In order to make a living with woodworking, I find there has to be a compromise between power tools and elbow grease, and I’ll be the fi rst to admit that I couldn’t survive without power tools. Saying that, if there’s one thing that power tools haven’t been able to match, it’s the fi ne control of basic edge tools in skilled hands. The bench hand plane, for example, is certainly a tool that will be practically…

Many years ago as a boy apprentice, most of the men I trained under had large tool chests neatly placed at the foot of their benches. Their airtight lids stayed firmly shut except when a special tool was needed for a particular job.

The blade runs on a pair of fairly substantial cast alloy wheels, and there’s a good blade tensioning system with a quick-release…