A Good Goodbye
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 Last summer, upon accepting the position of managing editor here at Popular Woodworking Magazine, I wrote a blog post publicly asking myself if I was a woodworker. Today, as I begin my final week in this role, I'm only slightly closer to a definitive answer. Sorry - burying the lede is an old writer's habit of mine (same with posting misleading photos). Yes, I'm leaving my position at Popular Woodworking […]The post A Good Goodbye appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:01am on 28-Feb-2017
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Alternative Paint Strippers
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 by Bob Flexner Safer strippers are having a 'green' revival. Methods for removing old paint and finish from furniture have gone through at least four distinct periods. Before solvents became widely available, coatings were removed by scraping, often with glass used like we use scrapers, and sometimes by sanding, after sandpaper became available. (Heat and caustics such as lye have never been a good idea for furniture because they can […]The post Alternative Paint Strippers appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:00am on 25-Feb-2017
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The Truth About Flush-cutting Saws
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 Flush-cutting saws offer an amazing promise: It can cut a dowel or tenon flush to its surrounding surface without causing any damage. The truth is, however, no matter how awesome your flush-cutting saw is or how skilled you are, things can go wrong. The most common problem is the saw can drift slightly. And with a flush-cutting saw, any drifting can be disastrous. The teeth can dive into the work […]The post The Truth About Flush-cutting Saws appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:00am on 24-Feb-2017
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Use Epoxy for Filling Gaps & Bark Inclusions - Martin Goebel
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 Along with 64,000 or so (at least as of today) other people, I follow Goebel & Co. Furniture on Instagram. The furniture pieces coming out of this St. Louis-based shop are well-built and beefy, with imaginative designs that in many cases make use of live-edge tops that are stabilized with epoxy. (And take a look at some of the table bases - they're pretty astounding!) So when we were looking […]The post Use Epoxy for Filling Gaps & Bark Inclusions - Martin Goebel appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:00am on 24-Feb-2017
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Thin, Good Looking & Strong - Micro Plywood Splines, Part 2
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 It is very easy to install thin plywood splines in mitered corners of boxes and frames But, to do so successfully, you will have to design the placement pattern of the splines and spend some time carefully laying out your design on the corners. (Read part one of the micro splines story here) Design Above (in the lead image) you can see a few optional designs that can be easily […]The post Thin, Good Looking & Strong - Micro Plywood Splines, Part 2 appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:01am on 23-Feb-2017
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How to Select Woodturning Tools
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 When it comes to turned furniture components, you only have a few options. You can buy mass-produced factory-turned components thatdo not accurately recreate the fine details in period furniture; you can make friends with a turner; or you can invest in a lathe and turn your own. If you decide to go with the third option you'll need some woodturning tools (in addition to your lathe). This can seem like […]The post How to Select Woodturning Tools appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:01am on 23-Feb-2017
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My Lucky Scars
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 When I was about 11, my parents took a trip to Cancun and left us with Hazel, a Nurse Ratched type with a beehive hairdo, a messed-up back and a matching disposition. It was Halloween, and so we were carving pumpkins in the garage. I was using my Cub Scout knife - improperly. The knife slipped and slashed the web between the thumb and index finger on my left hand. […]The post My Lucky Scars appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:00am on 21-Feb-2017
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Make Your Own Linseed Oil & Wax Finish
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 A finish made from linseed oil and beeswax is an easy-to-apply, tactile finish that I like for turnings, vernacular chairs and other objects that don't require the protection of a film finish, such as varnish or shellac. The finish, which I call linwax, is available from suppliers such as Swede Paint, or you can easily make your own in a couple hours. The nice thing about making your own is […]The post Make Your Own Linseed Oil & Wax Finish appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:01am on 19-Feb-2017
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Small Shop CNC: A Class of Machines Designed to Fit
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 If you're at the point to where you're at least thinking about the idea of adding a CNC to your shop, then you've likely done some research. If that's the casethen you've certainly noticed there's a huge range of sizes and prices of machines to consider. With CNC routers from as small as 12 x 18 to as large as 5' x 10' in size, and prices from a few […]The post Small Shop CNC: A Class of Machines Designed to Fit appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:01am on 19-Feb-2017
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Use a 'Nail Board' to Speed Finishing Work
