Here are some thoughts on handle design that I hope you will find useful for your work.

We experience several aspects of woodwork at once – design, spatial sense, texture, color, sound, smell, style reference, etc. A hand-friendly handle can be a significant addition.

Exotics such as the Macassar ebony, above, are my favorites for handles. They finish beautifully and wear well. Note the stand out from the surface of the piece. This avoids finger grime from building up on the surface of the woodwork.

I almost always want a shape that is directly consistent with the design of the piece. In fact, the curves and proportions of the piece tell me how to shape the handle. I rarely want to introduce a new theme in the handle, though that might work more often for designers more talented than I.

The cabinet handle below is shaped much like the cabinet itself. The hard edges on the top will not be grabbed but the hard edges on the sides have a nice feel, especially since the sides are undercut. 

Below, the very simple small chest handle in wenge is in keeping with the simple design of the piece that relies mostly on the beauty of the wood, pleasing proportions, and the joinery for interest. The underside of the handle is slightly hollowed to make for a nice finger grab.

Below, this wall shelf with a side-hung drawer has so much going on with the wood species and figure, plus the undulating surface on the drawer front, that any further statement from the handle would be too much. The simple brass knob fits the bill.

This drawer handle, below, in Honduras rosewood, borrowed shamelessly ripped off from a design by Michael Fortune, also fits with the gradual curves of the cabinet. (Hey, I did add the bowed front, which made it a lot more difficult to make.) Speaking of “borrowing,” I will be nothing but flattered if you borrow any of my designs shown here.

The length and bulk of the handles are graduated to be consistent with the graduation in drawer sizes. Yes, that took a lot more work.

Lee Valley offers graduated-size metal handles in a variety of finishes.

Finally, sometimes it is fun to introduce something different, such as these manufactured handles, which have been on my tool cabinet for a very long time. 

Give it a try – enjoy enhancing your work with custom handles. Keep in mind too, that thoughtfully selected manufactured handles also can go a long way to add to your woodwork.

When sculpting the handle, keep the workpiece large for as long as possible. Of course, at some point you will have to cut loose the handle itself but the work becomes more difficult on the smaller piece, which may be impossible to clamp. 

Decide early on if you want a knife-cut finish or a smooth, sanded finish. Work for a good appearance but also keep testing the feel of the handle.

The finished handle in wenge is shown above mocked up on a piece of white oak scrap. (The scrap was used to test an edge profile; it is not a door). Note the hollowed left side and that the curved right side is also sloped toward the door. These features make for a pleasant grab by the thumb and first two fingers.

A hand-friendly handle does not necessarily mean that all the edges must be softened as they are here. Sometimes a distinct edge or corner feels right.

Create shoulders on the end of the tenon. The mortise, created with a shopmade slot jig for the router, is 1 1/4″ long and 3/8″ deep. 

Here is the pair of handles.

Next: designing handles for your woodwork

Like most furniture makers, I am not a sculptor, artist, or serious carver. However, I do want interesting handles to truly enhance the woodwork in which I have invested so much time and effort. With few exceptions, generic handles just will not do. 

I will first discuss how I make handles, step by step, and later consider design. The goal here is to transmit a practical approach to making unique wooden handles accessible to most any woodworker. For much more on designing for woodworkers, see this extensive series. 

1. Sketch

I sometimes start by briefly drawing ideas on paper but sketching on a small block of wood is the principal starting point. The wood gives me a better sense of size, partly because I am holding the wood as I sketch, and it is, after all, a handle that I am making. There are two requirements for sizing the handle: it must coordinate with the woodwork (drawer, door, etc.) and with the human hand. Use an easy-working wood like poplar or pine. 

2. Mock-up

Once I have a decent three-dimensional sketch on the wood, I hack away at it with carving knives, rasps, and a coping saw – whatever it takes. Here again, it is not only appearance that is developing but also hand feel. CAD is not the answer here. Like all mock-up work, this should be a relaxed, fun process with some happy anticipation. Maybe you will be lucky on the first try or maybe it will take a several tries. No problem. And the last mock-up does not have to be perfect or great. For example, you might end up with something like: “It’s good except just a quarter inch longer and a bit thinner.”

The finished handle is going to look a lot better but this mock-up will do for now.

3. Analyze 

Now I analyze the mock-up to decide on a wood species and the specific section of a board to be used. Further, I figure out how to machine blanks from which the handle can be efficiently produced. At this point, I also decide on the joinery – usually a tenon – to attach the handle, and how to make the joinery as I machine the blank.

Above, each wenge blank is about 8″ long, wide enough to allow the handle to be shaped from it, and tall enough to incorporate the tenon. The extra length allows for safer machining, easier handling later when shaping, and mistakes. 

