12 Things About Working Teak
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1. Your house will smell like Pier 1 2. Because of teak's waxiness, your machines will be able to take only about one-fourth of their usual cut. Teak bogs everything down. 3. When handplaning it, you cannot position your cap iron close to the iron's edge. The waxy shavings gum up the works. Ditto on
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posted at: 12:00am on 29-Sep-2013
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The Funeral Chair Part Two: Preparing the Stock
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 Posted by fidgen
The second video installment for the funeral chair project from my new book- The Unplugged Woodshop.
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posted at: 12:08am on 28-Sep-2013
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A Wee App-etizer
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Every week or so, I get a handful of questions along these lines: Why dont you have a mobile app for the magazine? My answer has long been along this line: Well, we have a digital subscription available and we offer single issues in PDF format. And, well, I dont know how to make an
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posted at: 12:08am on 28-Sep-2013
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A Cure for ''Idleshopalitis''
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Chuck Bender, senior editor of Popular Woodworking Magazine, gives you a compelling reason to come to Woodworking in America 2013. Warning: the following video may expose some deeply concealed truths about your woodworking.
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posted at: 12:01am on 27-Sep-2013
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A Better Woodworking Push Block
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Say the name GRR-Ripper and most woodworkers who own a table saw know the product. Its a great tool to use for ripping, especially when cutting thin strips or on odd configurations, I use the tool when I demonstrate making the chevron inlay for the spice box door from the December 2001 issue (#125).
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posted at: 12:01am on 27-Sep-2013
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Getting Bit by the Toothed Planing Stop
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I know there are people who use edge tools straight out of the box, but I can't. I always sharpen them. So why should workbench accessories be any different? For many years I've been indifferent to metal planing stops. The aluminum ones are terrible for too many reasons to even get into here. The iron
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posted at: 12:02am on 26-Sep-2013
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Limbert Magazine Stand in the Spirit of ''I Can Do That''
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The magazine stand is one of the signature pieces of the American Arts and Crafts movement, and Charles Limbert's No. 346 is an especially distinctive take on the form. Two details mark the No. 346 as a Limbert design, the cutouts on the sides and the trapezoidal base. In the spirit of ''I Can Do That''
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posted at: 12:05am on 25-Sep-2013
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A Jack Plane with a Rounded Sole
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When preparing stock by hand, the most useful plane is probably the jack plane (sometimes called the fore plane among joiners). Its curved iron allows you to remove a remarkable amount of material with every stroke. I usually travel with a metal jack (an old Stanley No. 5) because it's less intimidating in a classroom
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posted at: 12:08am on 24-Sep-2013
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Lee Valley gets into Shooting Sports
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Just how good is the new Veritas shooting plane from Lee Valley? All I can say is, its pretty sweet. For the last few weeks Ive had the pleasure of having one of the first planes off the line in my shop (in case you were wondering, Im liking this senior editor position) where it
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posted at: 12:08am on 24-Sep-2013
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Two Dados, Two Ways
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This week I was in the shop working on an upcoming magazine article. On the case back there are two dados that locate and hold the drawer dividers of the project. For me, that generally means I pick up my router and get busy. This time, because I needed two matching slots, I decided one
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posted at: 12:04am on 22-Sep-2013
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Visiting the Wellspring of Campaign Furniture
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This week I'm in England doing research for my next book, Campaign Furniture, and spent today geeking out with Sean and Simon Clarke of Christopher Clarke Antiques, the world's leading dealer of campaign antiquities. The Clarke brothers have handled thousands of pieces of campaign furniture built during two centuries of the peak of the
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posted at: 12:17am on 21-Sep-2013
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November 2013 Online Extras
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Now online: almost all of the online extras (were still working on a video or two) for the November 2013 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine. Visit popularwoodworking.com/nov13 for some videos, links to free articles, related blog posts and more, including our new Reader Gallery (more soon to come on that). The print issue drops
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posted at: 12:17am on 21-Sep-2013
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Visiting the Wellspring of Campaign Furniture
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This week I'm in England doing research for my next book, Campaign Furniture, and spent today geeking out with Sean and Simon Clarke of Christopher Clarke Antiques, the world's leading dealer of campaign antiquities. The Clarke brothers have handled thousands of pieces of campaign furniture built during two centuries of the peak of the
Read more here
posted at: 12:17am on 21-Sep-2013
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Have Dust, Will Travel
