Workshop Projects and Honest Tool Reviews
Garrett Dunn Garrett Dunn · October 23, 2026
Most vise mounting advice assumes four bolts in a rectangle. Plenty of vises do not have that—a lot of older import vises and plenty of mid-range new ones come with three holes in a triangle, usually two across the front and one at the back. When you’re figuring out how to mount a 3 hole … Read more
Garrett Dunn · October 23, 2026
I ignored stone flattening for an embarrassingly long time. I kept chasing a wire edge that would not form evenly across a chisel, blaming my technique, my angle, the steel — and the actual problem was that my 1000-grit stone had quietly worn into a shallow dish in the middle. A hollow stone grinds a … Read more
Garrett Dunn · October 15, 2026
Build cheap metal stock storage racks from angle iron and wall bins. Find the right piece fast, work safely, and stop losing offcuts in the pile.
Garrett Dunn · August 6, 2026
Understanding the Range of Vises Found in Working Shops: An Honest Assessment Walk into any shop and you’ll spot vises—whether mounted on a workbench, bolted to the floor, or clamped to a table edge. The variety is striking: different proportions, jaw configurations, mounting systems. Each one exists because certain jobs demand specific holding solutions; there’s … Read more
Garrett Dunn · August 6, 2026
Mounting a Bench Vise to Drywall: What Works and What Fails Hard Bolting a bench vise directly to your wall is possible. But your wall has to become what a workbench already is, and most residential framing isn’t engineered for that task. I learned this the hard way. Drywall anchors came with the vise, so … Read more
Garrett Dunn · July 27, 2026
A Brief History of the Bench Vise: From Blacksmith Leg Vise to Modern Machinist Tool I have a twelve-dollar cast-iron vise in my garage, painted industrial green, from an estate sale I attended years ago. When I brought it home, rust and decades of shop grime covered it—I couldn’t make out the casting mark or … Read more
Garrett Dunn · July 27, 2026
Most woodworkers treat card scrapers as optional luxury tools, but they solve a problem sandpaper cannot—and once you understand the difference, you stop wasting time chasing tear-out on figured wood. I spent years convinced sandpaper was the complete answer until a stubborn piece of curly walnut forced me to try something different. A card scraper … Read more
Garrett Dunn · July 26, 2026
At 3/16 of an inch, the deflection on my first attempt at a work surface was enough to wreck every square frame I tried to assemble on top of it. That gap—barely visible to the naked eye—proved costly in time and materials before I scrapped the design entirely and started over with proper dimensioning and … Read more
Garrett Dunn · July 25, 2026
Want to know why your homemade steel fire pit ends up looking like it melted after one season? Uneven heat distribution across a metal surface that’s too thin and poorly supported. That is exactly what happened to mine, twice, before I finally figured out what actually stops the warping. The second attempt failed more gradually … Read more
Garrett Dunn · July 24, 2026
I grabbed what looked like a solid deal on a vintage hand plane at an auction — paid decent money for it, took it home, sharpened the iron until it could slice arm hair, and watched it chatter and dig in on every single stroke. Weeks of troubleshooting later, I discovered the sole had a … Read more