Author name: Enthusiast

A friend recently asked me about the creeping white haze on the wooden cabinets over her stove. I told her the problem was caused by actually using the stove; she needed to quit cooking. That was an unpopular suggestion (she has two young boys, one of whom is reaching the hollow-leg stage of food consumption). So plan B: Reverse the problem, then stop it from happening again with a new […]

The post Stop the Watermarks: Don’t Cook! appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

Before we launch into part 2 of this series, allow me to ask a question. Do you enjoy looking for a tool that you cannot find, but you saw just a couple days ago and you have looked for everywhere? If you answered “yes,” then you don’t need to read this article and can return to the eternal game of Where is My Tapered Bung-hole Reamer? For the rest of […]

The post The 9 Principles of Hand Tool Storage, Part 2 appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

For the last couple days, there’s been an odd and slightly offputting scent lingering in the air wherever I go (and yes, I’ve showered). I’m pretty sure it’s the ripe smell of panic. It just hit me that Woodworking in America is less than three weeks away (Sept. 12-14 in Winston-Salem, N.C.). In my brain, the conference is still months from now. In reality, it is fast upon us. I […]

The post Can You Smell It? appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

If you ever write a book on workbenches or tool chests, be prepared for this question: “Off the record and just between you and me, what’s your favorite chest or bench?” The easy way out would be to give them a direct answer: a Dutch Roubo Nicholson with Japanese planing stops and Krenov-style tills. But that answer would be a lie. Many of the strong opinions and hard-and-fast rules in […]

The post The 9 Principles of Hand Tool Storage, Part 1 appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

The first time I visited the hardwood forests of Pennsylvania I was handed a hardhat. At first I thought the loggers were just trying to get me to wear a stupid hat, but within about three minutes, I realized I was wrong. Logging is incredibly dangerous. And while I marveled at the beautiful forests and huge kilns during that visit, I was mostly astounded by how easy it is to […]

The post On Logging and Woodworking appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

I scoffed a few months back when I opened a box from Lee Valley Tools in which was enclosed a 17-1/2″ Veritas Planing Stop. It’s a thin stick of aluminum with two steel posts that drop into dog holes. I could see how it would be handy, but hey – we’ve got garbage cans full of offcuts (the dumpster is sooooo far away); an offcut clamped across the bench (or […]

The post Veritas Planing Stop (Or, Some Tasty Crow) appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.