Blog

Affirmation

Making a Rudder for a Ship of  War, by W. H. Pyne 1803   By the look on their faces, the folks at Braxton Brewery were not prepared to…

Be There AND Be Square!

The following sequence of steps show how to use simple geometry to create a right angle along the edge of a board--demonstrating that you don't need a square…

Let’s Get This Straight

Here’s how I go about selecting and conditioning wood for a wooden straight edge that will best maintain its accuracy over a period of time: To begin with…

A Hatchet Job

Straight edge hatchet job from Jim Tolpin on Vimeo. Working without a bandsaw (or any other power tool) I've been forced to get up to speed with my…

That Snappy Sector Redux

A while back I noticed that a number of architect/builder’s sectors shown in manuscripts from the Renaissance era had the segmentation laid out along a diagonal line rather…

What makes a right angle right?

In the last post, we saw how the triplet works its magic to allow three segmented line lengths to come together to form a right angle. When the…

Welcome to the Topsy-Turvy Woodshop

Normally I can reach for my jackplane or favorite tenon saw with my eyes shut. Most of my tools have a well worn patina, but each is sharp…

The Tricky Triplet

If you think back to your days in what used to be called “Grammar School”, you may remember old Mr. Hammersmacker (or was it Miss Hellena Handbasket?) droning…

Sector Secrets

                 The theory and construction of a sector is covered in both our books, though in the softcover “By Hound and Eye”…

The Power of Geo-Metron

Or what we call earth-measure today: Geometry. This was man’s most ancient field of study leading to an understanding of the primary structure--dare we say truth--of the patterns…