Turning Large Blanks on the Lathe – A Learning Experience, and other articles from this issue of the Weekly Wood News. Read more
Author Archives: Article Index
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The Article Index allows you to browse through our back issues.
Weekly Wood News, February 12, 2013: The Best Substitute for Scotch-Brite Pads
- Is It Ever Right to Drag Your Plane?
- Introducing Glen D. Huey, Our New Managing Editor
- The Substitute for Steel Wool Substitute
- WIA 2013 Sneak Peek
- What Tools Should I Buy? (In 1839)
City Sideboard
Contemporary details and materials update this classic form.
By Mario Rodriguez
Pages 20-27
Apartments in the Philadelphia area where I live are in demand and rents are high. The same is true for urban areas all over the country. So for someone who insists on living in town, one solution is to “go small.” The city sideboard is the perfect piece for tight urban spaces and it’s versatile, too. Measuring around 35″ wide and only 16″ deep, it can work as a dining room sideboard, an entry table (with storage) or an office credenza.
Blog: Build a “scissors brace” to help square your casework.
Web Site: Take a class at the author’s school, the Philadelphia Furniture Workshop.
To Buy: “Building Cabinets, Bookcases and Shelves” a book featuring 29 projects. Read more
Quarter Columns
Forget the lathe; a router table setup makes quick work of these striking architectural features.
By Charles Bender
Pages 28-31
If you want to add a little punch to your next traditional furniture project, try adding quarter columns. They help narrow the look of any piece by drawing your eye inward. This usually gives the piece the appearance of being more compact and vertical, and gives it a more powerful stance.
Blog: Read the author’s blog.
In Our Store: “Carve a Ball & Claw Foot” a DVD by Charles Bender.
To Buy: Charles Bender’s “Cabriole Legs Simplified” DVD.
Web Site: Visit the author’s web site to view a gallery of his work. Read more
Compound Dovetails
Discover how to join oblique sides with through-dovetails.
By Tom Calisto
Pages 32-35
As an avid sailor and full-time furniture maker, I’ve always wanted to make a proper sea chest replete with rope beckets and a compass rose inlay. The compound-angle dovetails are the only tricky aspect of the sea chest so I designed this little handled tote to practice oblique dovetails. This tote tray is useful around the house and fun to build. The angles of the oblique dovetails offer a challenge.
Web Site: Visit the author’s web site to see more of his work.
Pattern: Download a full-size PDF pattern for the tray divider/handle: Tote_Handle
Web Site: Here’s a good compound angle calculator.
In Our Store: Warm up for compound-angle dovetails with a simpler version of a dovetailed tool tote that has simple angled ends. Read more
A Workholding Renaissance
After years of decline, the industry that makes vises and holdfasts for woodworkers has come roaring back.
By Christopher Schwarz
Pages 36-40
In my first book, “Workbenches: From Design & Theory to Construction & Use” (Popular Woodworking Books), I urged fellow woodworkers to “fight progress” and “invent nothing” when it came to designing their workbenches.
Boy, am I glad that the tool manufacturers ignored me completely.
Blog: Read “The Kitchen Test” for workbenches.
Blog: Read eight years of articles (free) by the author on workbenches.
Web Site: Visit workbenchdesign.net for bench-building ideas.
To Buy: “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest,” by Christopher Schwarz.
In Our Store: “Workbenches: From Design & Theory to Construction & Use.” Read more
Greene & Greene Inlay
Jewel-like details are the crowning touch on these masterpieces of American furniture.
By David Mathias
Pages 41-45
Furniture designed by early 20th-century American architects Charles & Henry Greene is as rare as hen’s teeth. The reason is simple: their pieces were never mass-produced or marketed. Every table, chair, bed and cabinet was designed to occupy a particular location in a particular house of the Greenes’ design.
Slideshows: Watch our PDF slideshows of additional furniture and architectural details from Greene & Greene houses: Greene & Greene Everyday, Green & Greene from a Woodworker’s Perspective and Greene & Greene: Details and Joinery
Blog: Read the author’s blog and view his other photographic work.
To Buy: Previous articles by the author can be found in the August, October and November 2008 issues of this magazine.
In Our Store: Purchase the author’s book, “Greene & Greene: Poems of Wood & Light.” Read more