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As dawn broke, the sounds of heavy equipment filled the air. Today we began breaking down the dust collector from my shop in Pennsylvania. Tomorrow well load it onto a trailer and it will head west to Ohio but it will not be going to my new shop outside Cincinnati. Frankly, its just too big
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posted at: 12:17am on 21-Sep-2013
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One of Chuck Bender's Favorite Jigs, A Stick
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In the upcoming November 2013 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine,I reveal five of my favorite jigs. The one I probably use the most often is pretty simple. Its a stick. Youll be able to read about how to make your very own stick in the issue but, if youre impatient like me, you can watch
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posted at: 12:00am on 19-Sep-2013
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Congratulations to Autumn Doucet, Grand Prize, PWM Excellence Awards
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The November issue starts mailing to subscribers in about two weeks, and inside youll find the Editors' Choice and Readers' Choice winners of the inaugural PWM Excellence Awards, and a little bit about each of them and their projects (with pictures, of course). But heres a first look at the grand-prize winning project, a beautiful
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posted at: 12:09am on 18-Sep-2013
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Galoot Sawtill
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In the Saw Storage chapter for Handsaw Essentials, I would have liked to include this sawtill that Samuel Peterson built; it was featured in the August 2000 issue of Popular Woodworking. Alas, the files are so old that I would have had to send out slides for scans and rekey the text. And I guess
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posted at: 12:09am on 18-Sep-2013
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3 Ways to Make Raised Panels
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Traditional raised panels appear in almost every furniture style since Roman times, though the way to make them varies wildly. All the methods, however, fall into two different camps: One method is to use a tool that is specially designed to do the job, such as a panel-raising plane or a panel-raising router cutter.
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posted at: 12:01am on 17-Sep-2013
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Learn to Lay Out an Ogee
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In the November issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine, youll find my 6-Board Chest article. The opening photo (shown below) shows three chests, mine (the blue one), Tim Henricksen's (the yellow one) and Ty Blacks (the green one). My chest (the one I teach you how to build in the article) has an ogee on
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posted at: 12:00am on 17-Sep-2013
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Drill Holes Straight & Square
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If youve been around woodworking as long as I have, then this technique to drill holes straight is surely old hat. While it is an oldie, it is also a goodie, especially if you dont have or cannot fit your workpiece under a drill press. When working on the lowboy discovered in the back room
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posted at: 12:00am on 17-Sep-2013
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All Apologies (A WIA 2013 Video)
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Grab a drink, make some popcorn and watch us make complete fools of ourselves (with apologies to those we are attempting ((poorly)) to portray. Megan Fitzpatrick WoodworkinginAmerica.com
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posted at: 12:10am on 15-Sep-2013
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A Productive Morning in the PWM Shop
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We engaged in a bit of silliness this morning. And that is all. For now.
Megan Fitzpatrick WoodworkingInAmerica.com
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posted at: 12:10am on 15-Sep-2013
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The End of My Second First Week
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Most people start a new job and have only one first week. Me, I have to do things the hard way. Officially my first week on the job was at the beginning of June (check out my post from my FIrst Day.) I hauled myself to Cincinnati to get acquainted with the computer systems, play
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posted at: 12:10am on 15-Sep-2013
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Defective Dovetail Diagnosis
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When I teach woodworking, most of my job is diagnosing defective dovetails. Tail walls that are not 90. Floors of pin and tail boards that have lumps aplenty. My diagnosis tools are my sensitive fingers, a small square and my eyes. But in some situations, all of those tools fail. When cutting dovetails with skinny
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posted at: 12:12am on 13-Sep-2013
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Senco Unveils New 23-gauge Pinners
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Its great to have woodworking-related companies close to our magazine shop. Here in Cincinnati, we have Gorilla Glue, Bioformix (makers of Nexabond 2500M adhesive) and Senco within shouting distance. And yesterday, a couple of guys from Senco stopped by to show us the new 23-gauge pinners coming out soon. The two tools (FinishPro23SXP and FinishPro23LXP)
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posted at: 12:12am on 13-Sep-2013
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If I Knew Then What I Know Now (I'd Have Been too Overawed to Breathe)
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In 2006, shortly after I joined the staff at Popular Woodworking Magazine, we hosted an unprecedented and never-to-be-repeated gathering of planemakers. What didnt filter through at the time to my woefully overloaded brain (I had just begun to learn about hand tool woodworking and to appreciate fine tools) was that, had our office been spirited
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posted at: 12:04am on 12-Sep-2013
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Dovetails of 472 Flavors
