My working with hand tools has nothing to do with a reluctance toward living in a post modern world; just so you know. I’m just thankful I do, and that I feel to a balanced degree I’ve been able to embrace it. I always like seeing old workshops with wood leaning against rustic walls and […]
Read the full post Nostalgia or No? on Paul Sellers' Blog.
I wouldn’t call it reckless, but I tend to push, pull and slam things a little harder than I should. I’d like to blame my father who operated on an “I can fix anything” mentality that gave him the leeway to be overly rough while working on cars and around the house, but really, I just enjoy making loud noises and the efficiency of tossing things across the room. With […]
The post Simple and Fast Rabbeted Drawers: Hi, I’m David and I Break Things appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
I’m always surprised by how many woodworkers – even experienced ones – try to avoid the grinder. They will purchase expensive diamond plates or (worse perhaps) a ream of belt sander paper and an expensive granite plates all to avoid stepping up to an electric or hand-cranked grinder. This is not just a fear among hand-tool users who avoid electricity. I’ve met guys who will use an unguarded shaper with […]
The post Tool Troubles? Get Thee to the Grinder appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
Today we drink coffee and lots of it. We’ll also discuss some woodworking!
The post National Coffee Day – Friday Live! appeared first on The Wood Whisperer.
This week I received advance copies of Michael Crow’s new “Mackintosh Furniture” book. Its a book of techniques and shop drawings to help you recreate 30 of Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s furniture designs. Often remembered for his architecture and graphics, Mackintosh designed hundreds of pieces of furniture throughout his career. This is the first book of its kind dedicated solely to his furniture. Finally fans of Mackintosh’s work will have access […]
The post Book Giveaway: Mackintosh Furniture appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
A must-have tool for the lumberyard by Greg Paolini In addition to my truck and a pile of cash, there’s always one other thing I take to the lumberyard or mill – a lumber rule. Also known as a grading stick, a lumber rule is a simple tool that instantly shows how many board feet are in a piece of rough lumber. This helps me keep track of how much wood I’m […]
The post The Lumber Rule appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
For the December 2017 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine I built a pair of folding campaign bookshelves based on a 19th-century pattern. Long-time readers of this blog know that I love mechanical furniture that folds up into tiny spaces and is durable. So 19th-century British campaign furniture is right up my alley. These examples have a Gothic look to them, but you could alter the profiles of the folding end […]
The post Folding Campaign Bookshelves in 1 Minute appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
A Desktop size CNC at an Entry Level Price The question I’m most often asked is “would you do a review of an affordable CNC?” Up to now, there have been few choices for woodworkers on tight budgets with small home shops. Here’s the thing: as woodworkers, we do pretty heavy duty work and that doesn’t seem to match up with what’s available on a hobbyist budget. So, I looked […]
The post Preview: The Shapeoko XL CNC appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
“Insightful … erudite … polished … scholarly”, just a few of the words that we’d like to use when talking about the host of I Can Do That!, Chad Stanton. But seriously the words that are used are more impressive, “love your work”, “simple and thorough”, “exactly what I needed”, “all levels of ability can learn something”. Strong support for a show that aims to educate new woodworkers with minimal […]
The post I Can Do That’s Chad Stanton: The Outtakes appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
For the last year I’ve been going to the local assisted living facility, pretty much once a week, to guide those interested in small woodworking projects. Sometimes we’ll watch a video on woodworking themes like furniture or violin making.
I try to come up with projects that the seniors can have some hands on participation. To date we’ve made a birdhouse, flag stand for the vets, cribbage board, and trivet. Presently we’re working on a keepsake box/hamster crypt. That was the first time I’ve made dovetails on my Incra.
If anyone has any suggestions for small projects we could make, I’m all ears.
The post Small Woodworking Projects at Local Senior Center appeared first on The Wood Whisperer.
