Author Archives: Brian

Plane plans from WORK magazine (aka It doesn’t always WORK)

Since I am reading through WORK magazine to find all the nuggets and projects, I thought I’d give some of the “Home-Made Tools” a shot. If you are inclined as I am, the tiny hand drawings are too little to go by. There are very few dimensions given in either the drawings or the text. […]

Black Brothers Patent Clamp

AKA “And you thought handscrews were simple” For the most part clamps are simple. There is the occasional innovation, but for the most part any style of clamp is interchangeable with any other of the same type. Perhaps the best example is in handscrews. There are really two types: wood thread and metal thread with […]

WORK the magazine: Mandatory Reading for Woodworking Inclined Makers*

*I should first apologize for the buzz-word phrase, but some articles I’m including are not just on furniture or woodwork but tools and other techniques. Also, it would be nice if someone under thirty visited this blog, other than the author. Finally, it’s used in the second article from the first issue, so I am […]

Printing Books with Signatures from Adobe Acrobat, Method 1

I wanted to print a public domain book to read and refer to later. Sometimes it’s fine to peruse a book on the computer, but if you are using as an active reference a hard copy is the way to go. This is the first method in a multi-part series. How many parts? Who knows… […]

Scroll Saw Organizer

I had a stash of scroll saw blades that was slowly growing into a mound. Some of them came in a organizer with plastic tubes which I found a convenient, unfortunately there weren’t enough spaces for all the different blades and some of the tubes were missing. On the hunt for a replacement I found […]

CraigsList Region Search Generator

Bare-bones HTML & JS implementation of a URL generator to use the same search across multiple regions. UPDATE 1: CL has changed some of their search parameters and URL coding so the following tool may produce broken URLs. UPDATE 2: CL has added a geographic radius to it’s search which reduces the need for this […]

How to remove Google watermarks from Public Domain scans

First, to be clear I am in no way trying criticize Google or insinuate that somehow the “Digitized by Google” watermarks are inappropriate or unethical. Maybe unnecessary though. Certainly, I’m most appreciative of Google’s funding for digitization, their hosting and providing free access to, their contribution to archive.org and the providing of searchable metadata through […]

File-making section from The Circle of Mechanical Arts

From the File-Making section of Circle of the Mechanical Arts: PDF: circle-of-the-mechanical-arts_file-section_re-set   We shall introduce this article with some admirable observations on the progress of mechanical discovery, exemplified in an account of machines for cutting files, by Mr. Wm. Nicholson. “The folly and consequent distress of pursuing experiments in chemistry, for the sole purpose of […]

Dovetail-Slide Piano Maker’s “Studley-esque” Vise

Reflecting, I realize that I’ve found a lot of amazing tools in Northern California. I’ve hauled enough iron ~400 miles south to the LA area that compass readings might be affected. Luckily my latest trip up was no different. As they often are, my trip was a bit last minute. I stealthily slipped up and […]

Site Update

I recently had some issues with a backend site update, hopefully no features or pages were affected. I poked around and everything checks out but if you are having any issues please let me know in the comments or on the contact page.