Nathaniel-Russell House's Furniture Collection
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The furniture history of Charleston, S.C., is both glorious and a bit sad. The city's astonishing wealth fueled a top-tier level of craftsmanship before the Civil War. As the city fell on hard times, a lot of its furniture record was trucked away to other cities, losing its provenance and connection to the Holy City. On Thursday, a group of about 20 furniture-makers received a pull-out-the-drawers tour of the collection []
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posted at: 12:00am on 29-Mar-2014
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I Need a Bit of Retail Therapy
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As many of you may know, Im the midst of redoing my kitchen; its age and decrepitude (drecrapitude?) was a common complaint about the house during my months last summer of trying to sell it. (I suspect that, once I get the kitchen done, the lack of a driveway will take primacy, but theres only so much a girl can do.) So Ive been tearing our cabinets and flooring, building []
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posted at: 12:02am on 28-Mar-2014
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Create a Linear Array in SketchUp
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I'm currently working on a variation on L & J. G. Stickley's No. 220 prairie settle. The settle's three sides consist of frame and panels. Because I'm building a shorter version, I need to shorten the rails and resize the panels. Before SketchUp, I would have subtracted the combined width of the stiles from the rails, divided that number by the number of panels and added twice the overlap of []
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posted at: 12:02am on 27-Mar-2014
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Devilish Diablo Deftly Dissects
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We recently received some new Freud Diablo blades at the magazine to test (two of which will be featured in an upcoming Tool Test in the magazine). The blade is what Diablo calls its Ultimate Flawless Finish blade. Its a 12″ diameter blade that is designed to work on fixed and sliding miter saws (the 12″ variety of course). Now, we all know that no one ever replaces their miter []
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posted at: 12:02am on 27-Mar-2014
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Pyle On
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While doing some research this morning I stumbled upon some detailed photos of the Hannah Darlington chest (the original was built by Moses Pyle), which Glen D. Huey copied for the cover project ofPopular Woodworking Magazines June 2013 (#204) issue (buy a copy here). I found the photos on Winterthurs web site. The museum has, in fact, lots of pieces documented in its online collection. And its just not furniture [
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posted at: 12:00am on 26-Mar-2014
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The Redneck Polissoir
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Whenever I teach a class that involves turning, I like to show them how well the French "polissoir" can finish off your work on the lathe. A polissoir (say it poly-swaar) is a bundle of broom corn that is used to burnish a wooden surface to produce a tactile, low-lustre finish. While the polissoir has been around for centuries, Don Williams recently rediscovered the tool for modern woodworkers while he []
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posted at: 12:00am on 26-Mar-2014
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The Redneck Polissoir
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Whenever I teach a class that involves turning, I like to show them how well the French "polissoir" can finish off your work on the lathe. A polissoir (say it poly-swaar) is a bundle of broom corn that is used to burnish a wooden surface to produce a tactile, low-lustre finish. While the polissoir has been around for centuries, Don Williams recently rediscovered the tool for modern woodworkers while he [
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posted at: 12:04am on 22-Mar-2014
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Building Roubo's Campaign Bed at Fort Ticonderoga
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Anyone who has read this blog for more than a week knows I have a thing for campaign-style furniture and the work of Andr Roubo, the 18th-century French woodworker and writer. Like many other 18th-century furniture writers, Roubo wrote a bit about campaign-style furniture, including beds, tables and chairs. I hope to build one of his chairs and a table some day, but the Roubo campaign beds look a little []
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posted at: 12:04am on 22-Mar-2014
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The Most Important Lessons in Woodworking
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Learning woodworking isnt just about how to do something. A good example of this comes from my days as an apprentice in a commercial cabinet shop. I entered the experience with a misguided, romantic notion of working beside an experienced craftsman and being tutored in the fine points of cabinetmaking. I figured I would be coached and guided as my skills developed. That type of experience may exist in old []
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posted at: 12:04am on 22-Mar-2014
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A Show(case) With Style
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Since joining the Popular Woodworking Magazine staff, Ive missed out on a few of my regular extracurricularactivities from the last few years. I havent seen my fellow presenters at a bunch of the Woodworking Shows (or the attendees either) and Ive missed out on all that travel, carrying heavy furniture into convention centers and all those hotel rooms. One of my favorite shows Ill be missing this year is the []
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posted at: 12:01am on 20-Mar-2014
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It's No No. 80, But
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Tomorrow, were shooting a cover for a new (and updated) edition of Michael Dunbars venerable book, Restoring, Tuning & Using Classic Woodworking Tools (due out from Popular Woodworking Books later this year). So I was asked to go through the boxes of tools I inherited from my grandfather to find some suitable candidates for the photograph. Im not sure I found anything sexy enough, but Ive got a few chisels, []
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posted at: 12:01am on 20-Mar-2014
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Hand Tool vs. Power Tool
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The hand tool versus power tool discussion is something that comes up frequently at work (at least where I work these days). Prior to 2007, however, I didnt even know it existed. In August of that year I decided to open a woodworking school and began writing for Popular Woodworking Magazine. Prior to that I was building furniture every day and had no idea there were wars raging in the []
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posted at: 12:05am on 19-Mar-2014
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Dovetails in SketchUp, Easier Than You Think
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When I teach woodworkers about SketchUp we always reach a point where I say, the level of detail to include in your model is up to you. Then I explain the level that I usually work to and conclude with but if you know what youre doing it doesnt take that long. Dovetails are a good example of this. What you see is a typical drawer side. If you want []