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 Here's a finishing trick you may not be familiar with. You can brush or spray both sides of flat panels and cabinet doors without having to wait for one side to dry by using a nail board - except I used drywall screws instead of nails. These screws have very tiny pointed tips that make virtually invisible pricks in the finish. Begin by brushing or spraying the backside or underside, […]The post Use a 'Nail Board' to Speed Finishing Work appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:01am on 19-Feb-2017
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Popular Woodworking Magazine, April 2017
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 The April issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine (#231) just mailed to print subscribers and emailed to digital subscribers. It's live in our online store too. There's a lot to dig into in this issue, including a chisel primer from Christopher Schwarz - he addresses what chisels you really need, how to set one up right and correct chisel usage techniques. And if you're interested in period woodworking, you should really […]The post Popular Woodworking Magazine, April 2017 appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:00am on 18-Feb-2017
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Frank Klausz's 'Secret' Water-tight Joint
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 Frank Klausz reveals the family secret - how to make the watertight wood-on-wood joint for the bottom of his sharpening pond - a boatbuilder's joint taught to him by his grandfather. It takes a special shop-made tool…from a material that you likely already have on hand. (I think I've enough of this particular thing to make at least 40 of them…I need to clean out the basement.) The pond also […]The post Frank Klausz's 'Secret' Water-tight Joint appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:00am on 17-Feb-2017
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Clamping a Chair is Like Hugging an Eel
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 One of the challenges when building a chair is clamping the dang thing down so you can work on it. I've seen lots of solutions that use band clamps. But I dislike band clamps (perhaps I had a bad experience at band camp). So here's what I do. Most workholding problems can be solved with handscrew clamps and holdfasts, including this one. First you squeeze the legs with the handscrew […]The post Clamping a Chair is Like Hugging an Eel appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:01am on 16-Feb-2017
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Acclimating Wood
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 Whether you buy your furniture wood from a specialty hardwood lumberyard or from a local sawyer, the chance that the wood is ready to go into a piece of furniture with a minimum risk of shrinking (or, rarely, expanding) unduly is just about nil. Instead, it's more likely (at least in most areas of the United States) that the wood has been sitting in an unheated space and is, at […]The post Acclimating Wood appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:00am on 15-Feb-2017
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Hide Glue - Preparing the Grains or Pearls
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 Most hide glue is sold as a solid in granular or pearl form. To prepare hide glue for use, estimate how much solid glue you can use up in a few days to a week or more (it's myth that you need to throw out the glue at the end of each day), and soak it in water for 20 minutes to a few hours depending on the particle size. […]The post Hide Glue - Preparing the Grains or Pearls appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:00am on 15-Feb-2017
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Ingenious Chinese Planing Stop
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 There isn't enough written in English on the woodworking of the Chinese, who have a long and amazing woodworking and technological history. But today I've been gobbling up China at Work by Rudolf P. Hommel (MIT Press, 1937), which focuses on tools used for making other tools (blacksmithing), food, clothing, shelter and transportation. Unlike other contemporary writers, Hommel lived in China for several years, had enormous respect for the culture […]The post Ingenious Chinese Planing Stop appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:00am on 15-Feb-2017
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When to Send a Tool Back
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 If you get to know some toolmakers as friends, you're likely to hear all kinds of wild stories about people who return tools for odd or non-existent defects. Think sidewalls of a handplane that are different in thickness by a few thousandths of an inch. Or cutting bevels of a tool that are ground 1 out of square. But sometimes tools do need to go back to the manufacturer. Students […]The post When to Send a Tool Back appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:00am on 14-Feb-2017
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Thin, Good Looking & Strong - Micro Plywood Splines, Part 1
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 While designing a 9th-grade box project, one thing kept bugging me: How should we reinforce the miter joints at the corners of the boxes? After cutting the miters and gluing the box parts together, I knew that we would have to add some strength to the corners - otherwise they would fail at some point, because simple miters are not reliable. So the question was, what kind of reinforcement? First […]The post Thin, Good Looking & Strong - Micro Plywood Splines, Part 1 appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:00am on 14-Feb-2017
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Digital Woodworking & Contemporary Art
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 While working on a couple of blog posts about a group of CNC machines that are great for small shops, I got distracted by something rather impractical. But I thought because the distraction was about wood, it might be of interest to some of my fellow woodworkers. This is the final week of a solo contemporary art show of my work at Zinc Gallery near Seattle. All the sculpture created […]The post Digital Woodworking & Contemporary Art appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:01am on 13-Feb-2017
