Tools for Working Wood

Tools for Working Wood That sawdust won't make itself. Welcome! We have both an online store and a brick and mortar location smack dab in the middle of beautiful Brooklyn, New York.

Founded in 1999, we carry a quality selection of fine woodworking tools, Festool, and manufacture our very own tool lines: Gramercy Tools and Brooklyn Tool and Craft. Come and visit us at our showroom at 112 26th street Brooklyn, NY 11232 or online at www.toolsforworkingwood.com

Stay tuned for classes being added to our schedule and for upcoming events!

Next week we're heading to the best hand tool show in the world —Handworks! Join us Friday, Sept. 4th and Saturday, Sept...
08/26/2026

Next week we're heading to the best hand tool show in the world —Handworks! Join us Friday, Sept. 4th and Saturday, Sept. 5th, 10am–5pm both days in Amana, Iowa. Admission is free. If you were at the last one, you might remember we brought our prototype folding treadle lathe. Well, this year we'll have lathes for sale, along with plenty of other goodies. But the best part is meeting you. The energy at Handworks is unlike anything else — people who love working with their hands, gathering together, geeking out over beautifully made tools, and sharing stories. This week Joel's blog features some photos from the last Handworks. Link to Blog in Bio.

Hand saws can cut square, but they can't cut glass smooth - and that's where a shooting board and plane come in. The Sta...
08/20/2026

Hand saws can cut square, but they can't cut glass smooth - and that's where a shooting board and plane come in. The Stanley No. 52 Chute Board and Plane, a beautifully machined tool manufactured between 1905 and 1943, is one of Stanley's more obscure tools but offers many joys - dead accuracy, comfortable slanted handle, beautifully machined surfaces, with positive locking of all the clamps. Click the link to Joel's Blog in the Bio to learn more.

Our Brooklyn showroom - really just the front of our warehouse- hosts woodworkers from all over the world. But when most...
08/13/2026

Our Brooklyn showroom - really just the front of our warehouse- hosts woodworkers from all over the world. But when most of them fly into the area, they aren’t in a V formation. These memorable recent visitors waddled in one hot day and didn’t allow an obvious barrier to fine woodworking - having webbed flippers instead of fingers - get in the way of checking out the goods. A report on their visit, along with a Gramercy Tools Folding Treadle Lathe, is in this week’s Joel’s Blog (click the link to Joel's Blog in the Bio)

The Gramercy Tools Veneer Saw is rooted in the French pattern tradition, where the handle sits directly over the cut rat...
08/05/2026

The Gramercy Tools Veneer Saw is rooted in the French pattern tradition, where the handle sits directly over the cut rather than offset to the side like English-style saws. That means your downward pressure tracks right along the straightedge, giving you feedback you can feel in your hands. Left-handed? Right-handed? Doesn't matter — the symmetrical design works with either.

The real innovation is the solid steel backer plate. It stiffens the blade, improves handling, and lets you swap blades with three stainless screws and a quarter turn. Choose from four distinct tooth patterns: the classic 15-60 English filing, a proprietary 15-90 with a relaxed rake for difficult grain, the traditional (and charmingly controversial) 15-60/60 French filing — a house favorite at Gramercy — or the "King Kong" blade, developed specifically for hand-sawn thick veneer.

American Black Walnut handle. 1095 spring steel blades etched with the Gramercy logo. Shipped sharp and ready to work. Made in the USA.

Veneer work is one of the great traditions in furniture making. Having the right saw changes everything.

Link to the store in bio.

The tailstock center doesn't get a lot of glory, but it's doing critical work every time you turn a spindle. Joel's late...
07/30/2026

The tailstock center doesn't get a lot of glory, but it's doing critical work every time you turn a spindle. Joel's latest blog post walks through dead centers, 60° live centers, cup centers, and the specialty half center - explaining when each one makes sense and why the cup center has become his go-to for most treadle lathe work. No drilling needed, no friction issues, just a punch mark and you're turning. He also covers the situations where a cup center won't cut it and you'll want a standard live center instead. Practical stuff from real shop experience.
For the full blog with more photos please click the link to Joel's Blog in the Bio.