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posted at: 12:03am on 15-Mar-2014
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Work in Tight Spaces without Special Tools
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When you have to work inside a carcase, there are a wide variety of specialty tools on the market, such as right-angle drills and drawer-lock chisels, to make your life easier. I try to keep a small tool kit. Not because I'm a tightwad. I'm not. But I travel a lot and I prefer to have fewer tools to take care of and keep track of. Buying fewer []
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posted at: 12:05am on 13-Mar-2014
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2014 WIA Speakers: The Complete List
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The full 2014 WoodworkingInAmerica.com site should be live any day now, and on it, youll find the schedule, sessions descriptions, speaker bios and much more and well be adding to the list of Marketplace vendors as they come in. (Visit the site now to sign up for the newsletter to stay in the loop on early bird deadlines, registration information, etc.) Registration will open in just a couple weeksto []
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posted at: 12:05am on 13-Mar-2014
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I Never Tire of Staring at Chests
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If you are considering building a six-board chest like the ones shown in the November 2013 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine, we have a great link for you. Mark Firley of the blog The Furniture Record, has assembled a set of more than 140 photos of chests he has collected on his journeys through auction houses, antique shops and museums across the country. The chests cover a wide range of []
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posted at: 12:01am on 12-Mar-2014
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Chuck's Upcoming Classes
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Since I started atPopular Woodworking Magazine(PWM), Ive gotten e-mails on a weekly basis asking about the status of my school and/or if I will be teaching anywhere in the near future. Well, to answer those questions in reverse order, I am scheduled to teach two classes (so far this year)atRon Hermans placein Columbus, Ohio, and my school is on hiatus. Having only completed the physical move in mid-November, most everything []
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posted at: 12:05am on 11-Mar-2014
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Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event, April 4-5 at PWM
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See the dreadful mess next to and behind Chuck Bender? By April 3, we need to find a place to stash it, because the Lie-Nielsen Hand Tool Event is rolling into town on April 4th and 5th, and the common area we share with our companys photo and video studio is where the event will take place (plus well have our shop open; I suspect well need to clean []
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posted at: 12:05am on 11-Mar-2014
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Whew, the WIA Schedule is Done
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Today, we finalized the schedule for Woodworking in America 2014 (Sept. 12-14 in Winston-Salem, N.C.), and Im cleaning up the last details, new bios for the speakers, double-checking all spellings and that sort of thing. By Tuesday, Ill have it off to the conference staff, so they can start building the web site and prepare for registration to open. As of today, the site is projected to be live []
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posted at: 12:02am on 08-Mar-2014
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If You Haven't Tried Full-blind Dovetails, It's Time
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When beginning woodworkers rank the difficulty of the different dovetail joints, they usually think of the through-dovetail as the "bunny slope." The half-blind dovetail is the "expert slope", perhaps a blue or a black trail if you are a snow skier. So what's the full-blind dovetail? Or the secret-mitered dovetail? Throwing yourself off a cliff without a parachute? In my view, the through-dovetail is actually the most difficult []
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posted at: 12:02am on 08-Mar-2014
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Inlay & Marquetry & Bandings, Oh My
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Ive studied furniture from the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries for decades and done my fair share of inlay (the table leg to the left is an example). When thetalk around the office this week turned to Rob Millards much-anticipated DVD, Marquetry, Veneer & Inlay for Furniture Makers (buy your copy here), it brought up memories for me of Woodworking in America conferences past (learn more about WIA hereOK, []
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posted at: 12:02am on 07-Mar-2014
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The Mistakes of First-time Bench-builders
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If you're about to embark on building your first workbench, you might want to read this blog entry. I expect you to discard every piece of advice in it (most bench-builders do) and build the crazy contraption you've planned out in your head. Here, in my opinion, are the most common missteps woodworkers make when they build their first workbench. 1. Too many workholding devices I've built workbenches with more []
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posted at: 12:00am on 04-Mar-2014
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Nailing It
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The topic of nails comes up quite often here in the Popular Woodworking Magazine(PWM) office and on the blogs. This morning I arrived in the office to find an e-mail from a reader that included a link to a short film. With the Academy Awards occurring last night, and this film having been nominated for one back in 1980, I thought it an appropriate time to bring up the subject []
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posted at: 12:00am on 04-Mar-2014
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Spoon Carving The Next Hot Thing?
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Plans are underway in the U.K. for the third Spoonfest 2014 The International Celebration of the Carved Wooden Spoon (Aug. 1-3, in Edale, in the stunning Lake District). It sounds amazing, kind of like a Grateful Dead concert crossed with a wood-carving festival. I want to go, but alas, my caravan wont make it across the pond this year. The Spoon, the Bowl and the Knife, a documentary []
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posted at: 12:00am on 04-Mar-2014
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Teaser for Woodworking in America 2014
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On our Twitter feed (@pweditors) and my Twitter feed (@1snugthejoiner) Ive been slowly leaking the names of some of the instructors who will be at Woodworking in America 2014. But I know not everyone is on Twitter, so for those of you who eschew writing and reading in chunks of but 140 characters, thus far, weve revealed: Roy the Woodwright Underhill Wilbur Pan Matt Cianci Phil Lowe Drew Langser Frank []
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posted at: 12:00am on 01-Mar-2014
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