We are LIVE on Facebook for our weekly Live at Lunch series. Every Wednesday, I offer a premium video product at a huge discount with a Facebook-exclusive coupon code. This week we are hosting No-Fear Chair Making with Christopher Schwarz. This is an incredible introduction to the fundamentals of making a staked chair. You’ll learn: • How to orient the legs for proper splay and rake – without a whole […]
The post Live at Lunch: No-Fear Chair Making with Christopher Schwarz appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
Dirty solvent waste can be a problem getting rid of. Even if you use water-based finishes, you’ll probably still accumulate some dirty solvents over time, from cleaning if from nothing else. The best solution is to take the waste to a local hazardous-waste collection center, but these are not always conveniently available or even available at all. For these situations, here are three suggestions for getting rid of the solvent […]
The post Disposing of Solvent Waste: How to do it Safely and Legally appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
Don’t miss it. Make a trip to the V&A London. You will love it. More than that, there are dozens of other exhibits to broaden your perspective with. Hannah and I had an educational visit planned and this week it all came together when we explored to exhibits, the Plywood Exhibit and the Furniture Exhibit. …
Read the full post Plywood at the Victoria & Albert—A London First on Paul Sellers' Blog.
Although Takuji owns a miter saw but he likes to use a miter trimmer for the final adjustment of his miters. He uses a two blade mitering trimmer which, if placed in the conventional (manufacturer recommended) position, enables him to process workpieces up to 4” or so wide. But he is also able to slice away much wider parts once his homemade mitering ramp is deployed. He built this ramp […]
The post A Visit to Takuji Matsuda’s Kiribako Shop: Part 3 – Mitering techniques appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
If you know me, you know I’m an Anglophile. Heck – even if you don’t know me but have read more than a couple of my blog posts, you probably know that. So naturally, I’ve been wanting for years to attend the European Woodworking Show, organized by Classic Hand Tools, in England. This year, my schedule and my budget finally aligned, so I flew over for the September 15-16 show […]
The post Woodworking With an Accent: European Woodworking Show appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
When people come so far this question may well be the ice breaker. I recall when I lived and had my workshop in the castle in Wales how a man came into the workshop and said, “If only you were nearer, I would love to do a class with you.” I asked where he was …
Read the full post And Where Are You From? on Paul Sellers' Blog.
This is the third and last post in a series about making linoleum counters and table tops. Let’s talk about corners. I find corners, whether square or rounded, the most challenging part of making a linoleum topped counter or table. When you’re working with metal edging, measurements have to be ultra-precise, and bending the material can be a challenge. Here are some tips. Square corners are sharp — never more […]
The post How to Make Vintage Linoleum Countertops – Part 3 appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
A teacher in the Netherlands pulled a blog post I wrote about the beginnings and outcome of following my passion in woodworking here and I am not altogether sure why what I wrote altogether mattered except, well, I got something that matters to me off my chest. It happens all the time that things left unsaid …
Read the full post Who You Are Matters, Everyone! on Paul Sellers' Blog.
If you asked me five years ago what I thought I would end up doing with my time, woodworking would have been one of my last guesses. My story begins in a high-rise, towering over the neon-painted beaches of Miami, Florida. I was raised by a single mom, a strong-willed Spaniard with a business of her own who stubbornly managed to become her own handyman, and my brother, a talented […]
The post Meet Katerina Kiranos – Pachamama Workshop appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
I was recently asked to be Godfather to my youngest niece. This is quite the honor, especially in my Italian-American family. This notion has much less to do with religion and much more to do with influence in my family. You see, this pretty much gives me full license to spout off on a myriad of topics for the rest of my niece’s life. She won’t always be obligated to […]
The post From Pinterest to Real Life – A Custom Necklace Stand appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
Today we’re talking about how useful the Low Angle Jack Plane can be and of course we have plenty of Q&A.
The post The Only Plane You Need – Friday Live! appeared first on The Wood Whisperer.
