Author name: Enthusiast

To test how effective your chosen workbench is, you’ll need to make something. Doubtless we all complete very similar tasks, but we also all have our own preferences which leads to tweaking designs. We might take a little off the leg or add an extra dog whole, whatever makes things easier. The first test for my completed workbench was to add some sides to a vehicle jump ramp we made a while […]

The post First Project on the Workbench appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

A few months ago I was tired of running into my kitchen table while sneaking through my house to get a midnight snack. I’m not entirely sure why I chose to be sneaky considering the only other living creature in my house was the dog snoozing on the couch. So, in a rash of rage from yet another stubbed toe, I decided to move the table and chairs to the […]

The post Simple Seating appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

The two commonly available pure oil finishes that can be used on furniture and woodwork with decent results because they cure – that is, turn from a liquid to a soft solid – are linseed oil and tung oil. There are important differences between these two oils. Raw linseed oil cures much too slowly to be practical, so use “boiled” linseed oil instead. It contains driers, which are catalysts to […]

The post Comparing Linseed Oil and Tung Oil appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

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 […]

The post When Was Your First Time? appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

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 […]

The post Pattern Routing Curved Shapes appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.