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Create a Fumed Finish
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 Ever tried to create a fumed finish? Fuming with ammoniais a traditional Arts & Crafts finishing technique. When exposed to concentrated ammonia, the tannins in white oak cause the wood to darken, yieldinga rich, warm color that penetrates the surface of the wood. Depending on the intended use of the piece, different topcoats can be applied to provide different effects.Boiled linseed oil is easy to apply. Shellac offers additional protection […]The post Create a Fumed Finish appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:01am on 11-Feb-2017
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Bench Planes: The System of Three
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 We rethink the Western bench plane system. All you need to know is that there are three tools, three setups, three jobs and three surfaces. by Christopher Schwarz excerpted from the Winter 2009 issue of Woodworking Magazine Some days I think that every bench plane should come with a decoder ring to help the user understand how to use it. But while a magic ring might seem handy, it wouldn't […]The post Bench Planes: The System of Three appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:03am on 10-Feb-2017
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How Darrell Peart Makes Greene & Greene Ebony Pegs
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 In this video, Greene & Greene expert Darrell Peart discusses the square, pillowed ebony pegs often seen on the Greene brothers' furniture designs (most of them were merely decorative, he tells us, though sometimes they were used to cover up screw heads). Then, he shows us how he makes the pegs, start to finish - including the simple jig he uses at the disc sander to rough-pillow the ends quickly. […]The post How Darrell Peart Makes Greene & Greene Ebony Pegs appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:03am on 10-Feb-2017
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The Half-pencil: Your Layout Friend
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 Carpenter's pencils have limited uses in a furniture shop, but when I encountered the half-pencil years ago I started hoarding carpenter's pencils to transform them into half-pencils for my friends. The half-pencil, as its name implies, is a carpenter's pencil that has been planed down to half its thickness. (Using a carpenter's pencil makes it easier to plane it down and it gives you more bearing surface in use than […]The post The Half-pencil: Your Layout Friend appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:03am on 10-Feb-2017
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Power Tool-Friendly Bench, by Richard Tendick
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 At least a couple of times each month, I get a query about Richard Tendick's “Power Tool-Friendly Bench,” which was featured on the March/April 2014 cover of American Woodworker. So to cut down on those emails (and because I'm generally a nice person, evidence to the contrary notwithstanding), here's that article, free. The intro is below; download the PDF at the end of it for the article in its entirety. […]The post Power Tool-Friendly Bench, by Richard Tendick appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:00am on 09-Feb-2017
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High-style, Low-style or No-style
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 At some point in my early 20s I stopped improving as a guitar player. No matter how much I practiced or played out in bands, I couldn't crawl to the next level of skill. I needed lessons, guidance, a push or something else. Or perhaps, I thought at the time, that was simply the best I was physically capable of: good, but certainly not great. I never found out which […]The post High-style, Low-style or No-style appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:00am on 09-Feb-2017
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Make Clean Through-Mortises
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 Woodworkers expect this joint to be tidy and tight, not ragged and gappy. We explore the best ways to make this sometimes-vexing hole. by Christopher Schwarz from the Winter 2008 issue of Woodworking Magazine The history of the through-mortise begins with a joint that was necessary because of the tools and technology of the day, and it ends with a joint that flaunts the skills of the modern woodworker like […]The post Make Clean Through-Mortises appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:00am on 08-Feb-2017
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Finishing in Colder Temperatures
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 We're well into winter now, and you may have noticed that your finishes seem thicker. Thicker finishes are more likely to orange peel or leave brush marks. You can deal with this by adding thinner, but this will reduce the build of each coat. It's better to be sure your finishes are warm before applying them. Here are some suggestions. Keep your finishes off the floor, especially off of concrete […]The post Finishing in Colder Temperatures appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:02am on 07-Feb-2017
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Lay Out a D-shaped Seat
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 One of the classic shapes for the seats of chairs or stools is the D shape. If you make or appreciate Welsh chairs (like I do), it's a shape you see a lot. Yet many beginning chairmakers fret over making a D-shaped seat of their own dimensions. I admit that when I started making chairs, I was similarly befuddled and preferred to trace the shapes of old seats or work […]The post Lay Out a D-shaped Seat appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:02am on 07-Feb-2017
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Coming Soon: Revised & Expanded 'Handplane Essentials'
