Heartwood: Woodworking by Rob Porcaro

Is sanding part of almost all woodworking projects? Yup. Is it one of the fun parts? Nope. Yet, it almost always must be done, so we appreciate any available good help. Here is a good one that I recently found and you will likely find helpful too. “Sand-It” is made by Milescraft. (See photo above.) […]

Time goes on for all, but I would like to list the woodworking greats from whom I learned the most, particularly in the earlier years of my development. These are among the many more from whom I learned and still do.  James Krenov (1920 – 2009): I think there is no more influential woodworker for […]

To finish this series, here is a suggested list of the remaining tools to add to the shop as it builds.  1. Cordless hand-held power sander. The 5” diameter is the most versatile and  practical. I like the 3M Xtract Cubitron II Net Disc 710W sanding discs.   2. Flashlight. Cordless in the brand you […]

The time for dust collection really comes when you get item #1, the thickness planer. It is difficult to run any shop without dust collection. Let’s break it down into sections.  The lighter, smaller, and mobile tool is the shop vac. This cleans up scattered wood dust and particles, including from hand woodworking. It also […]

Where are we so far for the developing woodworker building the machine segment of his or her shop?  1. thickness planer with helical cutterhead 2. router with multiple functional accessories, and a router table built or bought. And throw in a hand-held power drill. 3. table saw, big or small; think safety  4. band saw; […]

At this point in building the machine part of your shop, you would have a thickness planer, a router with key accessories, a router table built or bought, a power drill, and a table saw. What comes next is, I feel, a close call. I suggest a bandsaw. With good quality, size, and blades, it […]

The third machine to buy as you are getting into woodworking and making a shop: the table saw. Clean, accurate, straight cuts along the length of grain, as well as dead-on cross cuts are required for most projects. Angled cuts at 45°, or any angle, are common.  Hand cutting cannot match the speed and accuracy […]

Machine tool number two that I suggest to bring on as you get into woodworking: the router.  To repeat: yes, of course, high quality woodworking can be done without any machine at all, as it has been for hundreds of years. Yet machines do add many advantages of labor, time, fast accuracy, and production.  Routers […]

Having recently been visited by a starting woodworker for some discussion and tips, this topic quickly rose. This moved me to write, so here we go.  You do not absolutely need any machines/power tools. Look in a museum, online, or in a book at some 300 year-old amazing furniture. No electric machines. Though surely one […]

I think it would be good to review and make sense of this handy device that was pictured and cited in the previous post. As you can see from the photo above, this is simply a glue-up of three pieces of flat sawn red oak on a base of plywood. It is 11/16” thick, and […]

I have accumulated attachments for several handy items on the wall just behind the right side of my workbench. This allows for quick grabs and returns of very frequently used helpers. Here they are, left to right, top to bottom: 1. The shop-made tool oiler. I wrote about making this in a 3/29/2009 post: https://www.rpwoodwork.com/blog/2009/03/09/shopmade-tool-oiler/ […]

At this point, I switch from the sharpening station to my scraper set up that I have described in a recent previous post. That rig has been working for around 40 years and still going strong.  It pays off to first use your burnisher (you can read about what I use from a few posts […]

We well start from the beginning.  The edge is made flat, straight, and very smooth at 90°. This can be filed first, though I generally find this unnecessary because all can be readily done with sharpening stones. If you prefer, use a smooth mill file and a piece of wood to hold it square to […]

Now let us consider tuning up the hand scraper. Despite what you may have heard, read, or viewed, this is not a difficult task. What makes some demonstrations and discussions confusing is not presenting a simple understanding of exactly what you need to do with the scraper steel. Most demos do not clearly state what […]

Here are the dozen hand-blade scrapers that I use. In upcoming posts, I will discuss usages, techniques, and how to sharpen them.  These are all steel in the hardness range of Rc 48 – 52. Most are Lee Valley. Lie-Nielsen and Bahco are similarly very good. Thickness dimensions are inches/mm. Top photo, left column, top […]