Author name: Enthusiast

Last week, we shot the cover photo for the August issue. It’s a classic English tool chest sized for travel (though it holds almost a full complement of furniture making tools, sans moulding planes). The build was a collaboration between Christopher Schwarz, who designed and built the chest, and Jameel Abraham, who made the 3D marquetry panel for the lid’s interior (and Peter Ross, who hade the hand-forged hardware.) Last […]

The post Traveling Tool Chest: Simply Stunning appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

I am eagerly awaiting 6:45 p.m. today, March 20. Yes, because it’s a Friday, but for a more important reason: at that moment, spring officially arrives in the northern hemisphere. Right now my backyard is a soggy, muddy mess, with everything that was hidden under the snow finally revealed. There are sticks and branches, part of a tarp that blew off a stack of yard chairs, chewed up dog toys, […]

The post It’s Spring! Time to Make Outdoor Furniture! appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

In the early 1990s, Nick Engler and a team of woodworkers and designers took on an incredibly ambitious task: Create a series of how-to books that encompass all of woodworking, from the router to the router plane, table saw to scroll saw. Called the “Workshop Companion” series and first published by Rodale Press, the 21 volumes were a huge hit with woodworkers. The books were, clear, concise, easy to read […]

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I never thought a float would provoke the level of interest it did when I mentioned in my last post that I would need to sharpen it. I was interested to note how different people had contrasting opinions on how they would expect it to arrive. So here’s what you can expect: “Additional sharpening will improve performance” (so says the manufacturer). This is a bed float so it needs to […]

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Now available: All 21 books of Nick Engler’s best-selling “The Workshop Companion” series on one searchable DVD, in PDF format. If you had a father or grandfather – or mother or grandmother – who did woodworking, chances are  one of more of Nick Engler’s “Workshop Companion”)books was a go-to resource for woodworking information. (I remember several dog-eared selections sitting on the metal shelving in the back of my grandpa’s shop […]

The post Nick Engler’s Workshop Companion Series (& Free Finger Joint Jig Plan) appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

Woodworking opinion swings with the generations when it comes to picking tools, woods and techniques. Lately I’ve seen a lot of writing about gluing up panels that goes something like this: Because the glue bond in an edge joint is stronger than the wood itself, it’s unnecessary to use splines, biscuits or a tongue-and-groove in the joint. In fact, you could actually weaken the joint with these methods. So just […]

The post In Defense of Splines, Grooves, Biscuits & Dominos appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.