# Ancient Web: Woodgears Put an Engineer's Toolmaking Workshop on the Web Matthias Wandel's Woodgears machinery index documents homemade bandsaws, jointers, routers and experimental workshop fixtures through photographs and plans. 2026-10-17 :: Switchboard Tech Services ![Ancient Web: Woodgears Put an Engineer's Toolmaking Workshop on the Web](https://switchboardtechservices.com/static/images/defaults/articles.webp) Part of the [Ancient Web Collection](https://switchboardtechservices.com/articles/ancient-web-collection/). Most woodworking sites show how to use tools. Woodgears can show you how to build the tools first, sometimes from wood. [Visit Woodgears](https://woodgears.ca/). Matthias Wandel's independently maintained Woodgears website calls itself “An engineer's approach to woodworking.” Its homepage links furniture, wooden toys, joining methods, tool plans and a long history of videos. The site is still actively updated, but its archives retain the hand-built character of a workshop notebook: short explanations, photographs, calculations and direct links to one experiment after another. A previous Ancient Web entry explored Woodgears' beginner section. The [machinery index](https://woodgears.ca/tools.html) is a different and more peculiar exhibit: a catalog of devices that people ordinarily expect to buy from a factory. ## Woodworking machines that make other machines The list starts with the Pantorouter, a template-guided machine for shaping repeated joints, and then keeps going. Wandel documents several homemade bandsaws, including a [16-inch design](https://woodgears.ca/bandsaw/homemade.html) and an oversized [26-inch version](https://woodgears.ca/big_bandsaw/26in.html). There are also a 12-inch jointer, tilting router lift, thickness sander, lathe, belt sanders and even homemade table saws. The distinction between an ordinary plan library and this archive is the experiment. A machine does not just arrive finished; its creator shows the geometry, compromises and setup decisions behind it. The tool index links a discussion of why crowned pulleys keep flat belts tracking, an explanation of induction motors, a test of bandsaws against CNC machinery and a comparison of different dust-collection designs. The [joinery directory](https://woodgears.ca/joinery.html) follows the same approach. Its entries include a screw-advance box-joint jig, a computer-controlled finger-joint fixture, measurements of mortise-and-tenon accuracy and destructive comparisons of dowels with other joints. They reflect a desire to replace workshop folklore with demonstrations that readers can inspect and challenge. This is not a safety-certified catalog: readers should not assume homebuilt spinning machinery can be replicated safely without appropriate engineering knowledge, guards and precautions. The value of the surviving pages is the documentation of iterative making. Wandel also keeps [reader-built machine examples](https://woodgears.ca/tools.html) close to his own, demonstrating that the site became a place where other people could build upon and report back on the ideas. The old independent Web was particularly good at hosting long, interconnected projects that never fit into a single tutorial. Woodgears still is. [Explore the full woodworking machinery index](https://woodgears.ca/tools.html). Part of the [Ancient Web Collection](https://switchboardtechservices.com/articles/ancient-web-collection/). - Categories: [Ancient Web](https://switchboardtechservices.com/articles/categories/ancient-web/) - Tags: [#ancientweb](https://switchboardtechservices.com/articles/tags/ancientweb/), [#diy](https://switchboardtechservices.com/articles/tags/diy/), [#engineering](https://switchboardtechservices.com/articles/tags/engineering/), [#woodworking](https://switchboardtechservices.com/articles/tags/woodworking/), [#machines](https://switchboardtechservices.com/articles/tags/machines/) [Articles RSS](https://switchboardtechservices.com/feeds/articles.xml "Subscribe using an RSS reader") --- Canonical URL: https://switchboardtechservices.com/articles/ancient-web-woodgears-put-an-engineers-toolmaking-workshop-on-the-web/ Language: en-us Content type: article Author: Switchboard Tech Services Published: 2026-10-18T01:53:43+00:00 Modified: 2026-10-18T21:05:06.292750+00:00 Description: Beyond its beginner tutorials, Woodgears preserves an extensive archive of engineering experiments that turn woodworking machines into buildable projects.