Buying guides and reviews
Buying Guides
A track saw is a plunge-cut circular saw that rides on a rigid aluminum guide rail clamped to the workpiece, so the blade stays straight and square through the entire cut. That sin…
Buying Guides
An angle grinder is one of the fastest ways to cut, bevel and deburr steel that most people ever buy. We spent weeks running all 12 of the grinders below through rebar, angle iron,…
Buying Guides
A bench grinder is a bench-mounted machine with one or two rotating abrasive wheels used to put an edge on steel by hand. Sharpening tools is its single most common job in a worksh…
Buying Guides
Most guides to furniture sanding will tell you to buy a random orbital sander and stop thinking about it. That advice is half right. An orbital is the right finisher, but it is a p…
Buying Guides
Short answer: yes, a random orbital sander is genuinely good on drywall, but only for the right jobs. It handles patch repairs, seam feathering, screw-head touch-ups, corners and t…
Buying Guides
A drill press is the single machine that turns a home shop from a place where you hang things on walls into a place where you build things. It holds a bit square to the surface, fe…
Buying Guides
The best mini lathes for pen turning are the machines that hold a constant diameter at low RPM with almost no runout in the headstock. Our pick is the WEN 3421 for its 3.2-Amp soft…
Buying Guides
Reclaimed wood is the most demanding material you can feed through a thickness planer, and also the least forgiving of people who skip preparation. Boards pulled from a demolition…
Buying Guides
A 6-gallon pancake compressor covers most home garage work, and a 20- to 30-gallon vertical unit is the right step up if you regularly run orbital sanders, impact wrenches or a spr…
Buying Guides
A pancake compressor is a portable air compressor built around a flat, horizontal tank that sits low to the ground, built so a trim carpenter can carry it between rooms and run a f…