By Joel Moskowitz - Aug 15 New

Tools & Craft #103: How Drawbore Pins Work

Since we introduced Ray Iles's draw borepins last fall, we've gotten a ton of questions about why real ones such as these work better than concentric tapered pins - that is, pins that are sometimes misconstrued as drawbore pins but really are just tapered drift pins. Drift pins are just

By Joel Moskowitz - Aug 01

Book Signing Event with Furniture Maker Nancy Hiller, This Thursday in NYC

The author of "Making Things Work" will be feted with a pinata

We are delighted when folks visiting New York take the time to come out to see Tools for Working Wood in person. Good thing we do, because especially in summer, we get many folks visiting. We are not so easy to find. We're at the end of a dead end

By Joel Moskowitz - Jul 25

Tools & Craft #102: R.I.P. Jennie Alexander 1930-2018

Like many of you, I was very saddened to learn of Jennie Alexander's death. Jennie was a hugely influential figure in the world of hand woodworking, and was an unusually kind and insightful person as well. When I heard the news, I selfishly thought, "But I still had some things

By Joel Moskowitz - Jul 18

Tools & Craft #101: About Auriou and Gramercy Rasps

We design and make our own tools, and are also happy to carry excellent tools made by others in the same category. Here I'll compare some of the rasps we carry, like our monster 12" Gramercy Cabinetmaker's Rasps, with rasps we carry by Auriou. First of all I am really

By Joel Moskowitz - Jul 12

Tools & Craft #100: The Finest Water Fountain in New York City

I'm a big fan of pastrami, and I go to Katz's to get it. Katz's has been on Ludlow Street since 1888, and aside from superb pastrami, and what must be the largest restaurant seating capacity in New York City, they have the single coolest water fountain I have ever

By Joel Moskowitz - Jun 29

Tools & Craft #99: Should You Use a Soft or Hard Mallet?

In Japan, chisels for striking are always hooped. That is to say, the butt end of their handles is encircled in a ring of metal. This is a good idea since they traditionally use steel hammers to hit their tools. In the West mortise chisels, which get the heaviest battering,

By Joel Moskowitz - Jun 06

Tools & Craft #98: Brace Tips, Part 2 - The Quick Brace

In Part 1 of Brace Tips, I explained how to make your brace work for big holes. Now we look at the other extreme. Unfortunately the solution for small bits isn't as easy to do. For holes from 1/4" through 2" in diameter a brace was the hand tool of

By Joel Moskowitz - May 30

Tools & Craft #97: Tip for Using a Brace: Ratcheting

In the picture I am boring a pretty big hole. Pulling the handle of the brace towards or against me is pretty easy, but rotating the handle from left to right when the handle is far way from me is a different story. With my arm outstretched, moving from left

By Joel Moskowitz - May 23

Tools & Craft # 96: Plumier, Crankshaft Design, And How We Waste Time at TFWW

I got called to the back of the shop a few days ago where some of my colleagues were having a heated discussion about crankshafts. They were perusing a copy of Charles Plumier's 1701 L'Art De Tourner, Ou De Faire En Perfection Toutes Sortes d'Ouvrages Au Tour and one wag

By Joel Moskowitz - May 16

Tools & Craft #95: Making Stuff, and Other Human Impulses

...plus why you should take a class that teaches you how to make something

Last week a gentleman who runs a local maker space invited me to teach some hand tool classes at the space. I was happy to have the discussion but we got hung up by a central question: How do you get students to the point at which they can produce

By Joel Moskowitz - May 09

Tools & Craft #94: Why We Need Rough Material, Not Smooth

When I build my first real bit of furniture I didn't have a jointer (hand or power) or a planer, and basically I knew nothing. So off I went to Constantine, which was then in the Bronx, and I bought a pile of ready planed cherry. I got it home,

By Joel Moskowitz - May 02

Feeling Overwhelmed? Here's a Good System for Getting Things Done

I recently saw an Instagram post by craftsperson @anneofalltrades. In the post Anne expressed her worries about things not getting done, and ongoing difficulties with task completion. Many of her issues are common to anyone running a business, especially one where your labor is an integral part of production. These

