Author name: Enthusiast

I say this often. I’ve written it many times. Maybe I get the insight from the many years I’ve spent refinishing furniture. No matter how good or how careful you are, stuff still happens, and you have to strip off what you’ve done and start over. Every professional or semi-professional refinisher knows this because they’ve had to do it. But woodworkers making new projects usually don’t do that much finishing, […]

The post Screwing up the Finish Won’t Ruin Your Project appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

It’s the beginning of a new year, and that means that our December to Remember Holiday Sweepstakes has come to an end. Thanks to everyone who entered and shared with their friends. You can see who won each prize below. And be sure to sign up for our 2017 Workshop Makeover Giveaway here… Day 1 – Lee Valley Tools $100 Gift Card Peter Smith MA Day 2 – BESSEY K-Body Revo Kit, […]

The post 2016 December to Remember Winners appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

Some finishes are impenetrable by any stripper. That’s when you turn to stripping with a heat gun. My daughter-in-law found a dining table she really loved and wanted to refinish it. I was visiting, so naturally, she asked me how to remove the old finish, which was damaged. It turned out that the table was a reproduction made in Asia, nice enough looking, and well enough made, but the finish was […]

The post Stripping with a Heat Gun appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

To initiate our fourth graders into woodworking, we offer them a branch and show them how to shape it into a mallet. The branch-mallet is a great project to introduce students of any age to woodworking. It familiarizes them to saws, chisels, gouges, rasps and sandpaper. And, once finished, they can use the tool on their future projects or just proudly take it home and place it on the mantel or […]

The post How to Shape a Mallet Out of a Branch appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

Perhaps it’s the American love for excess. But no matter how many examples I cite or pleas I make, most beginning woodworkers seek to build workbenches that are entirely too wide. Most historical workbenches are 18” to 22” wide – and they are that wide for functional reasons that I’ll explain in a minute. And yet, sawyers I know who cut slabs for benches are regularly asked for 32”-wide slabs […]

The post Woe be it to the Double-Wide Workbench appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

When you make furniture in order to eat or meet a deadline (such as birthdays), it’s difficult to stop yourself from crossing the finish line as soon as possible. Years ago I discovered that taking a day to simply “make pretty” did wonders for my work. What’s “make pretty?” It’s an expression I first heard from chairmaker Peter Galbert to describe how he fusses all the little details of his […]

The post Up Your Game with the ‘Make Pretty’ appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.