Cordura is used in military clothing, backpacks and luggage – all things that must take a whupping. I think this is an acceptable use – especially if they last for years and years.

The pants are designed for all genders, though I can’t say how they fit on people with curves (I have only one). My only gripe (and it’s a small one) is I wish they had a tan color. Because I’m boring. The brown is pretty excellent, however.

If you have taken a class with me, you’ve probably used a nifty chamfering bit spun by a drill. The bit cuts a nice chamfer on the ends of round tenons. This makes it easy (or easier) to pull the tenons into their mortises.

That bit is an inexpensive thing I bought in the plumbing supply section years ago. It is designed to chamfer the ends of metal pipes after you cut them.

Here is where things get weird.

Those bits are still readily available, but they do not cut. I have compared my working example to the bockety ones, and it looks like the manufacturer stopped grinding the essential cutting edge.

I have bought chamfer bits from several other sources. Same problem. I have tried the ones with carbide teeth – they just chew up the wood.

I have a solution that works, but it is more expensive than the $7 versions.

Read more

Pressure washers and small, 100-year-old thin wooden mouldings are not a great combination.

Unfortunately, the 1/4"-thick cross bars on my screen door did not survive the painter’s prep (I told them not to go near the cast-plaster capitals of my porch columns with the pressure washer, and they did not. But I did not think to warn them away from the screen doors.1 ).

But fortunately, I needed something to write about for Never Sponsored today, so these tools, a thin pry bar and end nippers, are pulling double duty. By the end of the day, I’ll have this post written and I’ll have my screen door insert fixed.

I don’t have a particular brand of end nippers to recommend, because the ones I borrowed from Chris’s tool chest (thanks, Chris), as well as the vintage forged farriers’ pliers that I use at home for pulling nails, aren’t available at your local hardware store.2 But a pair of nippers – actually, several pairs in various sizes from ~5" to ~9"or so – are handy to have on hand. This is particularly true if you use nail guns, which have been known to shoot not-straight (I blame the nail or the wood – not the operator!) or to hit a knot and come out the side of a piece. Nippers with a rounded bevel are the best tool for removing an errant nail without damaging the wood around it (much). And they are, of course, good for repairs should you need to pull an old nail.

Nippers have (or should have) sharp tips to nip off the end of a nail or wire – so if I’m using them to pull a nail, gentle pressure is key; exert just enough to grip, not enough to cut. But sometimes I do need to cut off the end of a nail when it just won’t budge, or when pulling it will wreak too much damage on the wood around it. Then, I simply squeeze harder to cut it (larger nippers are usually my go-to for cutting), and gently sink the remaining sharp end flush to or just below the worksurface with a nailset.

If I were to buy nippers now, I’d probably get the Knipex brand, based on my electrician’s recommendation.

On the pry bar, the $9 9" GRIP Stainless Steel Pry Bar is the way to go – and get the 6" while you’re at it. The two together are great to have for safely removing small mouldings (lever gently at both ends with the two tools so nothing snaps), and for prying apart pieces that didn’t go together quite as you’d planned – say if you glued and nailed a moulding in place … but it wasn’t actually in the right place. A thin pry bar can save your butt without introducing damage.3

For my screen door insert, the damage was already done – so I rudely jammed the beveled end of the pry bar underneath the broken bits then levered them out. They did not break further … but that was sheer luck, because I did not go gentle into that fight.

In short, if you build stuff, you also have to sometimes unbuild stuff, and these two tools – nippers and a thin pry bar – are key to that work.

Yes, we keep our machine beds clean and we wipe them down with a woobie after heavy use, but we still use a spritz or two of dry lube on them, just to keep wood running across and through them easily and smoothly. That’s particularly true for the 20" planer, which, if I’m being honest, could use a wee bit of adjustment on the rollers. But a goodly application of Blaster Dry Lube to the bed every 10th pass or so, and we’re able to keep putting off that maintenance1.

We’ve tried other lubes, but the Blaster, which is widely available for around $8 a can, is the best we’ve found. It reduces friction and helps protect the metal (and the marketing materials say it’s safe for most plastics, but we’ve not tested that). And no, it doesn’t in our experience interfere with finish (and even if it did, it will be a cold day in Hades before would never use a surface right off the machines!).

We also use it in the bench room, most notably during chair builds on the squeaky Veritas tenon cutters.

I also have a few cans at home, where I use it to keep my table saw’s sliding crosscut fence moving slickly, and on my 125-year-old door hinges. Unlike more liquid lubes, this stuff doesn’t drip, assuming you don’t use too much. But do hold a piece of cardboard behind any small item being sprayed, if overspray is a concern (I don’t want it on my wooden door jambs).

We recommend keeping a can or three handy at all times.2

– Fitz

For fine (and fine-ish) furniture work, when a screw is called for, I prefer to use slot-heads.1 But when it comes to kitchen cabinets, shop furniture, rot strips on the underside of tool chests, crates and the like, I much prefer self-drilling screws (who wants to drill clearance and pilot holes on a crate?!), ideally ones with a star-drive (Torx) recess, to reduce the chance of cam-out…assuming I’ve chosen the proper driver, of course.

But as I discovered while attaching the backs to the kitchen cabinets I’m in the midst of making, the choice of screws matters.