By Joel Moskowitz - Apr 25

Tools & Craft #93: The Argument for a Traditional Tail Vise

I built this workbench in the late 1980's. It serves me well and I have very few complaints. The design is basically the Frank Klausz bench that is detailed in Scott Landis' landmark The Workbench Book. The major changes I made were making it left-handed, and using a quick release

By Joel Moskowitz - Apr 18

Tools & Craft #92: How to Choose the Best Dovetail Saw for Yourself

Today I had the opportunity to chat with a customer about dovetail saws, and he asked me the same question that I get all the time: what makes one saw better than another? Of course, since TFWW makes the Gramercy Dovetail saw, I have a pony in this race. We're

By Joel Moskowitz - Apr 11

Tools & Craft #91: The Transmission of Power

The five epochs of power application in woodworking

There have been 5 major upheavals in the development of woodworking tools. Each upheaval changed the way woodworking was done, changed furniture styles, and changed the skill level needed to produce professional work. The dates are approximate. 1. Hand tools mature and become standardized, c. 1750-1850.Aside for the water or

By Joel Moskowitz - Mar 28

Tools & Craft #90: Regional Tool Names

It's the early part of the 19th century and you are a traveling salesman selling hammers and other striking tools. You are traveling by horse, carriage, sometimes even by those new fangled canals, and your packs are loaded with sample hammer heads. Being from a major industrial center with water

By Joel Moskowitz - Mar 21

Tools & Craft #89: Top-Level Architectural Woodwork at Boston's Old South Church

During a recent trip to Boston I didn't see any interesting furniture, it was just not that sort of trip. We saw friends, ate, walked around, entertained the kid, and ate some more. We did however, stop at Old South Church and got an eyeful of top class architectural woodworking

By Joel Moskowitz - Mar 14

Tools & Craft #88: Wallets and Furniture, When Exclusive Goes Mass Market

About 15 years ago I walked into Coach to buy a wallet. It was expensive, $70.00, but it was well made, and, an important selling point, it was made in New York. When the wallet finally wore out this year, I went back to Coach and a salesman showed me

By Joel Moskowitz - Mar 07

Tools & Craft #87: Download Our Free Isometric Graph Paper for Sketching

Even if you already know how to draw, sometimes this makes quick plans easier

Most senior designers I know insist that doing preliminary sketches on paper is far faster, and allows for far more creativity than using even the most sophisticated CAD software. The reason given is that even a good CAD program is still an additional layer between you and the manifestation of

By Joel Moskowitz - Feb 28

Tools & Craft #86: They Used to Make Bent Circular Saw Blades for Cutting Curves!

Everybody knows that a circular saw cuts a straight line. However, what if you want cut a circle? Everyone knows that you can't use a circular saw. But what if you bend the blade? Yep, that's what they did. Here is a circular saw blade by the Huther Saw

By Joel Moskowitz - Feb 21

Tools & Craft #85: Understanding How Chisels Work, Part 1 - Bevel Angles

I can't tell you how important good work gloves are to the people working here. Gloves protect our hands from rough timber splinters which lets us do a lot of things safer and faster. Gloves keep our hands from getting truly filthy on the grinders where a mix of steel

By Joel Moskowitz - Feb 07

Tools & Craft #84: How to Keep Your Sanders a'Sanding Smoothly

The theory behind sanders is pretty simple. The machine moves the sandpaper back and forth and round and round and the abrasives on the sandpaper abrade the wood making it smooth. Ahhh, were it that simple. As your sandpaper abrades the wood the the saw dust that's generated puts a

By Joel Moskowitz - Jan 31

Tools & Craft #83: On the Diversity of Saws

People often ask me what saws someone needs for woodworking, why some people have so many saws, and do I need one of every type. I can answer all three by giving you some historical background. When one is a professional, working by hand, having a perfectly tuned tool is

By Joel Moskowitz - Jan 24

Tools & Craft #82: Which Shellac Should You Use?

