Author name: Enthusiast

Hollow-chisel mortisers are one of my favorite tools. When mortising machines were first invented, a drill bit and a chisel were mounted side by side. Ralph and Robert Greenlee changed all that, and production woodworking forever with the invention of the hollow chisel. It’s quite an accomplishment to drill a square hole, and while the device is simple, the relationship between the bit and the chisel is critical. If there […]

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In the June 2013 issue (#204) of Popular Woodworking Magazine I wrote about Wharton Esherick (read the article here) and got a bunch of e-mails regarding some of the pieces pictured in the article. One piece in particular seemed to garner more attention than the others, however. Wharton’s three-legged stools evidently were not only popular with his patrons, but with magazine’s readers as well. The funny thing about getting requests […]

The post Esherick Revisited appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

I’m at work on a Sunday … procrastinating on a personal project in the shop. So, I’m spending a little time at my desk answering e-mail and trying to work up the energy to go back to my massive pile of plywood. One question in my inbox today was, “What tools do I need to get started?” (It’s a question we get a lot.) I’m going to let Frank Klausz […]

The post Frank Klausz’s ‘Your First Toolkit’ appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

For most of my life, I thought wood that was grain-painted looked like… an unprintable bad word that rhymes with “bass.” Many pieces of furniture were grain-painted to make a less-expensive wood look like a nicer wood. During the Arts & Crafts era, pine was painted to look like quartersawn oak. If you go back in time a little further you see plain woods that were painted to look curly […]

The post When Weird Chests Look Less Weird appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

In January, our parent company, F+W Media, acquired New Track Media, a company with a portfolio of magazines, books, supplies and events that help people get better at what they love to do – in other words, interest areas that fit in perfectly with the F+W family of magazines, books, stores, online education, events and more for fine artists, graphic designers, writers, sewers and quilters, to name just a few […]

The post Congrats to Glen Huey, Editor, American Woodworker appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

When I was a kid, I used books to escape from my (boring) Arkansas upbringing. Today, I use books to escape from the drudgery of air travel. Every room in our house is full of books, and there is never enough room for them all. So as a woodworker, I’m always building more bookcases that stack on top of other things – including other bookcases. This week I started building […]

The post For Those Who Love Books, Travel & Joinery appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.