Author name: Enthusiast

I recently completed a seven-drawer dresser. The drawers featured hand-cut dovetails and are of graduated heights from top to bottom. Cleaning up the drawers with my handplanes was initially tough because I couldn’t get them to remain still during planing. Fortunately, I thumbed through a Charles H. Hayward book recently and came across his solution: a dirt-simple method for easily planing drawers. He writes, “All fitting is done before the […]

The post Tricks of the Trade: Quick & Easy Setup for Handplaning Drawers appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

I love my routers, and if there’s one router function that saves me time and hassles it’s pattern routing. Whether it’s a repeated curve on door rails or intricate fascia work on a bookcase, pattern routing is the answer. Being able to make and refine a single pattern and then letting my router do the work on the rest of the pieces saves time and pretty much takes the thought […]

The post Video: Pattern Routing Tips appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

For an upcoming “Tool Test” in the February 2018 (#237) issue of the magazine, I reviewed the Lixie Dead Blow Mallet (the 30 ounce version, with 1 1/2″ diameter heads). While we’ll post the full mallet test when the magazine hits newsstands, we wanted to take the time first (before writing the review) to put the mallet to work out in the shop. Testing tools like this is one of […]

The post Lixie Dead Blow Mallet Test – Some Fun in the Shop appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

As the Chinese curse goes, “may you live in interesting times.” Sometimes, “interesting times” is actually a good thing. In the case of CNCs, there are a lot of new ideas, methods and designs appearing for those interested in digital woodworking. In a short amount of time, we’ve seen several remarkable alternative CNC machines emerge. The Maslow CNC, a hanging CNC based on the design of wall plotters. The amazing […]

The post Meet Goliath — A Portable Robotic CNC appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

I’m a “behind-the-scenes” junkie – any chance I get to see the inner workings of manufacturing or industrial spaces, I jump at the opportunity. So, I was especially thrilled to take a tour of M. Bohlke Veneer, a lumberyard and veneer mill in nearby Fairfield, Ohio (a 15 minute drive from the PopWood office) last week with Christopher Schwarz, Megan Fitzpatrick and Andy Brownell. M. Bohlke Veneer was founded in […]

The post How It’s Made – A Trip to M. Bohlke Veneer appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

Here’s a short history of shellac, some of it from my own experience. Shellac was almost the only finish used on furniture from the 1820s to the 1920s when nitrocellulose lacquer was introduced. Shellac continued to be used widely as a complete finish by painters working in buildings until the 1950s. By the 1990s the only remaining supplier of shellac in liquid form was Zinsser, which sells the shellac under […]

The post A Short History of How Shellac Became Known as a Sealer appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.