Today I got smart and worked on this dugout chair before I took a shower – genius. Also, I found an easier way to remove the inner bark – with a chisel. Last night after dinner I went out to look at what one blog commenter has called “about the ugliest thing in woodworking history” and decided to see how easy it would be to chisel the inner bark away […]
The post Dugout Chair Part 8, The Inner Bark appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
Don’t miss tonight’s airing of “The Canopy Kings” TV show pilot featuring “The Perfect Treehouse” author Django Kroner and his crew of treehouse builders. Django’s treehouses are amazing and the book he created with us is filled with great advice for building your own treehouse (whether it’s a backyard build for the kids or a weekend getaway in the woods). Make sure to check out “The Canopy Kings” on Animal Planet […]
The post Book Giveaway: Canopy Kings Treehouse Book appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
Before I could strip the bark off the dugout chair, I needed to shape the chair’s back. The bark had all my layout marks indicating the final shape of the chair. Armed with the TurboPlane, I smoothed out the steps I had cut into the stump earlier with my chainsaw. When I shaped the chair with a chainsaw, I sawed kerfs up and down the back of the chair that […]
The post Dugout Chair Part 7, The Bark Flies appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
One of the issues with using a DSLR to shoot video, is that to get really good audio you need a few accessories. Those accessories can get unwieldy at times, so most people get a cage to mount their camera in and their accessories to. I personally don’t like cages, because they don’t allow you […]
From time to time, Festool offers their reconditioned tools in a big sale, which presents an opportunity to purchase their tools at a decent price point. Several of my tools from Festool are reconditioned, and I wouldn’t have known – they came “like new.” A new website from the German toolmaker has cropped up, with a tantalizing URL: festoolrecon.com. While the website is vague as to exactly what it will be […]
The post Festool Recon – New Reconditioned Tools Website from Festool appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
String inlay is a quick and dramatic way to add interest and dimension to any woodworking project. And it’s not just string inlay, you can add banding and any number of decorative veneer pieces using the router that’s already in your shop. You may need to tweak the edge guide a bit and certain operations will benefit from more specialized bits, but the benefit to your projects will be well […]
The post Video: Simple String Inlay with Your Router appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
One of the perks of working at Popular Woodworking is the unlimited access to the decades of content in our library. The shear number of books, magazines and videos that I have access to is remarkable. Brendan Gaffney started at the magazine about three months after me and it’s not uncommon to see one of our monitors running a video from videos.popularwoodworking.com in the background while we work. There’s just […]
The post Live at Lunch! Build a Sturdy Workbench is LIVE on Facebook appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
On Friday the doors open to the second to the last class of the year. It will be the first day of Autumn and it seems to have started right on cue. Tomorrow I will arrange the benches and the tools and all the wood is cut and ready. The students are coming from Sweden, …
Read the full post Two Classes Left This Year on Paul Sellers' Blog.
My progress on the dugout chair has been stymied by rains from two hurricanes, building two Campaign bookshelves and laying out a forthcoming book on carving by Mary May. But today I fired up my angle grinder to remove the rotted interior of this silver maple. I don’t have a ton of experience with an angle grinder. But if you’ve used an electric router, then you’ll quickly get comfortable with […]
The post Dugout Chair Part 6, Remove the Rot appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
I moved to Kentucky/Cincinnati on July 1st, and by the 15th of the month, I was already starting out on building the furniture for my new house here. Josselyn (my partner) and I had committed to leaving behind the cheap, second-hand furniture we had bought since leaving college years ago, and in doing so, arrived without a dining table, dining chairs, coffee table or a proper bedroom set. So, for […]
The post Five Lessons from the Staked Chair Project appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
One of my best woodworking tools is one I don’t write about much: my sketchbook. It’s an inexpensive spiral-bound thing I get at the grocery store, right by the romance novels. It’s always in my bag when I travel, and it’s on my lap when I’m “encouraged” to watch “Project Runway” with my lovely wife. I keep a mechanical pencil clipped to its metal spirals and use it to solve […]
The post Sketch Your Way to Better Designs appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
The circumference of a 12” bowl (2Ï€r) is about 38”. Multiply that to a lathe’s speed and you’ll realize that wood turners are making almost a mile of shavings a minute. I think it’s fair to say that turners sharpen more than any other woodworkers. Like other areas of the craft, religious sects have developed around sharpening in the turning world. Yet few fanatics outside of skew maniacs ever discuss […]
The post Diamonds are a Turner’s Best Friend: My Favorite Slipstone appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
You may recall that I have a brother who comes up with some very unusual finish problems. This one’s a beauty. As with many people, my brother has a deck attached to his house. The house is located in the Northwest, and last winter the snow remained on the ground for three months. When it had melted off, the deck, which had been finished with a deck stain, was decorated […]
The post How I got Rid of Leaf and Pine Needle Stains on a Deck appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
Note: This is the second of a series. The third will deal with mitered and rounded corners. Measure Be sure you take into account any desired overhangs at the front or end of a cabinet run (or table base) as well as radiused corners, and be sure you note the farthest points in all cases (such as areas along the length of a wall where the wall dips in), to make […]
The post How to Make Vintage Linoleum Countertops – Part 2 appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
Picking out the wood for a project always brings with it surprises. How often do we woodworkers mention to people that we are woodworkers and hear the exclamation, “Oh, I love wood!” My own take on this has changed through the years in that at one time it would have been wood that they loved …
Read the full post Picking Out Wood on Paul Sellers' Blog.
