There are big reasons a woodworking thickness planer is so useful in the home shop. Not to be confused with a jointer, thickness planer (also sometimes just called “planers”) are a class of stationary power tool designed to smooth the…
Have you ever wanted to weld? It’s a powerful home workshop skill and MIG welding is the simplest of all welding processes to learn. I weld all the time here in my home shop and I can’t begin to count…
If you don’t have a workbench somewhere around your home, you should change that. You’ll never find a simpler, more economical source of mental health and household well-being. Having a proper place to fix and make things is so helpful….
Leonard Lee, famous Canadian and founder of Lee Valley Tools, died on July 7, 2016 and when that happened it got me thinking. Mr. Lee improved the lives of a lot of people with the business he started and the…
I’ve noticed that most woodworkers start assessing a board by looking at its face, but if this is where your investigations end, you’re missing out on insights that can lead to a lot of creative control and better woodworking. That’s…
Plug welds offer a simple way of joining two pieces of metal when you don’t want a visible weld bead. You can see a plug weld happening in the video above. There are several circumstances where this approach makes a lot…
Are you interested in learning to work with wood? You’ve come to the right place. The best way to make that happen is to practice doing things the right way, and that’s what you’ll begin to learn here, with the…
Steve Maxwell, Canada’s Handiest Man, informs homeowners of the benefits of powder-actuated tools (PATs), especially for basement renovations.
Steve Maxwell, Canada’s Handiest Man, provides 5 pitfalls woodworkers should avoid when working with routers.
From everything I see, modern kitchen and bathroom cabinet doors in many homes are in bad shape. It’s mostly because of faulty European-style hinges. Doors sag, they hit each other, or they do a funny flip-flop when you move them,…
Steve Maxwell, Canada’s Handiest Man, explains an alternative lumber framing method called Timberlinx.
It’s funny what sticks with you from childhood. One of my earliest woodworking memories is of my grandfather using a jack knife to carve Roman numerals into the edges of wooden window sashes and their matching storm windows at the…