4. Machine the blanks

The offset tongues, produced on the router table, will later become tenons. Use whatever your good judgment indicates at the router table, such as featherboards, push blocks, etc. If you have enough wood, work the tongue near the edge of a board, then rip away the blank, but think ahead to end up with nice figure for the final handle.

The key is to essentially make the joinery now. These tongues are a precise barely fat 1/4″ thick. 

Next: Sculpting the handles to look and feel good.

The companions seated at a restaurant table with an avid woodworker may find it odd that while they are studying the menu, the wood guy is studying the table. But much can learned by observing wooden structures in the wild, and so it was at a recent outing – just a few moments to choose the sashimi, but now let me see what’s going on with this table.

The big split (above) is easy to diagnose. There is a breadboard end cap running cross grain to the main section, and is no doubt glued along its entire length. It probably took only a year or less for the wood, probably dark red meranti, to split during a dry season when it was restrained from shrinking across the grain by the long grain length of the end cap.

Was the maker unaware of the problem inherent in the construction? Was it made just to look good at delivery without regard for its fate? One wonders. 

The split appears to be along an edge joint. As I have discussed in an earlier post, this is not a coincidence. The edge joint was weaker than the wood, a situation with many possible causes and that woodworkers try hard to avoid. My extensive series on the edge joint can help prevent this from happening to your work! 

What about the concavity in the top surface? In the photo just above, I am demonstrating the warp in the surface using the straight edge of the spine of a brochure. (Sorry, I didn’t have my Starrett with me.) Seasonal movement of flatsawn wood perhaps? No, the wood does not look flatsawn, and I am almost certain this same cup is present year round, and eventually in most of the tables there. 

The finish on the tabletop eventually deteriorates from repeated wetting, scratches, and perhaps ultraviolet light exposure. Liquid water, inevitably and repeatedly on a restaurant table, can then enter the wood fibers near the top of the board and swell them. The top surface of the board wants to get wider across the grain. But each time the fibers swell, they are compressed against each other, probably aggravated by the top of the board being relatively restrained from expanding by the drier bottom of the board, along with other aspects of the construction. The fibers undergo permanent deformation; they get crushed. This is compression set.

Later, when the top of the board re-equilibrates to a drier state, the crushed fibers want to shrink the width of the board. The board thus becomes concave on its top surface. This effect is irrespective of the usual come-and-go of flatsawn cupping, which may be additive to it. 

It is important to realize that these hygroscopic forces of wood movement are stronger than the wood structure itself. 

Taking a walk on a wood deck later that day, the boards showed another example of this.

We have to consider how the woodwork we make will fare long after it has left our hands. It is good to remember Yogi Berra’s advice, the title of this post.

[Who is the player with the most World Series championshhips in Major League Baseball history? Yup, it’s the great philospher himself, Yogi.]

This is just one of those simple little matters that somehow seems to go unattended.

A small solid brass hardware screw, such as a #4, is not very strong and can be easily torqued past its breaking point, leading to all sorts of profanity filling the air of even the most peaceful woodshop. A commonly recommended way to avoid this frustration is to pre-thread the pilot hole with a steel screw, which is stronger.

The steel screw should have the same thread pitch as the brass screw for which it is preparing the way. Otherwise, the preparatory threads will be misplaced and so the brass screw will have to cut most of its own threads anyway. The two sets of misaligned threads may partially merge and probably weaken the wall of the hole in a situation where you want all the holding power you can get.

In the photo above, the steel and (antique finished) solid brass screw threads correspond perfectly. (It is difficult to photograph this in position so please take my word for it.)

Below, the steel screw is a slightly finer pitch and so will cut threads out of sync with the (antique finished) solid brass screw threads. Yes, they are close but that’s just the problem. Not only does this defeat the purpose of the preparatory threading but I think this will also weaken the wood wall and reduce holding power. 

A maker of one the best, if not the best, quality hinges supplies such incorrect steel screws with their brass screws. So, beware and check for yourself. 

OK, what if you cannot find a proper steel screw in your Miscellaneous stash? Not a big deal. I find that with proper care, the brass screws hold up well. The key is to first test the screw procedures in scrap wood. 

With or without preparatory threading, there is a good chance you will find you have to use a pilot hole that is slightly greater than the root diameter of the brass screw. (The little steel screws can break too!) I also enlarge the upper part of the pilot hole with my Czeck Edge awl to accommodate the unthreaded portion of the screw. It also helps greatly to dab a bit of wax or Slipit into the pilot hole using a sliver of wood (better than on the screw itself) to reduce the torque required to seat the screw. I do not think this reduces holding power. 

