Passion Nook

many women shy away from woodworking is perhaps a bit of "tool phobia." It's understandable because so much of modern woodworking revolves around power tools and high speed spinning blades can be intimidating. This concern is not unique to women and can be easily overcome.

Every workshop needs a few good hand tools. One trip to the home improvement or hardware store and you'll see that there are plenty from which to choose. So, how do you wade through all the options and end up with what you need? We need to start with the basics.

No woodworking project can be a success without doing some measuring and some laying out of parts. There are an amazing variety of tools from elegant and high tech to ugly and low tech to get the job done. The most important thing is accuracy.

Woodturning is perhaps one of the most artistic of the wood crafting family of skills. That's not to say that traditional woodworking; or certainly wood carving is not artistic. They can, in fact, be very artistic. Look at the sculpted lines of a Sam Maloof chair, or the graceful style of a Craftsman table and wood carving is art by definition. What sets woodturning apart is the lathe

Good working starts with good wood. In this article I discuss how to choose lumber and how to adapt your plans to work with what is locally available.

In this article I discuss routers. There are many choices when it comes to routers and they are one of the most versatile tools in the woodworkers shop. I look at some of the many tasks they can perform.

Just as there are a lot of power saws, there are a lot of hand saws. Most of us are familiar with the big hand saws our parents kept around the house and hardly ever used. A really skilled woodworker can make perfectly straight cuts with a big hand, the rest of us save hand saws for some specialized tasks.

: In this article I discuss router bits. The large variety of router bits make this power tool a woodshop workhorse. There are many choices when it comes to router bits. Matching the bit to the router and choosing a quality bit can make all the difference.

The most common building material for woodworkers is the softwoods; pine, redwood or fir. These are readily available at your local lumberyard or home improvement store. In addition to be readily available the softwoods are also the least expensive so, let's take a closer look.

In this article I discuss workshop dust collection. Dust and wood chips left lying around create a hazardous work environment. I tell you why it is unsafe and simple ways to take care of the problem.