It was a flurry of activity around here during the filming, editing, and organizing of our most recent online course. Back to the Bench: Restoring & Using Heritage Tools is a very practical look at finding old tools and getting them working wood again, quickly. We feel strongly that heritage tools are often the best tools for the job for both supremely practical reasons (high quality, bargain prices, etc.) as well as intangible values (they’re beautiful, they connect us with the people of the past). The use and enjoyment of antique tools, for me, is one of the singular attractions of hand-tool woodworking. That said, I do love a good bargain. Being budget-conscious when it comes to purchases, I find...
For everyone who loves to work wood by hand, who values beautiful old tools over shiny mass-produced modern ones, and who wants to clean up and use that old hand plane or saw but doesn’t know quite where to begin – we have a new video course for you. For the past several weeks, Joshua and I have been filming, editing, and getting our hands dirty here in the M&T shop. We’ve unpacked boxes of old tools and pored over them, looking at all kinds of details, repairs, and potential snags to putting them back to use at the bench. We’ve dug into thick, dusty library volumes and other old resources. And we’ve straightened bent saws, fixed broken planes, and sharpened...
We’re pleased to announce that our newest course is now available for purchase – and we think this one is going to make a world of difference for every woodworker who signs up. Jigs can be valuable devices for guiding and aiding in repeatable, accurate cuts and joinery, but they can also become a hindrance to skill development. Just as training wheels can be useful for learning to ride a bike, eventually they should come off if you want to truly enjoy the experience. If you struggle with accuracy or efficiency without external aid – if your crosscuts dip and your kerfs wander, if you get paralyzed in laying out dovetails properly without a template, or if you just...
“Skill” has fallen on hard times lately. Instead of developing the dexterity to hold a tool properly and use it accurately, modern woodworkers tend to reach for some sort of clever device. There are tons of these jigs on the market: devices to hold your edge tool for sharpening, magnetic doohickies to guide your dovetail saw, and fences that perfectly square your edge planing. And then there are the shopmade variety: blocks used for square chisel chops, mitering devices, etc., etc. No one can deny that these gadgets are undoubtedly handy in production settings, but at the same time we must admit that they can also become a liability in a culture that is obsessed with devices. We are all...
We are excited to announce that our latest production, The Makers’ Marks: An In-depth Study of Handmade Furniture, is now available for purchase. This online course is an ambitious investigation into a number of examples of chairs (Post-and-rung, Windsor, and stump chairs), tables (worktables, tea table, drop leaf), desks (slant-front and standing), a chest of drawers, and a hanging cupboard. It’s quite an assortment of workmanship that displays everything from refined precision to humble utilitarianism. This course covers the gamut. The course is the kind of thing we’ve hoped to do for a long time. Over the years of writing and teaching about authentic handwork, we’ve become convinced that people need to see it to really understand it. But without...
This week, Mike and I are in the final stages of producing a new video course designed to be a heads-first dive into the guts of genuine antique chairs, chests, desks, tables, etc. We’re calling it The Makers’ Marks: An In-depth Study of Handmade Furniture. We’ve been looking for ways to make more use of our online course format, seeing as the Apprenticeship Program has been such a smashing success. It turns out that the power of video to bring you right up close to the action is just the ticket for conveying certain things about the craft. And showing genuine pre-industrial workmanship is definitely one of those things. In this upcoming course (scheduled for release at the end of the...
