Author name: Enthusiast

Woodworking, like fishing covers a lot of territory, so the audience for our magazine and website is a diverse lot. When I learned how to make stuff out of wood, the internet didn’t exist and there was only one magazine and few books available on the subject. Lacking these modern resources, I was forced to … Read more »

The post Hand Tool Maintenance-Don’t Ruin Your Tools! appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

All woodworking stories are – by definition – somewhat sappy. This one is even more so. The day I met Steve Shanesy I was a burned-out writer, designer and editor. I was managing a newspaper that was swirling around the rim of the toilet bowl. I was writing about politics – something I didn’t care … Read more »

The post On Steve Shanesy’s Last Day appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

This week I’m at Acanthus Workshop LLC teaching a class in which we are building the cover project from the June issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine, the Hannah Darlington Chest. Tuesday morning started out great: Breakfast at Annamarie’s; pancakes to die for; then it was off to Winterthur to get a close-up look at the … Read more »

The post A Day at Winterthur: an Eye-opening Experience appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

The Milkman’s Workbench – a portable bench I built for the June 2013 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine – is about 653 percent better than my first workbench. Thanks to the clever engineering in the portable bench, it can handle most handwork tasks when clamped to a dining room table or kitchen countertop. My first … Read more »

The post The Milkman’s Workbench in Use appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

It’s Sunday, and I’m at work to process lumber so that I can get started on a project that involves 44 half-blind dovetails for the October issue of the magazine. And it’s possible that on Saturday night I had one-too many adult libations (or I perhaps just didn’t sleep long enough…or both); I’m feeling a … Read more »

The post A Quick Tip for Half-blind Dovetails appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

I spend hours looking at photos of furniture. If I don’t have my nose buried in books, I gaze upon photos sent to me by other woodworkers. In a flickr set sent to me by Mark Firley (thanks, Mark), I stopped on a bow-front chest photo. (I think Mark was on a dovetail expedition that … Read more »

The post Choose Dovetails, But Choose Wisely appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.