Ask any builder or geologist-bedrock ranks as the ultimate in stability. So it's no wonder that in 1900, when Stanley Rule and Level Co. introduced planes that held the plane iron (cutter) rock steady, the company dubbed the "Bedrock."

Woodworkers have used bevels for centuries, and with good reason. This simple hand tool transfers and duplicates angles with dead-on precision. In this article, we'll show you how to set the bevel for angles taken off workpieces, full-sized plans, and written instructions.

Somewhere along the way you caught the antique-tool-collecting bug, but where do you go from here? Try the Mid-West Tool Collectors Association.

When it comes to ripping and crosscutting, the power tablesaw reigns as the workshop workhorse. What's more, most shops boast various other motorized saws. Even so, you'll still run into woodworking situations that call for a handsaw.

Wheelwrights were riding high in the 19th century, building spoked wooden wheels for everything from army artillery to Park Avenue hansom cabs.

When turning miniature vessels such as small scale bowls, you often run into situations you just can't handle with regular gouges and scrapers. To reach in through a narrow neck to clean out an interior, for instance, a thin, round-nosed tool with a bend in it would be great. But where do you get such a thing? Well, you could make one.

For hundreds of years before the first band saw ever found its way into a shop, craftsmen were making scalloped and scrolled edges on wood by hand with a thin blade stretched taut between two handles by a tensioning cord.

Heres how cabinetmakers of yesteryear cut thin stock.

You'll be in the swing with these handy hammers.