Posts in the «tools» Category

• Combination Square Tuning

I like combination squares.  They are handy and I use them all the time.  I know that Starrett combination squares are the hands-down favorite, but I just can’t justify the expense.    I had an inexpensive Swanson that I picked up at Lowes for keeping in my toolbelt for measuring mortise depths and other things while […]

• Marking Knife Pheonix

Roughly 20 years ago I came into possession of some chisels from my grandfather. They have all been in service in my collection except one. A 3/4″ Keen Kutter paring chisel that suffered from a broken socket. Nearly half of the socket had cracked off. I looked for ways to repair it, and found none […]

• New Fangled Saw Bench

In an effort to build myself a set of saw benches and give my 16 month old son a feeling of having his own workbench I started on this project. (Sawbench plans described in previous post) I started out prepping some 2″+ thick Red Pine with my Fore Plane and of course I had a […]

• Saw Bench (toddler bench)
Lately my son (currently 16 months old) has been enjoying spending time with me in the workshop (he says workbop).  He likes to hammer on stuff and is really enjoying using a toy saw and a toy plane to imitate his dad.  The problem is, my bench is too high and the 5 gallon buckets […]

• Sharpening a Card Scraper

There were several times when working on my timber frame project that I used a card scraper to clean up a bit of wood that had some nice grain or knot detail that I wanted to bring out. In the soft semi-green pine, the scraper worked pretty well without requiring me to pay a lot […]

• Round Tenon Maker

When making a swinging gate out of natural cedar timbers for my deck, I had the need to make round tenons on the ends of some cedar branches.  If I was doing a lot of them, it would have made sense to buy a dedicated round tenon cutter that is driven by a power drill.  These […]

• Tongue & Groove Planes : Match Planes

Tongue and Groove is a method of joining boards that predates modern wood glue, biscuits and doweling jigs.  I’ve seen Norm Abrams demonstrate how he creates tongue & groove using a table saw with a dado set installed, and I’ve seen others use a router table with a tongue and groove pair of router bits […]

• New WorkBench

I like simple things tools that can be used for multiple purposes.  I am not one that likes to fall into the pit of having every specialized tool ever created.  That just gets way too expensive. I have been gradually modifying a simple bench that I have been using for years.  It works pretty well […]

• Making Wooden Bolts
This entry is part 20 of 21 in the series Timber Frame Gazebo

To make wooden bolts to hold the screens on the gazebo, I used 3/4″ dowel and used a wood threader to cut the threads on the dowel and a matching tap to cut the threads in the gazebo and the nut. The wood threader is a box with a hole for the dowel and a […]

• Tools of the Timber Framing Shop

This is an interesting example of tools used in a timber framing shop. In my opinion most of these tools are not needed for amateur timber framers…only for people who make a living out of it, or are working on a large scale production. Either way, it is neat to see the tools at work.

• Making a Mortise

As I’ve said before, a large part of timber framing centers around making round holes into rectangles. It usually starts with a drill to get rid of most of the wood. Then you finish up with a chisel in one hand and a mallet in the other. Here is a video of someone using large […]

• Auger Mortising Machine?

The Auger I used in the construction of my timber frame gazebo was very effective and only left me with two complaints: 1) It was challenging to keep it going plumb. (Crooked hole leads to crooked mortise) 2) It left you lopsided, because your right arm was always pulling down and your left arm was […]

• Circular Saw for the Serious Timber Framer

For the gazebo I built, you can get by with a couple of decent hand saws and a 7 1/4″ circular saw. However, if you plan to make a living at timber framing or are just timber framing a single house with lots of timbers that need cutting, there is a larger circular saw available […]

• The Corner Chisel

The Corner Chisel for timber framing is a much larger version of a corner chisel used for smaller woodworking. I found this tool to be invaluable during the project. It is perfect for squaring up the corners of a mortise. This was especially true when much of the mortise had been hogged out with a […]