Probably the most used tool in your shop is one you might overlook; your pencil.

It makes sketches, computes figures, marks parts, lays out mortises, erases mistakes, and a hundred other tasks around the shop. A common school pencil is fine for most purposes, so long as it is kept sharp, but for me, there are four prime marking tools in the shop: A mechanical pencil, a carpenter's pencil, and a white colored pencil.

The mechanical pencil is my primary marking tool. It maintains a consistently fine line, and is inexpensive. I keep them all over the shop including in my apron. It does the majority of my marking chores. I prefer the 0.07 pencils; they are a bit tougher than the 0.05, and break less often on open grains.

The carpenter's pencil has a big, tough lead that does an excellent job of marking on rough lumber. It makes bold marks when processing your stock, but the lines are too thick and clumsy for detail work. The flat body keeps it from rolling away, and it fits easily in a pocket or box.

Normal pencil leads work very well on most materials, but for very dark woods, the lines can be impossible to see. For these occasions, reach for a white colored pencil. When very sharp, it leaves a nicely visible line on your dark surface. Furniture makers who work in walnut keep a box of these on hand.

These three choices serve most of my marking needs, but for real accuracy, like marking out mortises and dovetails, a striking knife is the best choice. The knife cuts a line that is far finer than any pencil will make, and guides your chisel or saw when cutting. For getting really accurate marks, the blade should be flat on the bottom, allowing it tight against your straightedge or part.

Try working with these four simple tools on your next project. Marking accurately is the first step to accurate cutting, and will follow through the entire project.

[Editor's note: The contest is over and the three lucky winners are: Keith M. from Ohio, Thad G. from Michigan, and Mark W. from Ohio! If you're looking to buy this book, Bob Lang stopped by the blog to let us know that it is available on his website: craftsmanplans.com. We do have Bob's second book, More Shop Drawings for Craftsman Furniture available here at Rockler. Thanks for participating, everybody - we'll do this again soon. Be sure to subscribe to Buzz Saw if you haven't already, so you don't miss a thing!]

This week we've got something fun: three copies of the book Shop Drawings for Craftsman Furniture: 27 Stickley Designs for Every Room in the Home to give away to our readers!

This fabulous book by Robert W. Lang gives 27 examples of "the sturdy, straightforward, and immensely popular oak furniture designed by Gustav Stickley and his associates early in the 20th century." Lang's new drawings are carefully checked against Stickley original catalogs and antique pieces. With this book you'll have "the heart of the Craftsman aesthetic along with all the information needed for success in [today's] workshop."

Whether you are already a woodworker and furniture maker, you've always wanted to try your hand at Stickley-inspired furniture, or you just know someone who would really enjoy this book, leave a comment below! We will pick three winners by random drawing on Wednesday afternoon, March 17th. (Hey - that's St. Patty's Day, and the book is green! Coincidence? ...Yup!)

To be eligible to win, just post a comment here on the blog (below) before noon CST on Wednesday, March 17th. For even more chances, tweet, blog or post the link to this post ( http://bit.ly/BookGiveaway ) on your Facebook wall: Then come back here and leave a comment with a link showing where you posted it, and we'll put your name in the hat again! (Be sure to leave a valid e-mail address in the comment form, so we can reach you if you win!) Good luck!

In our twenty-first century world, where everyone is much more aware of the environment and the importance of protecting it, people are more and more often looking for "green" ways of doing things.

When it comes to refinishing, a product called SOY-Gel™ is rapidly becoming the stripper of choice. This soy bean-based product is safer to work with and safer for the environment than harsh chemical strippers. It's non-toxic, non-caustic and biodegradable!

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You invest a lot of money in your router bits. Even buying inexpensive ones, the money adds up quick. That's why I hope your bit storage does not look like this!

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It's great when you can think outside the box, and find a use for a product beyond the advertised use. Jim Quinn of Riverton, New Jersey, did just that with our Heavy Duty Pantry Slides. Rather than use them in the kitchen, Jim used them in his bathroom to turn a deep, narrow closet into a convenient and functional slide-out linen cabinet!

In his five-star review of the slides Jim says:

Rockler's heavy duty pantry slides made it possible

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Making curved parts from templates often requires re-tracing the template in a larger size. You may need to bandsaw a cutting board to rough shape before flush trimming it to a template. Or you want to trace off a curved table top to create a wood edging for it. Accurately reproducing the shape in a larger size is nearly impossible freehand, but a basic set of washers can make the task easy.

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It's always fun to hear about someone coming to the States and making a trip to visit a Rockler store. We discovered this post and picture on Woodworking Australia's Woodwork Forums, a popular woodworking site down under. Poster Michael writes:

Thanks to some careful planning on our current holiday I was able to make the subway trip out one cold morning in Boston to Rockler Hardware. Dressed in two beanies, long johns, merino shirt, wind proof jumper, scarf, leather and merino gloves and it was still cold!

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Reading the recent Buzz Saw blog post by Barbara Howell got me thinking about how I got started as a woodworker. Having read Barbara's book ''Splinters'', I knew that she got her start out of necessity, having to learn the craft to take over the family business as her husband fell ill. My start was a bit less dramatic.

My father always had a small workshop as I was growing up, but he was so busy supporting our family, that he rarely got the time he wished to spend in the shop. My brother and I were always getting into trouble, sneaking into the shop for our own ends. A large nail, pounded into the top of a pair of 2 x 4 cutoffs became ''walkie-talkies'' for our neighborhood war games, or his wrenches and hammers were drafted to fix and modify our bikes. Invariably, we left tools out, frustrating our father quite a lot.

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Rockler was the proud sponsor of the Winter 2010 LumberJocks' Woodworking Awards, and the winners were announced today! LJ had a record-breaking 151 entrants for this season's challenge which was "Yin Yang, The Dark and the Light". The idea was to create a project that used color (dark and light) "to convey how contrasts work together to make the whole". Imagine 151 variations on this theme! Completing and submitting an entry for this contest was a huge accomplishment, and we congratulate all the entrants on their efforts!

The voting was done by the LumberJocks themselves. Anyone who had ever posted a project on the site was eligible to vote, and the four top vote-getters won prizes from Rockler.

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Editor's note: Our guest blogger today is Barbara Howell: woodworker, business owner, and author of the 2009 book ''Splinters: The Pain, The Passion, The Point''.

Hands come in all sizes and shapes!

But if you are a woodworker there have probably been times you wished your hands could do more. Good grip is a major requirement.

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