Woodworking Posts

The time and cost of materials you invest in any woodworking project can make the final finishing stage a nerve-racking one. You want to get it right, and there are a lot of wild ideas out there concerning finishing. Below you’ll find a few common wood finishing myths and the actual facts excerpted from Bob Flexner’s expert text on the subject, “Understanding Wood Finishing.” Myth: Finishing both sides of wood prevents or […]

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If you are a serious woodworker (even if you aren’t that good yet), and you’re looking for an unbelievable woodworking experience, let me suggest that you consider attending the International Woodworking Fair this summer in Atlanta. Words can’t adequately describe it. It’s HUUUUUGE – more than 1,000 exhibitors and 25,000 attendees. The only way you could possibly walk the entire floor would be if you didn’t stop to look at anything, […]

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Anyone who has tried to vertically clamp a long object, such as a furniture leg or a rail, at one side of the bench vise knows that tightening the jaw over the object will put tremendous unbalanced forces on the vise’s mechanisms. This phenomenon reduces the functionality of the vise because it’s effective holding surface is compromised due to the diagonal dislocation. Over time this can damage the vise. A few remedies […]

The post Vise Rack Stop A’la Hakhoret appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

Sticking boards are an excellent benchtop appliance when cutting mouldings by hand. A proper sticking board is an L-shaped device that holds the wood you want to “stick” (the old fashioned term for “cut mouldings.”) The fence on the sticking board prevents the wood from bowing along its length. The adjustable stops at the end (screws in the example below) restrain your wood while you cut your mouldings. I’ve made […]

The post An Improvised (and Excellent) Sticking Board appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

When you open the October 2016 issue to the Letters and Tricks of the Trade columns, you’ll notice a new look. With this issue (it begins mailing on August 3), we welcome Martha Garstang Hill as the technical illustrator for Popular Woodworking Magazine. It has been difficult to say goodbye to Mary Jane Favorite, who’s been doing our drawings for many years (more than two decades, I think!) – but […]

The post Meet Martha Garstang Hill, Architect & Technical Illustrator appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

I just talked with Mike Siemsen about running the Hand Tool Olympics (HTO) at Popular Woodworking in America 2016. Once again, he’s graciously agreed to wrangle his crew of expert hand-tool woodworkers to run the competition (and teach folks who are new to the included “sports”) for the 2016 conference (in the Marketplace Sept. 16-17, at the Northern Kentucky Convention Center). And then I came across this altogether embarrassing video […]

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