Author name: Enthusiast

One of the most exciting (and frightening) aspects of building a Windsor-style chair is the ever-present possibility that you will split the seat when you drive the legs home. I always tell students: Keep hitting the leg’s tenon into its mortise until the very next strike will split the seat. Then stop. This is not always possible. Today, I split a seat twice. Both splits occurred in mortises for the […]

The post How to Fix a Split Seat appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

  After Handworks 2017 wrapped up last Saturday, I took a few days off work as we wended our way back across the plains to Cincinnati (yes – I actually spent an entire three days doing almost nothing one might consider productive…and it was glorious). But it’s hardly fair to call Handworks “work.” It was a delight to not only see and try out the hand tools from so many […]

The post Handworks 2017, Day 2 appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

Frank Klausz has created many beautiful furniture pieces in his lifetime, and one of the features he enjoys using is string inlay. In this short video, Frank takes us on a tour of his home, pointing out a number of the pieces he has made. He highlights a china cabinet in his dining room for its special inlay features, then takes us into the shop to show us how it’s […]

The post VIDEO: Frank Klausz – Home Tour & String Inlay Advice appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

Though I’ve built a lot of chairs, I don’t own an adze, which is used to roughly shape a plank seat so it has a buttocks-shaped depression. I also don’t own any of the typical power-tool solutions, such as an angle grinder outfitted with a special cutter for seats. Instead, I have a scorp, which is like a drawknife that was bent around a telephone pole. It’s much slower in […]

The post Use a Drill to Shape a Chair Seat appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

Silicone contamination causing fish eye doesn’t only come from consumers using silicone-containing furniture polishes on their furniture as I’ve been discussing in my last two posts. It can also come from hand and body lotions and from overspray if you use an aerosol polish in your shop to make the furniture you’ve just finished look better. The problem is that no manufacturers of any products I’m familiar with list silicone […]

The post More on Silicone Oil appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

Look for new videos from Popular Woodworking every Tuesday on our YouTube channel and Thursday.  Cutting dovetails is a skill that many strive to master. It has become a right of passage for many woodworkers who are developing their hand tool skills. In their eagerness to get to the sawing, many beginning woodworkers rush through the layout process. Christopher Schwarz makes this often complicated process simple, using basic layout tools. Follow along […]

The post Laying Out Dovetails with Christopher Schwarz appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.