I have to admit, it was an interesting week on popularwoodworking.com. The contributors to the Shop Blog brought up a few topics that typically stir conversation. On Monday, Nancy Hiller started a three part series on Linoleum countertops. We had at least one commenter ask, “why?”. Nancy shared her point of view about the historical precedent and the vintage style that many seek in remodeling. I have been eyeing Linoleum as […]
The post Week in Review: September 11-16 appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
During the last decade I’ve amassed hundreds of images of early workbenches as part of my research into pre-industrial woodworking. Inevitably, some of the images don’t make a lot of sense and now populate a folder named: X-Files. These workbenches are from paintings and their features might be the result of a painter who doesn’t know much about woodworking. Or they could be a clue to a simple and neglected […]
The post The Workbench X-Files appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
Today we’re discussing router bits: a good beginner set as well as the difference between up and down-spiral. Of course, we have lots of Q&A topics too.
The post 4 Must-Have Router Bits appeared first on The Wood Whisperer.
There comes a time in every project with doors and drawers called “pull-gatory,” when the struggle of sticking something onto the front of the beautiful piece you’ve just made grinds progress to a halt. I’ve been there a few times, and I’m there now with a little wall cabinet that I’m in the process of finishing. Time to think about drawer pulls. When I get to this point, I try […]
The post How to Carve Drawer Pulls by Hand appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
I am building both the prototype and the first edition bedside nightstand for our next new masterclasses project. This one follows the stepladders and the fly swatter. It’s been a busy enough week with developing the idea and then the construction of both the prototype and building the piece for filming. Hannah went with me …
Read the full post This Week on Paul Sellers' Blog.
My friend and neighbor, Takuji Matsuda, enjoys the advantages of a western workbench. You read part one of my workshop tour here. But when it comes to planes, Takuji prefers traditional Japanese planes which are pulled towards the body,d whereas the Western plane is pushed away from the user. To help Takuji plane surfaces and true up crosscut end grain while working on a simple table that is devoid of a vise, […]
The post A Visit to Takuji Matsuda’s Kiribako Shop: Part 2 – Planing and Shooting Platform for Japanese Planes appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
When I joined the woodworking team a few of years ago I found myself thumbing through a couple of books in the Furniture Fundamentals series. Exploring those two books,“Chairs & Benches” and “Tables,” – as well as a book that I edited as an addition to the series, “Casework” – made for a great jumping off point for my work with Popular Woodworking. The series offers a lot of great information on how to build some of […]
The post Book Giveaway: Furniture Fundamentals appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
My last several posts have been about how the BARN workbench vise chops were designed. In this post, I’ll show you how the CNC was programmed for machining with CAM software. I use RhinoCAM software from MecSoft, but most CAM software programs that can handle basic 3D milling will have similar machining operations. This post is not a primary on CAM or a full explanation of all the settings that […]
The post CAD to CAM to CNC: Part Seven — Programming a CNC for 3D Carving appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
Push sticks? Yes, that is the topic of today’s blog, and it’s also the answer – Yes! Every woodworker has had a close call (or worse) or knows someone who has. Table saws are dangerous and even the experienced get hurt. But before this devolves into a diatribe about table saw injuries, let’s just agree that it’s better and safer to use push sticks when using a table saw. Two […]
The post Video: How to Choose a Push Stick – Table Saw Safety appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
I made this adapter to hook up dust collection to the odd-size fitting (2″) on my oscillating sander. Start with a hardwood block that is (in my case) is 3″ x 4″ x 11⁄4” thick. I required a 2″ hole, so I used a 2″ hole saw to drill in the middle of the block. The next thing is to drill the holes for the split-block-clamping and block-attachment holes. I drilled […]
The post Tricks of the Trade: Dust Collection for Ports of All Sizes appeared first on Popular Woodworking Magazine.
Periodically, not too often enough to be overly concerned, someone makes a statement about this or that, types in IMHO and moves on. You know that there is nothing humble about it really, just a comment tossed over the shoulder as they walk away from any kind of accountability for it. “Too much glue!”, one …
Read the full post Let’s Talk About a Sticky Topic on Paul Sellers' Blog.