The Cooper Hewitt museum's current exhibit, The Art of Noise, showcases the importance of design in our music-listening ...
07/22/2026

The Cooper Hewitt museum's current exhibit, The Art of Noise, showcases the importance of design in our music-listening experience and includes such icons like the Sony Walkman and gems like Wendell Castle's walnut "Stereo Chest" from 1973, Ron Arad's wild "Concrete Stereo," and Braun designs by Dieter Rams.
Devon Turnbull's jaw-dropping listening room in the Carnegie mansion's library brings up the designer's dilemma: the room's gorgeous carved paneling was hidden behind sound baffles, and the records — the heart of the whole system — were just leaning on the floor against a soundboard. Pure sonic function won out over everything else. Have we stopped stopped caring about furniture as craft and moved our function to privately-experienced electronic gizmos? The show has been extended through August 16, 2026, so there's still time to go and draw your own conclusions. Read Joel's full take in his current blog. Link to blog in Bio.

If you take a moment and look up, you may be dazzled by what you see. This is certainly true if you find yourself on the...
07/16/2026

If you take a moment and look up, you may be dazzled by what you see. This is certainly true if you find yourself on the "Ladies' Mile" in Manhattan - the stretch of Broadway between 16th and 23rd Streets that was once home to Lord & Taylor, B. Altman, and other grand department stores that back in the Gilded Age became famous as a place for affluent women to shop unchaperoned by men. These buildings' ground floors have been remodeled beyond recognition, but look up and you'll find incredible carved cornices, mansard roofs, and façade details in Beaux-Arts and Neo-Renaissance styles. What's remarkable isn't that these details exist — it's that they were considered perfectly ordinary. The builders of the 1870s-1890s believed a commercial building deserved the same level of craft you'd put into a highboy. That's a philosophy any woodworker can get behind. Click on the bio for a link to the full blog entry.

Spooncarving is a gratifying activity. The carving itself can be deeply meditative, and the transformation of a hunk of ...
07/13/2026

Spooncarving is a gratifying activity. The carving itself can be deeply meditative, and the transformation of a hunk of green wood into a useful implement can seem magical. Morakniv hook knives are ideally suited to hollow out spoons and bowls. Made in Sweden from 12C27 stainless steel, the curved 2.2" blade has a ½" internal radius that's perfectly sized for spoon bowls, small cups, and detailed relief work.. The oiled birch handle sits naturally in your grip, balanced for long carving sessions without fatigue. At just 4 ounces with its included vegetable-tanned leather sheath, it's a tool you can toss in a bag and take to the woods, the park bench, or wherever you find a quiet moment and a piece of green wood.
Link to store in Bio

Eric Sloane's pen-and-ink sketches bring early American tools to life in a way photographs never quite manage. Every pag...
07/11/2026

Eric Sloane's pen-and-ink sketches bring early American tools to life in a way photographs never quite manage. Every page feels like a conversation with someone who genuinely loved these objects and the hands that made them. Sloane’s books, including his iconic "A Museum of Early American Tools, “Diary of An Early American Boy,” ”A Reverence for Wood,” and others convey the full sweep of pre-industrial craft with warmth, curiosity, and deep respect. Whether you're just starting to explore tool history or you've been collecting for decades, Sloane's sketches and commentary offer something fresh every time you revisit them..
Link to Store in Bio.

07/08/2026

Frederick Kiesler's remarkable "Multi-Use Chairs" were surrealist-inspired pieces made of linoleum-clad oak that could serve as a chair, rocker, table, bench, easel, sculpture pedestal and more (Kiesler claimed 18 distinct uses). They were created in 1942 from $9 of material. 84 years later, they still look wildly original, not an evolution of any familiar design movement, but something genuinely new. Joel's blog reflects on what that means for all of us who build: it's great to refine known forms, but it's also worth occasionally plucking a design from the outer space of the imagination. Read the full post with photos and video: Link in Bio.

Address

112 26th Street
Brooklyn, NY
11232

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

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