Woodworking Posts

Last Friday I talked about through mortise-and-tenon joinery in 18th century chairs in my post “Furniture Details: Why Philadelphia is Just Better.” In the post I mentioned through mortises are not the only differences between Philadelphia chairs and chairs from other regions. This week I wanted to discuss another difference – seat construction. I’m not referring to the actual slip seat on which you sit; I’m talking about how the chair […]

The post Furniture Details: Yep, Philly Wins Again appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

When I teach beginners, one of the most common phrases I hear is, “I cannot get this (insert tool name) to work. What’s wrong?” They hand the tool to me and the fun begins. Though block planes are dirt-simple handplanes, there are some important points about them that are rarely discussed in the literature. Here are the five most common problems I see with students’ block planes. 1. Too tight. […]

The post 5 Mistakes Beginners Make with Block Planes appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

As good as I think our magazine is, it’s not worth $59.95 a year*. A scam company is perpetrating fraud with the spurious renewal offer pictured above. Do not respond. (And please know that we are taking steps with the U.S. Postal Service and consumer agencies to address the problem and take appropriate legal action.) Our subscription fulfillment service is Palm Coast Data (also rendered as PCD in some places), […]

The post Renewal Scam Alert appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

I started making the wooden vise chop for a new leg vise for my Holtzapffel workbench (featured in “The Workbench Design Book”) using some crazy new hardware from Benchcrafted: the Classic vise screw and the Crisscross. The only downside to the Crisscross part of the assembly is that you need a vise chop that is quite thick – 3” is a good thickness. I don’t have any maple in my […]

The post Making a Vise Chop for a Benchcrafted Classic appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

I have lost track of the number of wooden try squares I’ve built in the last five years. At this time last year I had the parts for about 20 mahogany squares in my shop. Now I’m down to one (the rattiest one I couldn’t sell) and some special parts for squares that I don’t want really want to build. That’s not entirely true; I really want to build them, […]

The post Another Engine appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

I know there’s lots of Arts & Crafts fans out there reading Popular Woodworking Magazine and the “Editors’ Blog.” But did you know that makers from the period took their cues from much earlier periods? Prior to William & Mary (1690ish to 1720 or so) most furniture was joined – meaning it was put together with mortise-and-tenon joints (the dovetail thing really became the predominant case joinery method in the W&M period). […]

The post Design in Practice: Arts & Crafts, Mission – It’s All Jacobean to Me appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.