Woodworking Posts

Sure, you can use a thin, flexible offcut of wood to make a drawing bow – and I’ve done that a number of times (sometimes pinning it in place with nails so I don’t need three hands to draw a curve). But a piece of wood doesn’t always bend symmetrically. So when I built a Krenov-inspired live-edge hanging cabinet for which I needed perfectly matching curves on the doors and […]

The post The Anarchist’s Editor’s Gift Guide, Item 5: Lee Valley Drawing Bow appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

There’s probably no phrase in finishing that irritates me more than this one: Get a perfect finish every time. It’s commonly used by editors and publishers to title articles, sub-title books, and in general to promote information they want you to look at. You rarely see this type of phrase in reference to woodworking: Get perfect saw cuts every time. Learn how to cut perfect dovetails every time. Produce perfect […]

The post Get a Perfect Finish Every Time appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

While at Bloodline Merchants we also investigated this English workbench, which is almost certainly an early manual training bench. The face vise is a Parkinsons Perfect Vise (and yes, it is spelled “vise” not “vice” on the casting). Parkinsons were made in the 1880s and this example features early metal screw threads that are not the familiar Acme thread we use today. The vise is a quick-release model and opens […]

The post Early English Manual Training Workbench appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

Until yesterday, I’d not seen a left-handed antique workbench in the wild. While I’m sure there are some out there, the historical record suggests that left-handed woodworkers usually made do with right-handed benches and learned to plane with their dominant hand on the toe of a handplane. While poking around Bloodline Merchants, a delightful import business in Cincinnati, we stumbled on this bench which, like my bench in my shop, […]

The post Antique Lefty Workbench in the Wild appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

At the conclusion of every gift guide, I like to offer a tool that is a bit expensive but will change the way you work or – at the least – wildly exceed your expectations. This year, it’s the Blue Spruce Try Square. When I first saw photos of the square on the Internet, the tools looked a little plastic-y, probably because of the different color schemes available. But when […]

The post Anarchist’s 2016 Gift Guide, Day 10: Blue Spruce Try Square appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

Once you finish creating a nice miter joint, then comes the time to think about making the joint stronger. As glue alone will not suffice, adding splines or keys in between the two banks of the miter can ensure a long lasting joint. If you have a Festool Domino this is going to be a cakewalk, but since many of us don’t have access to one here are a few other […]

The post Reinforcing and Gluing a Waterfall Miter Joint appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.