Author name: Enthusiast

Southern California has the strictest VOC laws in the country. These laws have forced manufacturers to change the ingredients they use in paints and finishes, and even eliminate some – for example, oil paint and varnish. They have also done the same with solvents. For example, you can’t buy naphtha anymore, a solvent I find very useful for cleaning oil and wax from a surface without having to wait 10 […]

The post Beware VOC-Compliant Solvents appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

Apart from a lack of time, the shop the workbench project is progressing well. The leg frames are glued up and I’m working on the aprons at the moment. On the last bench I made I used some heavy gauge screws and the aprons were made flush with the legs. This time I’m creating a dado in the apron and having it proud of the leg frame. Although the screws […]

The post Robust Connections appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

I just finished reading an article on filling pores, and it reminded me of several things I’ve been meaning to say. First, filling pores is primarily a refinishing operation because so much of the old factory-made and finished furniture is mahogany with filled pores. To reproduce the original look, a refinisher has to fill the pores. But mahogany isn’t used all that much by woodworkers today making one-of-a-kind furniture, and […]

The post A Few Thoughts appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

So this is clever (and a nice benefit for customers) – Lee Valley announced today a(nother) use for the Veritas Small Plow Plane; a beading blade kit is now available. That’s cool (I do love a nice bead) – but what’s perhaps more cool is that while the plane has been slightly redesigned to include this capability (and to improve the clamp mechanism on the depth stop), those who already […]

The post Convert Veritas Plow Plane to Beading Plane appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

Readers of my personal blog know that I’ve run into some unexpected challenges with my little house rehab project: knob-and-tube wiring…and bats. The wiring is now about 80-percent new (the other 20 percent will be done later this year or next), but I have to wait for the bats to wake up from their winter naps before kicking them out (which is done by sealing up all but one likely […]

The post Build a Bat House appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

The frame saw that I devised for my students is, among other things, a great exercise in woodworking joinery. It teaches the student the importance of what I call ‘interdependency’. I use this term to describe the symbiotic relationship between two elements, in this case a joint, and their pivotal role (pun intended) in the success of the design, as accurate execution of our mortise and tenon joint will ensure the […]

The post Build a Frame Saw Part 2: Mortising appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.