Woodworking Posts

There is no easy way. There I was, on my butt halfway up the hill on my seventh try, tackling what I refer to as the single-track-mountain-bike hill of death. The throbbing from the inevitable bruise on my butt beginning its rhythmic mocking chant only to be quickly magnified by the kid behind me on a K-Mart BMX bike who had to literally ride over me to avoid crashing himself. […]

The post Buying Good Tools for the Wrong Reason appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

I’m just back from the Association of Woodworking & Furnishings Suppliers show (www.awfsfair.org) in Las Vegas where there were many woodworking products worth talking about – too many in fact, to include all of them here. I’ve narrowed the list below to include just a few that elicited a “Cool!” from me, and I hope you’ll agree. Veritas Miter Plane & Shop Knife Two new products from Lee Valley/Veritas (www.leevalley.com) […]

The post AWFS Tools to Talk About appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

A couple years ago I revealed my secret shame: I use pliers to tighten the round collets on the fences and depth stops of my Veritas planes. Read that post here. I was admonished by the “lovers of round brass things” but then eventually was released on my own recognizance. Recently, a professional woodworker in Wales devised a simple leather and wood strap wrench that tightens these brassy bits without […]

The post The Nutsaver: This Stuff Writes Itself appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

  I’ve wanted to make a new mallet for a while now and at last found a bit of time to take the project forward. I knew I’d want to make a joiner’s mallet. This style is the classic type that has been typically found in a carpenter or joiner’s toolbox for many a long year. I like this setup because I’m used to the feel and did not want to […]

The post Making a Joiner’s Mallet appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

A few weeks ago, I went down to our basement and was greeted by a large sloppy pile of back issues of Martha Stewart Living. A plastic shelf pin had sheared off, pulling the rest of the flimsy hardware out of the cheap particleboard bookcase, avalanching issues full of advice on keeping canaries and recipes for grilled striped bass across the floor. It was not a Good Thing. I love the look […]

The post Build a Bounty of Bookcases appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

As a rule, I avoid touristy places and huge throngs. But when Roy and Jane Underhill invited me to tag along to Stratford-on-Avon to see William Shakespeare’s birthplace, I couldn’t say no. After all, Roy could turn a root canal into a party. As expected, the town was packed with tourists and tacky trinkets. But the Shakespeare family home and gardens were very well done. And that would be the […]

The post The Furniture at Shakespeare’s Birthplace appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.