Author name: Enthusiast

The June issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine mails to subscribers (both print and digital) on or around this Thursday. We’re short a managing editor at the moment and extras fall into the purview of that role, but through a combination of caffeine, little sleep and unconquerable anal-retentiveness, I’ve managed to get almost all of the extras posted in time (and the few missing items will be posted later this week). […]

The post Preview – June 2014 PWM & ‘Extras’ Instructions appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

Senco, pizza and Popular Woodworking Magazine. All I can add, at the moment, is May 7th, 2014. Stay tuned; details to come. You might want to check out this little video. —Chuck Bender  

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I’m often asked about blocking on feet (sad, but true). Woodworkers want to know how bracket and ogee feet were attached and how to deal with cross-grain gluing. The answers to these questions are: lots of ways, and you don’t necessarily have to because they didn’t. Cross-grain gluing and consideration of expansion and contraction wasn’t a universal primary concern. Now, I know the first photo isn’t of feet, but it […]

The post Furniture Details: Feet appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

The difference between school and real life is that in real life the tests come first and then the lessons. This is especially true of woodworking; you never know how far you should take one step of a project until you are knee-deep in the next step. That’s when you realize you didn’t fuss enough and now have a painful correction to make, or that you fussed too much and […]

The post What Hand Planes are Good For appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

Note: I started writing this blog entry more than a year ago. I shelved it and have revisited it several times since. Each time, I thought: I don’t need this kind of grief. For whatever reason (four beers, perhaps?), I offer this as an observation based on teaching students, both amateur and professional. For the last decade I’ve had the privilege of teaching woodworking students all over the world about […]

The post An Observation on Vintage Handplanes appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

DMT recently began offering what it calls the “Double-Sided Dia-Sharp 12″ MagnaBase System” — in other words, a two-sided diamond stone that attaches to a magnetic base. I haven’t yet had time to give it a thorough workout (I’ll report back after I do), but after touching up the edges on two plane blades and three chisels, I can report that it’s nice. The diamond stone, (available in extra-coarse/coarse and […]

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