Woodworking Posts

Chris Wong of Flair Woodworks has set up another fun 2-day “build-off” for January 28 & 29 – and this time, it’s for a wall shelf. The idea is to have all participants simultaneously build a piece over a 48-hour period and share pictures along the way. A similar contest in 2013 – the Shop Stool Build-Off – was a lot of fun. I followed along over the weekend on […]

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I was thrilled to see the article by Bill Rainford in the current issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine in which he gives directions for making a traditional Danish workbench. It’s been a long time (more than three decades) since Tage Frid provided these directions, and lots of new people have taken up woodworking in the meantime. For my money, this Danish style is the most user-friendly of all workbench styles […]

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A name stamp is a great investment to mark your tools as your own, especially if you attend woodworking classes or work in a shop with others. It’s also a good way to stamp your finished workpieces for posterity. Most woodworkers, however, approach the task like Thor might. They raise their hammer high and swing a mighty blow against the stamp to do the deed in one whack. And they […]

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I was cooking breakfast for a few friends at my family’s house on Lake Barkley when I received the call offering me the online editor position for Popular Woodworking Magazine. I was beyond ecstatic. My friends woke up, we hugged long enough to feel uncomfortable and celebrated that night. After years of working hard and dreaming, I finally landed the job I was working for. I’ve been rewriting this post […]

The post So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

The title above is not a typo. May of this year marks the third bi-annual Handworks, an event that draws more than 2,000 woodworkers to Iowa every two years for two fun days of trying out the best in hand tools and hanging out with like-minded folks (I’ll be one of them). I know that Woodworking in America is an investment. Not only is there a fee to attend (we […]

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If I had the extra time and material, I’d build a full-blown prototype of every new design I create. Prototypes let you see in three-dimensions all the mistakes and awkwardness you cannot see on a two-dimensional plan. And fixing the design is usually obvious when you have a prototype on your workbench. As much as I love prototypes, they are not always necessary or even possible. So here is what […]

The post Use Hardboard Templates Instead of Prototypes appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.