Over The Workbench

You’re never really working alone if you have your best friend with you in the shop.

If you want to get a project you’re building just right, you make a prototype in scrap or other material first. The purpose being that you can test measurements and joinery, ease of use, placement, etc. That way, when the real project’s done, it’ll function exactly as intended.

If you’ve ever found yourself wishing for a specific woodworking app, chances are good someone else has wished for it, too – and created it.

Just got a new Triton router, and it is sweet. But before plopping it into my router table, as a safe and conscientious woodworker, I first sat down with the manual to familiarize myself with the machine. It didn’t go well.

We’ve been sharing this time “over the workbench” for quite a while know, and I’m still enjoying every minute of it.

Unless you own or work in a big shop, chances are you work alone like I do.

I just finished the most difficult project I’ve ever made. It was a project I never really wanted to do, but I was asked to do it and couldn’t – wouldn’t – refuse because it means so much to me.

What’s the longest it’s taken you to complete a shop task? For me, it’s about 30 years – give or take a decade.

Getting sick often means you don’t feel like doing any work. But for woodworkers, it frequently means that you shouldn’t even try.

Despite your best efforts, sometimes things go sideways no matter how carefully you plan.

Woodworkers are nothing if not do-it-yourselfers. But there are a few things that baffle me that anyone would want to do themselves.

Remembering to open a blast gate is a pretty basic first step in effective dust collection.

After more than four decades of woodworking, there are still some basic things I can’t do. For those, I get help.

Using things while it’s fresh is always a good practice, whether in the kitchen or in the shop. Glues and finishes come immediately to mind.

Sometimes the hardest part of a project is the first step: Picking which side of a piece of stock to be the one everybody sees.

Whatever happened to NiMH tools? For that matter, do you even remember them?

Wood prices and availability are getting better every day. But the quality, not so much.

Nothing kicks your brain into safety mode in the woodshop like a blood stain.

There’s such a thing as “Too Much Information.” Right now, though, I’m experiencing a different kind of TMI: Too Many Ideas.

Lumber prices are coming down. Whether you’re benefitting yet depends on a couple factors.

Small tweaks to projects are often necessary, but they never take long. Except when they do.

In his most recent “Taking Stock” column, Woodshop News Editor Tod Riggio discussed knock-off tool batteries. I decided to look a bit more deeply into them.

It’s amazing how some tools evolve for the better when you’re not paying attention.

Getting finished lumber today is difficult, but there was a time when just getting the timber itself was a Herculean effort.