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If you think there are hard-and-fast rules about designing dovetails, don't read any further. You'll get an ulcer. North Carolina woodworker Mark Firley has collected a set of 472 photos of dovetails on antiques that he has collected in his travels all over the United States. Sift through this set, and you can find almost
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posted at: 12:00am on 09-Sep-2013
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Most-asked Woodworking Questions
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Throughout the years Ive been here at Popular Woodworking Magazine, there are only two woodworking questions that find their way into my inbox on a regular basis. The number of times Ive answered the question about the router bit I used to plunge-cut workbench holes into my Shaker Workbench from December 2007 (#166) is astounding,
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posted at: 12:00am on 08-Sep-2013
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The Notched Batten, a Great Workbench Trick
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Traversing boards without a tail vise can be tricky. For the last eight years, I've used a setup that requires two holdfasts and a batten between them. It works fine, but it requires a long batten and two holdfasts to work. Workbench builder Richard Maguire published a tip on his blog this summer that allows
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posted at: 12:00am on 08-Sep-2013
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Inventor Burton ''Burt'' Weinstein, 87
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Inventor and engineer Burton Burt Weinstein died on August 9, we learned in a press release from General Tools & Instruments. He was a long-time consultant for the company, to whom he sold his business, Simpl Products, in 2006, with plans to retire. But retirement didnt work for Burt, so he remained a consultant for
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posted at: 12:00am on 07-Sep-2013
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Compass Layout Tricks from October 2013 Issue
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In the October 2013 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine, youll find my Woodworking Essentials article, The Mighty Compass. In the article I show a bunch of things you can do with a compass to create polygons and divide lines and angles. The following video shows some of the layout techniques from the article, in case
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posted at: 12:00am on 07-Sep-2013
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Build A Custom Backsaw, FAQs with Matt Cianci
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Hello out there in hand tool world; it is I, yourstealthy neighborhood SawWright, Matt Cianci! I haverisked life and limb by hackinginto the PopWood blog to further propogate my twisted brand of saw-speak. And while Im at it, Ill answer some common questions about my latest DVD Build A Custom Backsaw. The following are some
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posted at: 12:00am on 07-Sep-2013
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Creole Table Plan
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Im busy trying to tie up the loose ends and a few empty columns in our forthcoming book Handsaw Essentials (which should be available by the end of October). Its a collection of (almost) everything weve written on blog posts and in Popular Woodworking and Woodworking Magazine on meat-powered saws and sawing over the last
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posted at: 12:00am on 06-Sep-2013
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The Next Generation of Woodworkers
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Last month, Jet and Powermatic sponsored an event in Nashville, Tenn., at which Powermatic showed its new PM1000 (we have one in the shop that were currently testing). Jet unveiled a new band saw (I wrote about it in this blog) and a few other tools such as a couple of smaller lathes and a
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posted at: 12:01am on 05-Sep-2013
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Curse You IKEA! (And a Dovetail Dodge)
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While my kids (and wife) are fans of the IKEA, I remain non-committed to the Swedish meatball and presswood furniture empire. But today a little part of me died. I fell in love with an IKEA product. The JANSJ is a gooseneck LED lamp that is perfect for bench work. It costs
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posted at: 12:04am on 04-Sep-2013
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My Head Hurts, But It's a Pain Worth Having
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Im editing the November 2013 binder today and have just turned the page to the first article in the feature well (the section in the middle with no advertising, that follows the up-front columns). And I decided I needed a break before tackling it (hence this blog post). As always, the first feature is the
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posted at: 12:04am on 04-Sep-2013
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Finish for the Inside of a Tool Chest
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With the plans for the Dutch Tool Chest in the October 2013 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine now out, several readers have been asking about how they should finish the inside surfaces of the chest. Heres the short answer: Dont. Many of the vintage tool chests that I have encountered have just bare wood inside.
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posted at: 12:17am on 01-Sep-2013
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Fitting Drawers One Piece at a Time
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Nice fitting drawers are one of my favorite parts of making stuff out of wood. There is nothing like the appearance of even and minimal gaps and nothing like the feel of an easy sliding drawer that wont get stuck when the seasons change. Meeting both goals at the same time is a challenge, but
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posted at: 12:17am on 01-Sep-2013
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Simple-to-build Shop Drawers
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Because we have just about put to bed the current issue and due to the upcoming holiday weekend, I had a little free time to be out in the shop. Look out workbench, here I come, again. Today I worked on the shop drawers that slip into boxes that will eventually fit inside the
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posted at: 12:17am on 01-Sep-2013
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