A Table Saw for a One Car Garage
I remember standing in a cramped workshop back in the eighties, surrounded by more dust than actual timber, trying to make sense of a massive, cast-iron beast that took up every square inch of floor space. I spent more time fighting the machine's footprint than I did actually cutting wood, and it taught me a […]
Mitre Saw Accuracy Out of the Box
Most of the "expert" guides you’ll find online about how to review a mitre saw are a load of rubbish. They’ll spend twenty minutes droning on about Bluetooth connectivity, LED lighting, or how many lumens the workspace gets, as if you’re setting up a film studio instead of a workshop. They treat these machines like […]
Whether a Track Saw Replaces a Table Saw
I spent thirty years on site and another ten in the classroom, and if there’s one thing that gets my goat, it’s the way modern tool reviews read like a bloody sales brochure. You’ll see some lad on a screen talking about "cutting-edge ergonomics" or "unmatched precision metrics," but he’s never actually had to fight […]
A Circular Saw and Its Guide Rail
I spent forty years on site, and if there’s one thing that gets under my skin, it’s those glossy magazine reviews that spend ten pages talking about battery voltages and digital displays while ignoring the actual cut. You can read all the spec sheets you want, but most of those "experts" don't know the first […]
Choosing a Battery Family, Not a Tool
I remember standing in a workshop back in the nineties, watching a lad struggle with a corded jigsaw that kept tripping the breaker, while I sat there quietly working a fine bevel with a hand saw. It was cleaner, faster, and didn't require a trip to the fuse box. Nowadays, everyone thinks they can just […]
Testing a Drill on Real Holes
I spent thirty years on-site and another ten in a classroom, and if there’s one thing that gets my goat, it’s the glossy, over-polished nonsense you see in tool catalogues. You’ll see some lad on a video, grinning from ear to ear, claiming a drill is "revolutionary" just because it has a fancy LED light […]
What to Look for in a Hand Saw
I remember standing in a tool showroom back in the eighties, watching a young lad try to explain to an old timer that a saw was better because it had a "high-tech" coating and a fancy ergonomic handle. It was nonsense. You can wrap a blade in all the gold leaf you like, but if […]
Steel Types and What They Trade Off
I remember sitting in a college workshop back in the nineties, watching a lad struggle with a cheap set of chisels that wouldn't hold an edge for more than ten minutes of actual work. He was staring at a glossy catalogue, trying to make sense of all those fancy chemical symbols and marketing jargon, looking […]
Where the Money Goes in a Chisel
I remember sitting in the workshop back in '84, watching a young apprentice tear into a piece of expensive oak with a tool that cost more than my first car. He was convinced that the brand name on the handle was what mattered, but he was struggling just to get the steel to sink in. […]
Inspecting a Plane in Your Hands
I remember standing in a dusty second-hand shop back in the nineties, watching a lad spend half his paycheck on a shiny, brand-new plane that arrived with a sole so bowed it wouldn't have sliced through butter, let alone oak. The salesman was all smiles, talking about "precision engineering," but he was selling him a […]