Woodworking Posts

Live edge boards, like so many other organisms, can also suffer from stress. And while stress in humans can be mitigated with a moderate consumption of alcohol or a visit to the shrink (or both), inner-stresses in wood, which manifests themselves among other ways (cracks or splitting), need a mechanical remedy from a woodworker. My student Christina’s live edge board was no stranger to splits or cracks, and since it was […]

The post Live Edge Class at Peters Valley Part 3: Christina’s Butterflies appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

The world of hand tools can be a bit daunting at first. If you like the idea of a hybrid approach to woodworking and want to add hand tools to your arsenal, you may find yourself not knowing where to start. Fortunately Internet woodworking star Marc Spagnuolo (a.k.a. The Wood Whisperer) has a few words of advice to help point you in the right direction. (Excerpted from “Hybrid Woodworking: Blending Power & Hand Tools […]

The post Hybrid Woodworking: What Hand Tool Should You Buy First? appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

In a lot of woodshops, the easiest way to fix a mistake is to simply start over. Didn’t account for the tenon in your drawings and cut the stretcher too short? Cut a new board and start from scratch. In the old shop I used to work at, the boards with mistakes were destined to a new life as a cutting board (or a couple of drawer rails). When repairing furniture, especially antique […]

The post “10 Essential Furniture Repairs” with Joshua Klein appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

You may be aware that I’m not a big advocate of random orbit sanders. I prefer to sand by hand most of the time. I think it’s faster, and it’s for sure safer, especially on veneer. If you’re gluing down the veneer yourself (maybe using a vacuum press), the veneer you’re using is usually thick enough to require a good deal of effort to sand through. But if you’re using […]

The post Sanding Through Veneer appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

Hide glue is one of those simple and natural products that is intertwined with our lives in many ways, much like shellac is. The core ingredient in hide glue will gross out your children: it’s the cartilage, connective tissue and bones of cattle or other animals. When cooked down, the resulting product makes the most versatile woodworking glue ever invented (it’s reversible and can be modified easily to do different […]

The post Gummy Bear Glue appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

Let me start by getting this off my chest, the phrase “Traditional Japanning” makes me laugh a little because “Japanning” is a European finishing technique that is an imitation of Asian lacquerwork. Snicker. Doesn’t matter, this is a very cool finishing technique. Get the images of dusty boxes on shelves in Chinatown shops out of your head. We’re talking the real deal here and it takes skill and patience. To […]

The post Traditional Japanning, It’s Worth the Time appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.