Author name: Enthusiast

If your painted finish feels a little rough, you need to go to the liquor store. OK, that doesn’t make sense, so let’s back up a couple weeks when I was teaching a bunch of young woodworkers how to build a tool chest by hand at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking. After building the 18 chests, we finished most of them with milk paint, a modern and quite easy […]

The post Smoothing Milk Paint & Other Rough Surfaces appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

I’ve been woodworking for a little over thirty-five years (I was barely out of diapers…I swear!), and in all that time I’ve done just enough veneering to know that there is a lot more about veneering that I don’t know. It’s one of those specialty woodworking areas that has it’s own set of tools, expectations and base of knowledge. While I know how to rip and crosscut a board to size on […]

The post What I Don’t Know About Veneering appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

I’ve been cutting a lot of large-scale sliding dovetails and rabbets lately. And when these housed joints get to a certain size (think of a dovetail socket that is 4” wide and 30” long) it’s much more efficient to saw out the walls by hand. When I need the rabbets or sliding dovetails to be bang-on, I clamp a batten to my work to guide the saw. I use a […]

The post A Tip for Handsawing Rabbets & Sliding Dovetails appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

As always I’m very grateful to anyone who makes the time to comment on my postings here, and I do my best to respond in a helpful manner. On the back of my last write up on the wooden try squares, Shawn was kind enough to ask a question about my workbench and in particular the vise – so I’ve put together a quick workbench review. There is a bit […]

The post Workbench Review: A Classic Joiner’s Bench appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

James Hamilton, also known as Stumpy Nubs to his throng of online fans, is an advocate for constantly finding new and innovative ways to streamline workflow in the shop. Whenever a problem arises or something seems like it should be easier he frantically eats a donut and then sets his mind to finding a solution (at least that sounds like the process from the conversations we’ve had with him while editing […]

The post 5 Tips for Your Homemade Workshop appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

Re-setting a tang into a loose handle is a challenge I take often, but in the case of my newly acquired W. Butcher gouge, I wanted to do the job with extra reverence. I was so impressed by the quality of my new – but actually very old – gouge, that I was willing to spend the time and do careful restoration work. (Read more about setting tangs and about […]

The post Restore a Gouge Handle, Part 2 appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.