Anyone who’s taken a class with me in the last five years knows how I feel about .5mm mechanical pencils. When students’ dovetails are too loose or too tight, my first question is, “What pencil did you use to darken your knifeline?” If a dado is too loose (or too tight), my first question is,…
Read moreI can’t remember a recent project where I didn’t pick up a bird-cage awl. From marking the location of spindles or screws to actually drilling holes for tiny screws, a bird-cage awl is essential for installing hardware, deepening marks left by your dividers and even cleaning out junk from the corners of deep mortises. I’ve…
Read moreI know I’m going to get some flack for this entry, but I’m already over it. Yes, I am about to recommend a surge protector that costs $200. No, I’m not crazy. And yes, I like the pretty colors that they come in. We don’t have a lot of electrical outlets in our workshop. When…
Read moreI’m always looking for better drill bits because my work involves making a lot of holes. My dream bit would make a clean hole (entry, exit and every surface in between), it wouldn’t clog and it would make a hole that is the exact dimension stamped on its shaft. In my experience, you can only…
Read moreHere’s another item that you might have seen coming. When we started selling pencils of our own design, we investigated making a simple pencil sharpener. We immediately gave up when we used the Mobius+Ruppert “Grenade” 602 pencil sharpener. Note that some sites call this the “double round” sharpener. These German-made, inexpensive (less than $10) and…
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