Author name: Enthusiast

When I teach beginners, one of the most common phrases I hear is, “I cannot get this (insert tool name) to work. What’s wrong?” They hand the tool to me and the fun begins. Though block planes are dirt-simple handplanes, there are some important points about them that are rarely discussed in the literature. Here are the five most common problems I see with students’ block planes. 1. Too tight. […]

The post 5 Mistakes Beginners Make with Block Planes appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

As good as I think our magazine is, it’s not worth $59.95 a year*. A scam company is perpetrating fraud with the spurious renewal offer pictured above. Do not respond. (And please know that we are taking steps with the U.S. Postal Service and consumer agencies to address the problem and take appropriate legal action.) Our subscription fulfillment service is Palm Coast Data (also rendered as PCD in some places), […]

The post Renewal Scam Alert appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

I started making the wooden vise chop for a new leg vise for my Holtzapffel workbench (featured in “The Workbench Design Book”) using some crazy new hardware from Benchcrafted: the Classic vise screw and the Crisscross. The only downside to the Crisscross part of the assembly is that you need a vise chop that is quite thick – 3” is a good thickness. I don’t have any maple in my […]

The post Making a Vise Chop for a Benchcrafted Classic appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

I have lost track of the number of wooden try squares I’ve built in the last five years. At this time last year I had the parts for about 20 mahogany squares in my shop. Now I’m down to one (the rattiest one I couldn’t sell) and some special parts for squares that I don’t want really want to build. That’s not entirely true; I really want to build them, […]

The post Another Engine appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

I know there’s lots of Arts & Crafts fans out there reading Popular Woodworking Magazine and the “Editors’ Blog.” But did you know that makers from the period took their cues from much earlier periods? Prior to William & Mary (1690ish to 1720 or so) most furniture was joined – meaning it was put together with mortise-and-tenon joints (the dovetail thing really became the predominant case joinery method in the W&M period). […]

The post Design in Practice: Arts & Crafts, Mission – It’s All Jacobean to Me appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

Our designer, Dan Pessell, is putting the final file touches on the August issue, which leaves our hands on Thursday. So I should be hard at work editing articles now for October and beyond. I am, but I needed a break. So here’s a quick look at what’s coming up in the August issue (subscribe now to get this issue). It mails to subscribers on or around June 11. As […]

The post Catharine Kennedy, Coping Saws & More in August appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.