Author name: Enthusiast

As a rule, I avoid touristy places and huge throngs. But when Roy and Jane Underhill invited me to tag along to Stratford-on-Avon to see William Shakespeare’s birthplace, I couldn’t say no. After all, Roy could turn a root canal into a party. As expected, the town was packed with tourists and tacky trinkets. But the Shakespeare family home and gardens were very well done. And that would be the […]

The post The Furniture at Shakespeare’s Birthplace appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

Editor’s note: Looking for a great gift? A bottle of wine is nice for almost any occasion, and this wooden wine box designed by woodworker and author A.J. Hamler (author of numerous books including his latest “Build It with Dad”) adds a personal touch as well as a handy box that your lucky gift recipient can use to store almost anything.  *Project excerpted from Hamler’s “Box Builder’s Handbook,” available now in paperback […]

The post Wooden Wine Box appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

Solutions to a baker’s dozen of common finishing difficulties. by Bob Flexner It’s easy enough to provide instructions for applying finishes. But in the real world, things go wrong; problems occur that you have to deal with. With the combined goals of defining the problems, providing ways to avoid them, then fixing them after they occur, here are a baker’s dozen of the most common application problems in alphabetical order. […]

The post Flexner on Finishing: Application Problems appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

Treehouses bring out the kid in everyone. Whether for a child in your life or as a relaxing getaway, a treehouse is a fun project to build that can test your creativity and be incredibly rewarding.  That’s why Popular Woodworking Books is working with professional treehouse builder Django Kroner, owner of The Canopy Crew, to create a book on how to build treehouses the right way (projected publication date of June 2016). From […]

The post On Building Treehouses appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

One of the challenges with making any sort of table is getting its legs to sit flat on a level surface without rocking. I know lots of tricks for fixing the problem of tables that rock, but I’d much prefer to get it bang-on in the first place when trimming the legs. This spring I’ve been building a lot of tables for an upcoming book (the tables are stacked up […]

The post Best Weapons for Leveling Table Legs: A Drill Press and a Stick appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

In woodworking, “cutting-edge technology” doesn’t necessarily mean the latest bright new thing. In fact, vintage technology often is our literal cutting edge. At Woodworking in America 2015 (Sept. 25-27 in Kansas City, Mo.), Mark Harrell – founder of Bad Axe Tool Works – will help you learn when a vintage handsaw is worth saving – and how to bring it back to life. In “Demystifying the Traditional Backsaw,” Mark will teach you how […]

The post Mark Harrell: Woodworking in America 2015 appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.