Author name: Enthusiast

Do you remember the first time you used a table saw? Was it in shop class? Did your father, or grandfather show you how? My first time was with my father at the age of fifteen. But it wasn’t in our garage or basement, it was in his custom furniture shop and it was because I was learning a trade. Nothing wrong with that, and my father’s first concern may […]

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From the June 2016 Issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine. The submission period opened on April 1 for the 2016 PWM Excellence Awards – but there’s still plenty of time to enter your work (and be in the running for the $1,000 Grand Prize). Submissions will be accepted at popularwoodworking.com/2016readerexcellence through June 17. This is the fourth annual PWM Excellence Awards; every year, the competition gets stiffer and more varied – […]

The post Might Your Work be Award Winning? appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

Looking for some help pattern routing curved shapes? Here’s a quick way to do it based on a wall-mounted dining server project by former Popular Woodworking publisher Steve Shanesy. The full project – as well as other great simple yet elegant furniture builds – also appears in the book “Contemporary Furniture: 17 Projects You Can Build,” now available from Popular Woodworking Books. Except for the back edge, my dining server design has no straight […]

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After the terraced rhombus was formed, it was time to start coving. The required radius for the coves, as dictated from the original handle was 1”.  But, since the only round plane I have produces a cove of about 1-1/2”, I had to also rely on gouges, a 1” reduced scraper and a sandpaper wrapped around a rubber form.  I began shaving the corners of the terraces with my round […]

The post New Handles For a Mid-Century Walnut Dresser: Part 2 appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

I use my CNC router mostly to make small parts out of solid wood, MDF and plastic. Until recently, I had never done any 3D work with it. Then I saw a photo from one of the students in Build a CNC Router, and I was inspired to try something new. Randy Winn posted a couple of photos on Google+ of some carvings he did with his CNC router. He […]

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While I prefer to work with air-dried lumber, that’s not always possible for woodworkers who use a lot of wood or don’t have access to deal who air-dries their stock. One of the major problems with kiln-dried lumber is that it is sometimes rushed through the kiln to get it to market. As a result, the stock can become case-hardened (among other defects). You can’t tell a piece of lumber […]

The post Don’t Forget the Quality of the Kiln appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.