Author name: Enthusiast

When I first began building things, I kept a manila folder in which I stored pages torn from magazines and museum catalogs, as well as photos of pieces (and other things) that inspired me. It was always a jumbled mess – but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing; having to shift through the pages and pictures to find a barely remembered thing I thought I’d stashed there often led me […]

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I use a biscuit joiner for one thing, and one thing only: Cutting slots for the L-shaped wooden “buttons” I use to attach tops to tables (and tops to table-like things such as my kitchen island shown above) and case pieces. The buttons themselves are cut at the table saw, usually out of whatever offcuts I have scattered about, and are about 1-1/4″ x 1″ wide x 2-1/2″ long. (Actually, […]

The post For 1 Job, Biscuit Joiner Can’t be Beat appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

When the history of 20th-century woodworking machinery is written, someone will compose a poem, ode or opera to the Delta 14” band saw that was made in the United States. There are many flavors of this band saw depending on who owned Delta at the time the machine was made, and machinery collectors make fine distinctions about which era was the best. But for users, I think the decision is […]

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One of the barriers to making a Windsor chair are all the specialty tools, including the adze, scorp and travisher to scoop out the seat. Though I own all these tools and have used them for more than a decade, I sometimes wonder if they are all necessary. How would you make a comfortable and sturdy chair if you didn’t own specialty tools? This week I’m building a primitive three-legged […]

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Congratulations to “amvolk” (a.k.a. Andrew Volk). He’s the winner of a print copy of the second edition of “Popular Woodworking’s Arts & Crafts Furniture Projects,” now with 17 new projects (42 in all). The new edition is available now to order in both paperback (the book is expected to be in house and shipping in three weeks) and as a PDF download (“shipping” right away) at shopwoodworking.com. — Megan Fitzpatrick

The post And the Winner of the New Arts & Crafts Book Is… appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

To try and inspire you to give wooden planes a try I have endeavored to keep things within this post as simple as possible, but before we get started a bit of preamble. I’m going to avoid waxing lyrical about these planes and try to let history give you a nudge. Although wooden planes across the board may look different than many of the excellent metal offerings of today, this […]

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