Author name: Enthusiast

After cutting the branch to length, sawing around the neck and chipping away most of the wood around the handle, the time comes to grab a half-round rasp and begin rounding over the handle. Once the handle looks cylindrical enough I ask my students to imagine what kind of handle they want to form. I show them some mallet drawings and together we choose the one that best suits them. […]

The post Shape a Mallet Out of a Branch Part 2 appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

When woodworkers talk about their favorite hand tools, they might mention a treasured handplane — perhaps a superb pre-WWII Stanley Bedrock smoother outfitted with a Ron Hock blade or a beautiful set of hand forged Fujihiro chisels.  A hybrid woodworker might have a Felder combination machine with a slider and tilting shaper or perhaps a carefully restored and finely tuned antique 16” Oliver jointer. The point here is clear. Woodworkers […]

The post Cutting Tools for Digital Woodworking appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

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.