Author name: Enthusiast

The August 2016 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine mails to subscribers this week and features two articles on pedal-powered pole lathes. First, a hatless Roy Underhill walks you through steps to building a portable, adjustable, powerful and (considering he uses construction-grade lumber) affordable foot-powered lathe. And a few pages later, Jarrod Stone Dahl shows you how to make handled vessels using a pole lathe’s unique reciprocating motion. You can check […]

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I like good ideas. I wrote “The Homemade Workshop: Build Your Own Woodworking Machines & Jigs” to show regular woodworkers the potential of a little creative thinking. Whether it be full-on homemade woodworking machines, or simple workshop hacks, there’s always a certain satisfaction that comes with implementing a new idea. Here are a few practical workshop ideas you may not have thought of: Get an electric pencil sharpener My relationship […]

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In the last few years at least three major coatings’ suppliers have introduced deck coatings that have failed often enough so they have generated a number of class-action lawsuits against the companies. You may have seen ads for these products: Behr Deckover, Olympic Rescue-It and Rust-Oleum Deck Restore. You may have even used one of these products. When I first saw one of the ads, I knew exactly what was […]

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In 1997 my parents built a new house. I was a rambunctious child, and my dad figured out a way to get me out of his hair for a while so he could work. He gave me a long board, a hammer and a box of nails. I spent days just hammering nails into one board, as content as I could be. When the luster of the hammer wore off, […]

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The furniture record shows us that “perfect dovetails” is a modern mania. As the photos of antiques above prove, even some of the ugliest joints will stay together for a very long time indeed (perhaps with a nail or two for good measure). But James Krenov? He ruined us. Nowadays, we strive for cutting perfect dovetails, right off the saw. So, how do you get there? Practice…lots of practice. And […]

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Smart coatings fascinate me. In an earlier post I told you about a paint that uses nanotechnology to cause pee to bounce off walls back onto the shoes of the perp. In another post I told you about a coating that self-heals when exposed to heat or UV light. Here are a few more smart coatings I’ve come across. Researchers at the University of Reading in the U.K. have developed a self-healing […]

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