I don’t have to go into the spade bit business. After my Feb. 7, 2022, post about how awful the new Irwin Speedbor bits have become, a couple readers suggested I try the WoodOwl spades. I didn’t know that WoodOwl made spade bits and had never seen them for sale. So I purchased some from…
Read moreVisiting John Hutchinson’s workshop outside Columbus, Ohio, was an unusual experience. And he wanted it that way. To get to his shop, you left his home and set off down a path through the woods. Then you encountered a stream and had to jump over it. Eventually you arrived at a small cabin surrounded completely…
Read moreI get asked (a lot) why there are so few stick chairs in the furniture record of the United States. To that question, I reply, “Just you wait.” Ever since I built my first stick chair in 2003, my aim has not been to reproduce the chairs I adore from Wales, Scotland, Ireland and Sweden….
Read moreBecause we make tools, I hesitate to criticize other toolmakers. Today I am making an exception because the manufacturer is Irwin Industrial Tools, which is owned by Stanley Black & Decker, a company that is worth $28.4 billion (that’s with a “b”). So no toolmaker is going to go hungry because of this blog entry….
Read moreThis stick chair is one of a series of “scrapple” chairs I’ve been making during the last month, using up beautiful extra chair parts that have been sitting around for as long as five years. Because I was constrained by the parts on hand, I had to devise a new chair design that made all…
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