Way back in 1992 when I was just a junior in high school, I made a bent laminated wooden spoon in shop class for a Mother’s Day gift. Now 24 years later I’m recreating the spoon for an updated gift to give to Mom this Mother’s…
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Thanks to the long-term relationships I’ve made with lumber merchants, I have little trouble with them sending me crappy stock. But even after 20-something years of buying wood from my suppliers, there are times when I get a bogus load of wood. Most problems can be solved by knowing what is standard in the industry. About 15 years ago, I bought 200 board feet of cherry from my dealer that […]
The post How to Test for Case-hardened Lumber appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
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To test how effective your chosen workbench is, you’ll need to make something. Doubtless we all complete very similar tasks, but we also all have our own preferences which leads to tweaking designs. We might take a little off the leg or add an extra dog whole, whatever makes things easier. The first test for my completed workbench was to add some sides to a vehicle jump ramp we made a while […]
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A few months ago I was tired of running into my kitchen table while sneaking through my house to get a midnight snack. I’m not entirely sure why I chose to be sneaky considering the only other living creature in my house was the dog snoozing on the couch. So, in a rash of rage from yet another stubbed toe, I decided to move the table and chairs to the […]
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The two commonly available pure oil finishes that can be used on furniture and woodwork with decent results because they cure – that is, turn from a liquid to a soft solid – are linseed oil and tung oil. There are important differences between these two oils. Raw linseed oil cures much too slowly to be practical, so use “boiled” linseed oil instead. It contains driers, which are catalysts to […]
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Do you remember the first time you used a table saw? Was it in shop class? Did your father, or grandfather show you how? My first time was with my father at the age of fifteen. But it wasn’t in our garage or basement, it was in his custom furniture shop and it was because I was learning a trade. Nothing wrong with that, and my father’s first concern may […]
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