Part of good craftsmanship is preventing little matters from becoming big headaches.

This is a simple, reliable way to keep the floating panel centered in a frame-and-panel construction. Without anything to keep it centered, a panel usually shifts to one side because one groove grips it a bit more than the others during seasonal movement. This leaves the field and the gap around it off center, which looks less neat.

In fact, this is the only way I ever do this. I like that there is no need to deal with any extra procedure during glue up such as inserting Space Balls or placing a dab of glue in just the right spot to keep the panel laterally centered. Because there is virtually no movement along the grain, only minimal clearance is needed in the grooves in the rails, so the vertical position of the panel is essentially constant.

When the clamps are off and the glue set, carefully center the panel laterally, and mark each rail at its midpoint between the stiles. The 3/4″ 18-gauge brass brads (Hillman item #123743) are 0.051″ in diameter, so drill a pilot hole with a 3/64″ or #56 wire gauge drill bit, which are about 0.004″ less than 0.051″. Drill from the back side and stop safely short of the front surface. Place the hole near the edge of the frame and within the tongue of the panel. 

Gently tap in the brass brad. You may want to nip off the point first to get a bit better purchase in the front side of the rail. When it is seated, nip off the excess with flush cutting wire cutters, and file away any remaining protrusion. Of course, pin the panel in the top and bottom rails.

That was easy.

When considering the benefits of beautifully sharp tools, what usually comes to mind is a smoothing plane producing a cosmetically flawless surface on the wood. This is often the impressive conclusion of a sharpening demonstration.  

Sometimes it is the joyful ease of pushing a sharp blade through the wood that compels us to accept our sharpening chores.  

No question, these are important reasons to hit the stones. However, I suggest that the foremost and most common reason to use a sharp tool is to be able to work accurately. I’m guessing that may not be what you usually have in mind when you go to the sharpening bench, but consider this: you pretty much always want to work accurately when you pick up an edge tool. You assume that.

It’s simple: a sharp tool immediately cuts the wood, and cuts just where you want. (And in small increments if needed!) The result equals the intention.

A dull edge is more likely to be diverted by the fiber structure of the wood, or tear the wood before it cuts it. Forcing a dull tool can cause you to overshoot or just miss the mark. Of course, all of these problems and others reduce accuracy.

Here are a few examples. The final shavings with the jointer plane to produce an edge-to-edge joint must be easy, thin, and precise to produce that square edge with a tiny camber. Just a very few thou matter, and if your blade cannot easily pull thin shavings, you cannot dial in that accuracy.

Similarly, trying to shoot an accurate end grain edge with a dull blade is like trying to produce calligraphy with a crayon. 

Consider paring a hinge mortise or a tenon cheek. You intuitively know that you want a sharp edge. Less obvious, consider chopping to the baselines of dovetails. You know the dull chisel is slower but think about that first entry where you want to avoid push back against the gauge line. Accuracy requires sharpness.

The same goes for sawing. Sure, the sharp saw is faster but most important, it is accurate.

And so forth. 

Working wood is way more fun than working tool steel (aka sharpening), so we need a darned good reason to get over to the sharpening bench. The foremost and most common reason is to work wood accurately.

A reader who recently sold his table saw asked about managing without it.

If you have been reading this blog over the years, you probably know my opinion. Of the five major small shop machines – table saw, bandsaw, jointer, planer, and router table/shaper – the most dispensable is the table saw.

Don’t get me wrong, the table saw is certainly helpful and I don’t want to give up my Saw Stop. It is great for clean, accurate ripping and crosscutting among other tasks. But you can still build everything you want without that cast iron landing pad with an emergent blade, just not as fast or conveniently.

I suggest the following tools as keys to working efficiently without a table saw. The links give lots more information. 

1.  Bandsaw! This takes up much less shop space than a table saw, though you still need infeed and outfeed space. 

You can rip quite accurately on a well-tuned bandsaw. Decent crosscutting can be achieved with or even without the miter gauge though you will need outboard support. And, of course, the bandsaw is much more versatile than the table saw. 

No bandsaw either? I could still do just about everything by hand (but I really, really don’t want to) with my Disston ripsaw, wide and narrow-blade bowsaws, an inexpensive crosscut breakdown saw, large and medium ryoba saws, a Gyokucho “05” crosscut kataba, the wonderful Bad Axe hybrid backsaw, and a few more. 

2. Cross-grain shooting board with an appropriate, ideally dedicated, plane. Here’s how I made my current one. This will clean up your crosscuts like no other tool on earth, hand or power.

