Author name: Enthusiast

With only six days before Woodworking in America, I’m starting to wonder if I’m going to get everything ready for the big three-day woodworking geek-fest a few blocks away from my shop. Today I’m putting the finishing touches on one of the two Roman-style workbenches I’ve built for Woodworking in America. I’ll be presenting a seminar on the research and reasoning behind these benches on Sunday morning. But I’ll also […]

The post A Quick Preview of the ‘Vampire Vise’ appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

A few years ago (okay maybe more than that) picture mosaics were all the rage. Making a single large image from lots of smaller images arranged in a planned pattern by color and “pattern”. Whenever I saw one of those images, the woodworker in me always thought of the ancient art of parquetry. Essentially the same concept, parquetry takes the color and grain pattern of small pieces of wood and […]

The post Pictures in the Pattern: Simple Parquetry Techniques appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

SketchUp is a fantastic design tool for woodworkers. It can also be a bit intimidating. My first time working with the program involved drawing a few odd shapes trying to get a grasp of the tools. A few clicks later I found myself wondering what on Earth was going on. My test sketch had panels sticking out everywhere and looked more like the International Space Station than a piece of […]

The post Get to Know SketchUp appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

So I’m sitting at dinner trying to get the last of the ketchup out of the bottle pictured here when I noticed that almost none of the ketchup was left stuck to the inside of the container. The plastic was almost perfectly clean. Then I remembered reading about the new technology that was responsible for this. The leading company behind the technology is LiquiGlide. The website is www.liquiglide.com if you […]

The post Hyper-slick Coating appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

I often tell people that the grain direction in a board is like the fur on a cat. Stroke the cat (or board) one way and the cat will purr, and your tool will produce a nice surface. Stroke the cat (or board) the wrong way, however, and the cat will bite you, and your board will be as smooth as rotgut bourbon. While that seems simple enough, the thing […]

The post Understanding Grain Direction appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

Woodworking in America is next week, and if you have never been to Covington, Ky., here is a primer on where to eat and drink. My workshop is in the heart of Covington, just one block off of Main Strasse. So the following recommendations are based on how a local (not a tourist) sees the world. All of these places are walking distance from the Northern Kentucky Convention Center. Note: […]

The post A Local’s Recommendations for Woodworking in America appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.