Here we do a four-way "taste test"

Shellac is a great finish and sticks to everything, but from a retail standpoint, shellac flakes are a fussy product to stock. Because how fast it dissolves is a function of its age, how it was stored, the quality of the alcohol used to dissolve it in, the size of

By Joel Moskowitz - Jan 17

Tools & Craft #81: On Apprenticeships

Craft apprenticeships never took hold in the United States in the way that they did in Europe. Why are they wearing these silly hats? I explained it here.Apprenticeships existed here but even in colonial times, an ever-expanding country and a constant demand for talent meant that anyone with a

By Joel Moskowitz - Jan 10

Tools & Craft #80: Wooden Spokeshaves

An underrated tool for shaping curves

Until recently, I never owned a wooden spokeshave. The reasons were mostly that when I was studying we didn't use them, and most of the woodwork I did didn't call for shaves. However, as I have gotten older, I have gotten more interested in complex furniture shapes and I found

By Joel Moskowitz - Jan 03

Tools & Craft #79: A Mortise Bench and a Newfound Resource

Tools & Craft #79: A Mortise Bench and a Newfound Resource I headed up to the Mid-Manhattan Library with the boy so we could stock up on books our local branch doesn't have. After a bit the boy decided he needed a bathroom and the librarian suggested going up to

By Joel Moskowitz - Dec 27, 2017

Tools & Craft #78: The Mechanics of Stropping, and Why It Works

In my last missive on the subject of sharpening I pointed out that when a tool has a belly for a bevel it's easy to sharpen ineffectively. The problem is of course that stones and sandpaper are hard surfaces and you get a point contact with anything except a straight

By Joel Moskowitz - Dec 20, 2017

Tools & Craft #77: In the Belly of the Bevel, or How to Ineffectively Sharpen Anything

When you sharpen on a stone or sandpaper the hard flat surface of the abrasive gives accuracy over forgiveness. You either are touching the edge of your tool to the abrasive or you are not. Also, as you sharpen it's pretty common to apply pressure at the very edge of

By Joel Moskowitz - Dec 06, 2017

Tools & Craft #76: One of the Last Federalist Buildings in Manhattan

I walk by 513 Grand Street fairly often, it's on the way to my cousin's house, and what struck me is that in a city full of older buildings, the style of 513 Grand marks it as one of the oldest. By today's standards it's a very small house and

By Joel Moskowitz - Nov 29, 2017

Tools & Craft #75: Hoops, Handles and Ferrules

Earlier I wrote about decorative Japanese chisels. Blacksmiths as a group confine most of their decorative work to the blades and the rest of the chisel, no matter the price range, tends to be stock items or nearly so. Handle making is a specialist trade and none of the

By Joel Moskowitz - Nov 23, 2017

Tools & Craft #74: Colen Clenton's Fantastic Adjustable Squares

Colen Clenton is the maker of a range of really wonderful adjustable squares and other measuring toolsthat we have been proud to stock for many years. I've never met him in person but we have chatted on the phone about this and that for ages from our ends of the

By Joel Moskowitz - Nov 15, 2017

Tools & Craft #73: Why You Should Find and Visit a Small, Local Museum

What are some unusual tools in history? If you ask woodworkers, the conversation invariably turns to the carriage trade. Wooden carriages had to be light, strong, weather resistant, and most important, full of complex frames, moldings and curves. Nothing is square. Over the centuries a myriad of highly specialized carriage-makers

By Joel Moskowitz - Nov 09, 2017

Tools & Craft #72: A Useful Repair Tip

Even if you don't smoke cigarettes

In the early 1950's my parents bought a modern, Danish style set of table and chairs that fit quite well in the dining area of the tenement apartment where I grew up until age 11. This is when Danish furniture was something new and exciting and Ikea did not exist.

By Joel Moskowitz - Nov 01, 2017

Tools & Craft #71: The Casual Decoration of Objects Before the 1930s

The vocabulary of ornament contains many different elements of design, all of which have been used at one time or another to decorate objects. The most obvious are the basic ogee and cove moldings we find on furniture and architectural items going back centuries. Other bits of that vocabulary include