3. Long-grain shooting board. This underutilized technique is great for accurately and conveniently cleaning up short to medium length rip cuts. My current board accommodates work up to about three feet. This is very easy to make and does not really require a dedicated plane, though I prefer my Lie-Nielsen #9. 

4. A jack plane, or better yet, a jack and a jointer, round out the essentials for the shop without a table saw. 

This is all in addition to the usual complement of hand tools and machines that you would want to have with or without a table saw.

By the way, my longstanding recommendations for machinery remain: for your first machine, get a thickness planer. Then get a bandsaw. Then get a jointer, 12” or wider, if you can. Build a router table. And, yea, get a table saw too, if you can. 

Several years ago I wrote more than 60 lengthy posts for a crafts instruction site called Craftsy. Woodworking was only a small part of their business, which dealt mostly in knitting, cake decorating, sewing, and so forth. Craftsy has since changed hands, first acquired by NBC Universal who called it Bluprint, at then by its present owner, TN Marketing, who returned it to the Craftsy name. It appears they are no longer actively involved in woodworking. 

Nine of the posts that I wrote were assembled into a 43-page “Dovetail Guide,” which was available for free as a downloadable PDF. This was (if I don’t say so meself) a very useful, at-the-bench instruction guide for cutting dovetails, helpful for beginners to experienced woodworkers alike. It covers the hands-on things you need to know in an intimate way that few other sources do. “From the sawdust and shavings at my bench,” as I say. 

The link to the PDF disappeared in the corporate shuffle and has not returned as of now, despite my requests. Many readers have contacted me looking for the Guide. 

Good news: the links to the original nine posts are available at this writing. So, you can get all of the information in the guide but you have to click on nine different links. If you are interested, I suggest you get a hold of this soon because it would not surprise me if it also gets lost in the corporate shuffle. 

Here are the links to the nine sections of Rob’s Dovetail Guide, in order, labeled by topic. Each will open in its own tab.)

1. Essential tools for dovetail joinery

2. Stock preparation and marking out a dovetail joint

3. How to saw dovetails – accurately!

4. Chop the waste with good chisel technique

5. Marking the pins from the tails

6. How to saw and chop the pins

7. Fitting the joint together

8. Assembling and gluing

9. Fixing errors and finishing up (Introducing the Woodshop Spy Cam)

The guide covers through dovetails but the skills are directly applicable to all variants of dovetail joinery.

My goal is simple: to help you experience the joy of our craft and the fulfillment of creativity. If you do use the Dovetail Guide, drop a comment or email me and let me know how it has worked for you or if you have questions. 

Author Brendan Bernhardt Gaffney has produced a biography of James Krenov that anyone even slightly interested in the subject will want to read. For those for whom Krenov has been a major influence, and there are so very many woodworkers, including me, in this group, this book is a must-read. 

The depth, breadth, and detail of the research demonstrated in this book are truly impressive. As the author states, it “spanned four continents, six languages and hundreds of interviews” and “thousands of hours.” Even if you have already read, as I have, all of Krenov’s books and lots of related articles and interviews, this book presents vastly more. It is fair to say that you do not know Krenov until you have read this book.

Rather than overwhelming the reader with this mountain of information, Brendan does a wonderfully intelligent job of organizing for the reader the rather complex life of James Krenov. This has helped me further understand the many influences on the development of his craft and what drove him. 

No hagiography, this book does not shy away from uncovering the less pleasant, or at least more difficult to understand, aspects of Krenov. Showing the subject as a real person rather than an icon makes for a much more powerful biography. Along with this, Brendan seems thoughtfully aware of how his relationship to Krenov’s work and teaching can influence his role as biographer. 

I will mention a few quibbles. In some areas, I think the writing and factual accounts could have been made more compact, while it would have also helped me if some of the life landmarks were restated. I suggest for a future edition to add a two-page layout of a timeline of the subject’s life to guide the reader. I also found myself confused by the overuse, in my opinion, of semicolons. 

The best compliment I can pay is this. As Brendan presents all of Krenov – his genius, his contradictions, and the remarkable patchwork of his life – he offers mature, judicious insights into how the many elements relate. Yet, he does this sparingly and modestly, leaving the reader plenty of room to draw his own inferences about Krenov. Moreover, the sheer thoroughness of the book equips you to do that. This is a fine line to walk and Brendan hits it just right.  

One more thing: one evidence of the artistry with which Brendan has approached this work is on pages 248-249. There, facing pictures of James Krenov with a book in his lap as a studious-looking boy in Alaska and as an old man with an easy smile in California bring to mind the uncertainty and beauty of life’s journey. A “quiet joy,” of which Krenov spoke, after all. 

The book is beautifully published by Lost Art Press.