Woodworking Posts

Do you start a kid (or kid at heart) down the woodworking rabbit hole via hand tools, power tools or both? The more time I spend teaching woodworking, observing students learning and contemplating the woodworking teaching process, the more I’m leaning toward the idea that power-tools should be eliminated, or drastically reduced – particularly for young woodworkers. I am not against power tools at all. In fact, I’ll only give […]

The post Hand Tools vs Power Tools for Beginners appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

When cutting precision joinery by hand, sometimes a joint that’s off by a fraction of a degree is the difference between it seating or splitting apart. When diagnosing joinery problems of students, I use a vintage diemakers square (I wrote about this in 2013 here). It allows me to sneak into places no normal square can go and is more accurate than my eyeball. Diemakers squares can be expensive, so […]

The post The Dovetail Doctor: The Sterling Dovetailing Ruler appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

I like to be honest about sharing what works well for me, even if that view might be unpopular: I sometimes recommend saws of the disposable type. And this and my following post, I’ll justify that. It can be a hard sell; “disposable” is a big mental hurdle to overcome – so I’ll deal with that first. When these saws become blunt they cannot be sharpened. But when most of […]

The post Cheap Saws – Part 1 appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

One question to ask of any style is whether it can stand the test of time. Leather motorcycle jacket? Sure. Red satin disco jacket? No. This holds true with furniture. When it comes to woodworking, 18th-century furniture is perennially popular. Many 18th-century pieces are like the leather motorcycle jacket; they’re stylish, but serve a practical purpose. A spice chest will build your joinery skills, but the multiple drawers – sometimes hidden – […]

The post ’18th-Century Furniture’ Details 5 Classic Projects (& 4 Secret Drawers) appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

In “Choosing, Refurbishing & Using Moulding Planes”, Bill walks you through the classifications of moulding planes, discusses what to look for when shopping and then takes you step-by-step through the process to bring the iron back to cutting shape (and how to make a new iron if it’s missing).

The post Bill Anderson Knows Moulding Planes appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.

Woodworking author and instructor Tom Fidgen is the mastermind behind the Unplugged Woodshop web site, the online hand tool woodworking school An Unplugged Life, and author of two bestselling books: “Made by Hand” (currently available at ShopWoodworking.com) and “The Unplugged Woodshop” (Taunton). He teaches woodworking with hand tools internationally. This September Fidgen will be teaching at Woodworking In America. His sessions will cover the kerfing plane and resawing by hand and handsaw essentials (both using hand/panel saws […]

The post An Interview with Tom Fidgen appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.