Today I’m in Portland, Maine, eating myself sick at Duckfat and studying the architectural details on the old houses in this coastal city. As I started picking apart some Victorian houses on the city’s east side, I remembered something that a student once said about the English Layout Square I built for the December 2010 … Read more
The Skansen bench that I built for the April 2010 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine has proved to be a popular project with readers. But if you like, you can do a better job of emulating the original than I did. I built the project for our “I Can Do That” column, which features furniture … Read more
Last week we offered free plans for the Skansen Bench I built for the April 2010 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine. If you didn’t hear about this, it’s likely because you don’t subscribe to our free weekly newsletter. You can correct that oversight here. In any case, this bench was tremendous fun to build. It … Read more
Expanded and detailed plans for the Roubo Try Square from the February 2010 issue are now for sale as a download in our store. The plans include the original two-page article published in the February 2010 issue of Popular Woodworking, plus another six pages of detailed step-by-step instructions on the construction and truing process. There’s … Read more
You can download a deluxe SketchUp drawing of the Schoolbox, a project that was featured on the cover of the Autumn 2009 issue. This file was made by Randall Wilkins, a set designer in the film industry who uses SketchUp in his job and in his woodworking hobby. This file is extremely cool. Here are … Read more
For me a design is never done until the finish is on the piece, I’ve stared at the thing for a long time and I’ve turned my back on it. Up until that moment, I’ll readily shift gears if need be. I’ll order new hardware, rebuild a drawer or change a moulding. So this morning … Read more
The most significant woodworking tool that has been introduced in my lifetime doesn’t cut wood and it costs nothing. It is Google’s SketchUp program, a 3D computer-aided design program that runs on virtually any computer. Before SketchUp (the BS era), I used a variety of CAD programs to create construction drawings. Because I use only … Read more
