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Hand-tool work can be confusing and frustrating when you follow the power-tool rules. Here’s a good example: I was working on finishing up the transitions between the aprons and legs of a [...]

Robert Giovannetti of Crystal Lake, Ill., built a Roubo-style workbench like the one featured in the Autumn 2005 issue. He wasn’t completely satisfied with its workholding properties and [...]

My favorite part of woodworking is the anti-climax. This is the point where you do something risky, but you’re so prepared for it that the actual act is just a slight thing: brief and easy [...]

One of the first projects I built for Popular Woodworking was an adaptation of Benjamin Seaton’s tool chest. The chest is most notable because of what its owner did not do, which was to use [...]

Some projects play along nicely; others tend to fight you all the way. The Creole Table is shaping up to be a bit of a raging Cajun. My goal this week was to complete the top of the table and …

I continue to get a letter about every other day about the Roubo-style workbench I built for the Autumn 2005 issue. I’ve been trying not to clog up the weblog with too much Roubo stuff, but [...]

The first time I build any project, there are always surprises , even when things are going well. For this Creole Table, it was a fortunately/unfortunately thing all week. Fortunately, the [...]

I quite enjoy looking at other woodworkers’ work, but nothing makes me spit out my coffee faster than reading that a certain project took 300, 600 or even 900 hours of work. It makes me [...]

The Shinto “Saw-Rasp” has always been a curious thing to me. I first spotted it years ago hanging on the wall of our local Rockler store in the sandpaper section. It looks like (and [...]

One of the big challenges in building a project for publication is to come up with techniques that use common tools and skills to produce results that others can replicate using the same tools [...]

I like working with walnut, but I hate marking it. Its dark color makes pencil lines disappear. And its open grain hide knife lines as well. Dovetailing is a particular problem for me. Part of [...]

There is a downside to buying lumber from a guy’s garage.Ã?  Retail, the 12/4 walnut and 8/4 walnut I scored from the garage would have cost me more than $400. I paid $90. But there was [...]