A quality combination square usually comes with a steel scriber. However, sometimes the bushing that’s supposed to hold the scriber in the handle, doesn’t.
An old deck of playing cards has so many uses in the shop. Everyone should have a deck in their cabinet.
Throughout my series of posts on milling lumber by hand, I used several different hand planes. Each of the planes that I used was chosen for the specific tasks that they excel at. The jack plane is the perfect size …
I just finished up writing a series of posts about milling lumber with hand tools. In the past, I’ve done several videos that cover the process pretty well. They’re older videos, but still valuable for seeing the process. Here’s one of the better ones.
In the late 18th and into the 19th centuries, drawers with extremely thin, delicate sides become fashionable. While these very thin drawer sides look light and dainty, they present challenges for attaching drawer bottoms.
The over sized board is flat on one face and has two edges that are both straight, square to the first face, and parallel to each other. I now have to make a decision about the board’s second face.
To make the edge of a board straight, start with a hollow.
Making the edge of a board perfectly square to its face isn’t always necessary. When square edges are required, though, you had better know how to get there efficiently or you could be chasing your tail for a long time.
Processing rough sawn lumber starts by addressing the reference face.
One way to mitigate wood movement that can occur after planing is to not plane the wood to final dimensions right away. This is often referred to as skip planing, and it’s a technique can aid in keeping wood flat whether working by hand or machine.
All boards are warped to some degree. Usually, starting with the saw is more efficient than starting with the plane.
If you have a power jointer, and flatten board faces on it, you might think that knowing how to do this task by hand is useless, antiquated knowledge. However, there are several reasons why I recommend you learn this valuable skill.