Author name: Enthusiast

This morning a colleague told me that Graham McCulloch, author of the ShortCuts blog is retiring from the online column after 22 years. Graham has been a voice in the woodworking community for more than 70 years.  He has contributed articles to numerous publications including Canadian Woodworking magazine and Family Handyman magazine and has authored numerous woodworking books, including a couple of titles for Popular Woodworking:  “The Woodworker’s Illustrated Encyclopedia” and  “601 Woodshop Tips […]

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by Megan Fitzpatrick pages 26-31 From the June 2016 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine A slick technique makes the divided-light door a snap. In 2008, I built a contemporary maple chimney cupboard to hold towels in my bathroom. Eight years on, I decided it was time for a matching medicine cabinet – in large part because the house I recently bought has solid masonry walls, so I needed a nice-looking […]

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In the first post in this CNC Skills series on Origin Points, I emphasized how critical reference positions are for digital woodworkers. When you’re working on a drawing in CAD, the origin point is at the intersection of the X, Y and Z axis. All measurements — positive or negative, begin at that point. By the numbers, that’s X=0,Y=0,and Z=0. It’s from that position that the piece you’re cutting is […]

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I was looking through some of our recent books for this week’s book giveaway and realized I had an extra copy of Zach Dillinger’s “With Saw, Plane & Chisel” on my desk. It’s a fascinating look at period-accurate building techniques. If you love classic American furniture and are interested in how things were made back in the day, this book is worth a read. Zach creates museum quality reproductions the old fashioned […]

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When I went to the lumberyard to buy the stock for my first project of my own design I picked through the store’s entire stack of 1x12s to find the boards with the most attractive constellation of knots. I wasn’t trying to be cheeky or make a statement (other than “I like knots”). I genuinely liked knots because they reminded me that the board was once a tree – not […]

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As I mentioned in the first part of the story, Shay likes to frequent the Jaffa flea markets to look for all kinds of goodies. In fact, many of the tools that he uses come from boxes of miscellaneous items that he has seen there. He buys the tools for little money and later finds the time to rehabilitate them. After fishing the tool from a merchant’s box or picking it from […]

The post A Visit to a Furniture Restoration Shop in Tel Aviv: Part 2 appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.