Author name: Enthusiast

Editor’s note: Bryant documented his move process on his Instagram account, of which I have been a follower for a long time. I asked him to write a blog post to share his thoughts in a longer format. Enjoy! – David Lyell You’ve been putting it off for months, you knew it was coming. Perhaps the lease is up on your shop, or you bought a new house with a […]

The post Surviving A Shop Move 101 – Camille Woodworking appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

A professional woodworker got in touch with this question. He had finished a sixty-foot long countertop for a brewery tasting room with catalyzed (conversion) varnish. After the finish dried for three weeks, the client decided he would like the finish to be glossier and have the same amber tone as the other countertop, which had been finished with polyurethane. To complicate this woodworker’s situation even more, he couldn’t spray this […]

The post Compatibility of Applying One Type of Finish Over Another appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

A current job called for a solid wood frame and panel back that would fit in a 5/16″ rabbet. That’s really thin for a frame-and-panel assembly, at least in my world. (Granted, for Bill Robertson, it’s positively gargantuan.) Ordinarily, I like such backs to be 1/2″ thick. One way I’ve dealt with this combo of frame-and-panel back plus shallow rabbet in the past is to make the panel 1/2″ thick, […]

The post An Extra-Thin Frame and Panel Back appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

For dovetails, I use what I call a “redneck slope” – 1:4 or 14°. I like this slope because I’ve seen it on a lot of vernacular pieces I’ve studied. It says: Dovetail y’all! And not: Ill-defined box joint. But that’s just what my eye sees. Truth is, dovetail slopes are more about fashion than their mechanical properties. When I started woodworking, my head was injected with a lot of […]

The post Dovetail Angles are Style, Not Substance appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

I don’t think I’ve cut a single dovetail for eight months – my work has been mostly chairs and casework that relied on other joints. So I’m a bit out of practice. When this happens and I need to cut dovetails, I quickly default to the method I use to teach students to dovetail. This method helps build good habits when sawing and helps you fix any mistakes. This method […]

The post A Dovetailing Trick for Beginners appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

The latest Nor’easter left us powerless. On Wednesday afternoon we lost electricity to the elements. The snow that began falling that morning didn’t seem that hospitable, to say the least. It was wet and clingy. When I noticed the rate of accumulation and the sagging branches on all the trees in our neighborhood, I said to my partner, “this storm is a limb killer.” And indeed my dire prediction came […]

The post Powerless Woodworker – When a Nor’easter Rolls in to Town appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.