Tom Iovino's Page

The router is one of the most versatile tools in the shop. Dovetails, mortises, tenons, decorative profiles, rabbets… the list goes on and on.

While they are extremely useful hand held, mounting them into a table dramatically expands their usefulness. I discovered this when I first bought a little bench top Skil router table for my tiny fixed-base Craftsman router. Suddenly, I was cutting joints and profiles I never knew were possible.

Things have really changed since those early router experi… Continue

There are certain statements that are beyond refute. The sun rises in the east. The only two things that are unavoidable are death and taxes. Bread always lands butter-side down.

And, as most woodworkers will agree, you can never have too many clamps.

Here’s the arsenal that I work with on my shop-built rolling clamp rack. I have what I consider (especially given that I’ve seen other woodworker’s collections!) a pretty modest, yet fully functional setup.

… Continue

Decorative Halloween Coffin
* October 2008

Walking into any large retail store is always an interesting experience. Because mass merchandisers have to think well into the coming months, they have to push the products for events quite a long time from now.

My kids were barely out of school for summer break (maybe a month) when retailers started putting out their back-to-… Continue

This was posted on my blog on January 15, 2008. In light of today's news, I thought it would be good to repost...

Get a group of woodworkers together, and, eventually, the topic of Norm Abram will come up.

It’s not difficult to figure out why. He’s been a fixture on This Old House since the show’s inception in 1979 – nearly three decades. This year, the New Yankee Workshop marks… Continue