Woodworking Posts

It isn’t unusual for a member of the Popular Woodworking Magazine staff to spend vacation time to attend a woodworking class. Usually I go to teach, but last week I found myself in Montana learning at the Chidwick School of Fine Woodworking in Stevensville, Montana. I was there on my own dime to meet Dean Mattson and to see the top five students from his woodworking program at North Salem […]

The post North Salem High School Students Rule in Montana appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

In order to know, and understand, how things were made in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries you’ve got to spend a lot of time on the floor (no Bender jokes, please). Looking at pieces from the top down, or outside in, only gives you a small part of the picture. And that’s why you can only learn so much by looking at books and magazines. Sure, you can read […]

The post Furniture Details: What’s New? appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

On this way to work this morning, I heard Guy Clark’s “Step Inside this House” (it was Lyle Lovett’s version off his album of the same title). It reminded me that I’ve long been meaning to post my favorite article I’ve written while with Popular Woodworking: “Songs from the Workbench” – an interview/article about Clark that appeared in our June 2007 issue. It represents one of the few times I’ve […]

The post Guy Clark: Luthier, Singer, Songwriter appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

You may recall Tom Calisto (pictured above holding a Shaker chair he made; Ozzie is holding a sock), a woodworker in Chapel Hill, N.C., from his April 2013 Popular Woodworking Magazine article on cutting compound dovetails for a small, handled tote, or perhaps you saw his cherry kitchen table build in Fine Woodworking‘s December 2000 issue. Maybe you’ve even taken a class from him on sawmaking or compound dovetails at […]

The post Meet Tom Calisto, N.C. Woodworker appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

I’m working on an upcoming article for Popular Woodworking Magazine that includes router-bit storage. There are scads of ways to store router bits; some are worthy of discussion and keep the bits out of harm’s way while other solutions are simply a jumbled mess. But before we get into how bits are stored, I’d like to find out how many router bits our blog readers actually own. Do you have […]

The post Storage Solutions for Router Bits appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

With the glue dry, it’s time to see if your square is square – or if it’s a doorstop. Squaring a wooden square is a simple operation if you plan to use it for woodworking – not for building equipment for a nuclear reactor. It’s easy to go overboard with squareness. Here’s how I do it. I get a big sheet of termite barf (MDF), which is what I use […]

The post Wierix Square, Part 3 appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.