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 Anyone who knows me personally has probably noticed the the last 12 months have been a struggle. I have been months behind on everything: delivering furniture commissions, restoring my workshop, writing magazine articles and even posting to this blog. The reason: the revised and expanded edition of Handplane Essentials. When I agreed to revise the 2009 book I expected it would take a couple weeks of intense work. I was […]The post Coming Soon: Revised & Expanded 'Handplane Essentials' appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:00am on 06-Feb-2017
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Tractor Seats for a Shaving Horse
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 Bill Anderson's “Knock-down Shaving Horse” in the February 2017 issue has promptedsome inquiries about antique tractor seats. Would that we had a stash of them to offer, but … So, my best recommendation is to check outflea markets and antique stores (particularly in more rural areas, and areas with a rich history of agriculture), and, of course eBay (at which there are many styles and price points available at the […]The post Tractor Seats for a Shaving Horse appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:00am on 06-Feb-2017
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Winners of the 1/4 Mortise Chisels from Veritas
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 Congratulations to our two winners (notified in the comments below): dau300wsm and cam2705 - and thank you again to Lee Valley for allowing us to give away these two Veritas Mortise Chisels. James McConnell (of The Daily Skep), wrote a tool review of the new Veritas mortise chisels for the April issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine. He gave a workout to both an […]The post Winners of the 1/4″ Mortise Chisels from Veritas appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:00am on 04-Feb-2017
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The Making of 'Handplane Essentials, Revised Edition'
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 When Scott Francis at Popular Woodworking Books asked me to revise my 2009 book Handplane Essentials, I thought it would be a short job. The plan was to add a handful of articles I'd written on specialty planes and update the text to accurately reflect toolmakers who had entered or left the market since the book was first published. I started revising the book in May of 2016. And the […]The post The Making of 'Handplane Essentials, Revised Edition' appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:00am on 04-Feb-2017
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Prep Stock by Hand - Christopher Schwarz Shows You How
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 Stock prep by hand might sound like a great workout (and it can be if there's a lot of it), but it isn't at hard as you might think - particularly if you have only a couple of boards to take from rough to ready. In this longish video excerpt from “Build a Hand-crafted Bookcase,” Christopher Schwarz shows you how he uses winding sticks andhandplanes(hint: a jack does most of […]The post Prep Stock by Hand - Christopher Schwarz Shows You How appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:03am on 03-Feb-2017
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Need a 1/4 Mortise Chisel? We Have 2 from Veritas to Give Away
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James McConnell (of The Daily Skep), wrote a tool review of the new Veritas mortise chisels for the April issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine. He gave a workout to both an A2 and a PMV-11 blade, both in the 1/4″ size - and (spoiler alert) - he didn't see a lot of difference in use, but was able to get the PMV-11 a bit sharper more quickly. And he likes […]The post Need a 1/4″ Mortise Chisel? We Have 2 from Veritas to Give Away appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:00am on 02-Feb-2017
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Stir the Finish - Unless it's Gloss
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 I have a confession to make. No one knows I did this, at least no one who speaks English, not even my wife. But you are about to know it. In 1974 my wife (who is Danish) and I moved to Denmark to try to live there. Things were not good in the United States. Nixon had just resigned because of Watergate, and the economy was bad because of the […]The post Stir the Finish - Unless it's Gloss appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:00am on 02-Feb-2017
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Join the Popular Woodworking Team!
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 Popular Woodworking is hiring a Web Producer to work on popularwoodworking.com, newsletters, social media and more - in short, all things related to the Popular Woodworking brand on the 'net. The Web Producer's role is to be the online face of Popular Woodworking and increase both traffic to and revenue from the website(s), E-newsletters, and social media. He or she must be social-savvy, business-minded and have first-hand knowledge of woodworking, […]The post Join the Popular Woodworking Team! appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:00am on 01-Feb-2017
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Compression Bits. CNC Tooling Basics for Woodworkers: Part Three
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 Part Three: More End Mill & Router Bit Details In my last post, the focus was on the cutting edges,or flutes, along the sides of an end mill. If you've missed the previous segments on CNC mills, here's the intro and part one. As suggested earlier, two-flute end mills designed for woodcutting and router bits almost always work best. We've reached the end of this tooling primer but before we […]The post Compression Bits. CNC Tooling Basics for Woodworkers: Part Three appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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posted at: 12:00am on 01-Feb-2017
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