Years ago, in a Fine Homebuilding article, I explained how to build corbels for an Italianate mirror frame. I ran out of pages in that short article before I could discuss how to layout the pediment. I have plenty of room here, so I’ll cover that part of the story, and I’ll include all the material that we couldn’t fit into the Fine Homebuilding Master Carpenter article. Read the full article…
Thirty years ago, if you needed an old house head block with a bullseye or rosette in it, you would have had to buy one pre-made or seek out one of the few rosette cutters on the market. Either way, it would’ve been too small for a typical renovation of an old house. Today, there are some rosette cutters that have interchangeable blades with the ability to have custom knives cut. But they’re too expensive, especially if you only need a few. And rosette cutters are hard to use on a drill press because they tend to chatter, ruining the work. My 1975 Craftsman has a little play in the bearings—it certainly won’t work with a rosette cutter! Read the full article…
One of the most time consuming aspects of my work has been machining and hanging doors. Installing doors and casing has never been a problem, but beveling, mortising hinges, and drilling the doors and jambs always slowed things down. Plus hanging doors is a rats nest of potentially expensive errors. Read the full article…
I recently worked on a video series for Festool in which I covered examples of how you might use a Festool track saw in a shop or on the jobsite. In the following video, I demonstrate a quick, easy and safe method of ripping plywood sheets down into panels or strips. This technique is well-suited for producing cabinetry components. Read the full article…
We’ve been asked many times by attendees how to build the pencil dispenser we use at our Katz Roadshow events. It is a handy and cool thing to have in a shop. Just ask Jed Dixon—he has the very first one I made…at least, the first one that worked. Read the full article…
At my new home, I built a small guest cabin down by the river (reservations are booked years in advance, so good luck with that!). I wanted to open up the west wall of the cabin, along the river, to both the sight and the sound of the water. But I couldn’t afford a 12-ft. wide commercially manufactured sliding door unit. And besides, I wanted it to look cool. So I made the unit myself. Read the full article…
If you ever have that problem where the base is thicker than the casing, and—like me—you hate to see back-cut joints, try this little trick. Read the full article…
When it comes to decks and especially exterior stairs, there are several critical areas that can spell the difference between safe and dangerous construction techniques. For that reason, current code requirements focus on some of those areas. In this article, we’ll look at just one detail: the prescribed method for securing the bottom newel post at the base of a stair.
The joinery in baseboard forms the foundation for nearly all the joinery in finish carpentry, which makes perfect sense because baseboard is meant to replicate the foundation—the plinth—of a classical column. Though casing is the first molding profile noticed in a home, and often the first molding installed in a home, baseboard is usually the first molding that an apprentice carpenter learns to cut, and for good reason. Read the full article…
If you’re lucky to stay in the carpentry business long enough, you’ll see a lot of strange things, like the crown molding in this article. Read the full article…
I’ve cut gable-end siding every way imaginable. When I first started working as a carpenter, I cut each piece one at a time, measuring the angles with a bevel square. Geeez was that slow! Read the full article…
Have you ever worked on an older remodel and needed a couple of sticks of trim to match but couldn’t find anyone who still stocked that profile? How about a piece to mate to a change in pitch on a rake run? Or have you ever had a designer draw something and then ask for a mock-up? There isn’t enough lineal footage (LF) to warrant having a knife made, much less the setup cost to run it. But there is an alternative—a good one. Make the moulding yourself. With a few moulding planes and some guidance, custom pieces can be made in the time it takes to find a millshop, explain what you need, and provide them with a scaled drawing! Read the full article…
Co-written by Gary Katz
Over the years, several articles on eave returns have appeared in the Journal of Light Construction and Fine Homebuilding, and extensive discussions have occurred on website forums, too. But something about the details in those articles and discussions always seemed missing or confused. In 2007, Get Your House Right (GYHR) was published, and finally carpenters and architects had a reference that filled in the missing details and explained basic rules and proportions for eave returns. Understanding and following the advice in that book isn’t always easy. In this article, we’ll examine and expand on those details, and we’ll illustrate one step-by-step construction approach for a poor man’s return, too. Read the full article…
I have always been on the lookout for a better way to make a more secure rail post connection at the bottom of a set of deck stairs. Over the years, I have tried the old ways of mounting the post on the outside of the stringer and adding a couple of bolts—a technique that never worked, and especially won’t work today because of the way that building codes have changed: Deck posts must now withstand 200 lbs. of lateral force. This new code requires a lot more thought, and the installation requires a lot more hardware. Read the full article…