The portable “Milkman’s Workbench” from the June 2013 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine has attracted a lot of attention, judging from the e-mail piling up in my Inbox. The No. 1 question: How can I build the bench without wooden bench screws? One answer: wedges. Reader Ilkka Sivonen of FInland built the bench without wooden … Read more
When it has been several months coming, and the rectangular outline of a new full-time job’s first paycheck is appearing on the horizon, every man gets ideas. I don’t know about you, but I had only one thought last month, when I was in that position: tools. The most logical – if not the most … Read more
Last Saturday was an interesting day. My son, Hayes, and I delivered a large, private banquet room table to a popular restaurant that’s moving to a new downtown location in a couple weeks. He landed the job as part of an order for 15 or so other various-sized dining tables in the public part of … Read more
I’ve collected tons of drawings of old workbenches, during the years, and most fall into two categories: 1. A typical workbench with typical vises that looks like lots of other workbenches. 2. Workbenches that were drawn by an artist that have vises that would never work and that are put in stupid places where vises … Read more
The most important skill in woodworking is problem-solving, and you don’t develop that skill by following spoon-fed, step-by-step directions. It is also extremely difficult to learn that skill all by yourself. I try to visualize what the results should look like, then apply the tools I have and the techniques I know to get there.Then … Read more
Today is Earth Day, but for the purposes of this article, I’m going to call it Dirt Day. As in dirt-simple woodworking techniques and jigs. We have a couple of perspectives, from two different woodworkers, up on our web site right now. One is from Christopher Schwarz, courtesy of Highland Woodworker TV. Chris uses a … Read more
Among the most rewarding parts of working for this (and I would assume any) woodworking magazine is to build then write about a project, send an article out into the world, then have pictures come back to you of pieces others have built based on what you’ve published. And while we design and build pieces … Read more