This isn’t a blanket statement covering all self-drive screws because I’ve not done a proper comparison of all of the many brands available (nor am I going to spend good money on screws I know I don’t like just for a photograph) at my local Home Depot, Lowe’s, Ace Hardware and Do-It Best Hardware. But I’ve used a lot of them, including SPAX (a former favorite), Hillman (atrocious), Grip-Rite (I’ve snapped lots of these), Simpson (does not completely suck)…and above all, I prefer the GRK R4 multi-purpose screws.2

While the GRKs can, like all self-drilling screws, fight you when you first try to start the screw into the wood, they put up less of a fight than most brands3 thanks to the super-sharp tip (the company calls it a “Fast Bite” and the sharp-edged channel (the “Zip-Tip”) that helps it beaver into the wood/plywood.

And these cause less splitting than the Hillmans I bought at my friendly local hardware store (where I wish they carried GRKs).

Also, the heads are crisp, which means that the proper tip (which is included in the package) fits snug in the recess; I can’t recall it ever camming out while I’ve driven a GRK. I’ve certainly had trouble with other brands, even with using the supplied driver tip.

The GRKs cost more per screw than the other brands mentioned – but they cost a lot less than the mental anguish of splitting your work, or fighting to get the job done quickly. And they’re widely available…though I’m sad they’re not stocked at my local hardware store.

One of the unexpected benefits of teaching in other people’s shops is picking up their clever workshop ideas and bringing them back to Kentucky. If I were a jerk, I’d submit these three ideas to the woodworking magazines and win tens and tens of dollars. Instead, I’m bringing them here to you, with full credit given.

Sadly, all three of these products came from Amazon originally. So that’s where my links go. Feel free to search out alternative sources.

Edge-tool Guards: Flexible, Cheap & Strong

The first idea comes from Greg Pennington’s shop in Tennessee. He says he got the idea from Anne Briggs (Anne of All Trades). Basically, it’s using automotive weatherstripping to protect your tool edges. And it works brilliantly.

The weatherstripping is a heavy U-shaped channel. Basically it’s two layers of PVC with a metal layer between them. It comes in rolls: $28 for 10'. You cut it to length with heavy-duty snips and press the tool’s edge into the U-channel. The weatherstripping conforms to almost any shape (even a tight radius of an inshave).

I now use the stuff on our axes, adzes, drawknives and inshaves. The weatherstripping is perfect for this operation. The PVC protects both the sharp edge and your hands. The metal layer in between ensures that the tool’s sharp edge won’t cut through the PVC, rendering the guard useless.

If you have sharp edges dangling around in your shop, or you are wrapping things in cloth with rubber bands, you will be thrilled by this stuff.

The next two tricks come from Peter Galbert’s shop.

Bench Vise Liner: Thick, Adhesive Backed & Cheap

At Peter Galbert’s school, all the bench vises are lined with this 1/8"-thick neoprene. I was impressed by how well it held workpieces, and Pete said it was plenty durable. The stuff comes in rolls. I bought a 4"-wide roll x 10' long with an adhesive peel-and-stick backing.

Read more

It was 2001 when I first saw a Lie-Nielsen dovetail saw. I was leafing through the pages of Fine Woodworking magazine and noticed a small ad displaying it for sale. I’d never cut a dovetail joint, or for that matter made any furniture that didn’t include OSB and empty beer cans. I was an amateur guitar builder and recent college grad (read: poor). The $125 price tag might as well have been $10,000. But the image stuck with me; what a pretty saw! Within a few years I was into furniture making, and in 2004 I started cutting dovetails. But it was with a dovetail saw that I made with some steel bar stock and a blade from a cheap pull saw. I fell hard into sawmaking and never looked back.

Fast forward to today. I decided a few weeks ago that I should finally splurge and get one of those nice saws from Maine. It somehow seemed fitting that 25 years have passed – a good round number – and I know a bit more about what makes a good saw. I purchased the Tapered Dovetail Saw at full price (now $175) on the Lie-Nielsen website and it arrived two days later.

Upon first handling, the saw is very impressive. The cherry handle is a full 1" thick and nicely shaped. The thickness gives it a substantial feeling without making the size of the handle overwhelming or unbalanced. It’s a subtle design element that makes a big difference over the standard 7/8" thickness of most makers. The fit and finish of the saw are outstanding as well. The teeth are machine perfect. The face rake of each tooth, the gullet shape and depth, and the set of every tooth is precise and identical. The technical details of the teeth are 15 points per inch, 10° of rake and 0.003" of tooth set according to my measurements. Word is that the company has changed its entire saw sharpening process with a big investment in technology, and it certainly shows.

Read more

Though I rail against the plastic in our lives, I think polymers have two good uses: medical equipment and transparent circle templates.

I bought these inexpensive transparent templates years ago when I got frustrated trying to draw small-radius arcs when designing chair parts and mouldings. I bought a set that has two templates (the set now has three), and they have become essential bench equipment.

They hang on our tool wall in the bench room and are used constantly as we work out the decorative details on chairs, stools and casework.

What makes them perfect for benchwork is that they are flexible and transparent. You can lay out an arc on a curved bit of work with ease. The rigid green plastic templates of my youth are crap in comparison.

Also, having circles in many small graduations allows them to work together with a set of French curves to produce almost any furniture-sized shape I need on the fly. In the two-piece set of templates, the circles start with a 1/16" diameter (which is totally useless) up to 3-1/2" diameter. Above that size, a compass can easily take over.

The other detail on these templates that is worth mentioning is that on the circles above 1/8", the template has marks where 0°, 90°, 180° and 270° are located. These marks help you transfer arcs to other pieces of work. (A couple people have commented that some of these marks are inaccurate on their templates. Not on mine.)

The templates are surprisingly durable, too. I throw them in my toolbox when traveling. They have been trod upon, stretched and bent over backward – plus many other indignities.

Honestly, the best $7 I have spent on a tool in forever.