As the editor of a woodworking publication, I spend my days reading and writing about woodworking, and talking to other woodworkers about projects they’re doing. Part of my job is to research new techniques, new makers, interesting designs and woodworking history. (I also spend my fair share of time in meetings and talking about initiatives…

I’m sure you know the feeling; you’ve finished a project, and some little part didn’t come out quite right. Or maybe you missed the opportunity to add additional functionality, and wish you could add it on. Well, that’s how we’ve felt about our website lately. The redesign we finished last winter was a good start,…

As the leaves turn and the nights get cooler, I know woodworking season is approaching. Yes, I do spend as much time in the shop as I can, but the warmer summer months mean mowing, trips to the cabin and preparing my house for the onslaught of Minnesota winter. But once those leaves are raked,…

Years ago when I was editor at Popular Woodworking, I was interviewed for a job at one of our competitors. During the interview, I experienced one of those fork-in-the-road moments where a single decision will change everything you do for the rest of your life. To set the stage a bit, this happened about 2008….

It’s the easiest question in the world: Who is your favorite woodworker? A fellow craftsman asked me this question earlier this month, and I still don’t have a good answer. I have one easy answer: Dead woodworkers. Charles H. Hayward is my No. 1 hero. He was everything I have ever wanted to be: A…

Even if you have a gold-plated fancy-pants laser-guided dovetail saw, you should also own the $15 Zona dovetail saw because it’s so dang cheap and so dang handy for small-scale work. I’ve written a lot about this saw (check this entry for the background and copious links). Bottom line: It’s served me well for years…

Though you can build the December 2019 Popular Woodworking Modern Parametric Bench project with a combination of hybrid woodworking skills and tools, using a CNC has some obvious advantages. Let’s do the math. The Cabriolet style Modern Bench has 49 main parts. 48 of them are identical. That’s a heck of a lot of repetition….

In the December 2019 Popular Woodworking article: “A Modern Parametric Bench”, I showed how any woodworker could build the project. Over the next few blog posts, I’ll get into additional project details, how to build the project with a CNC, how to build it using the Shaper Origin hand-held CNC, plus a few tricks for…

Part Three: Design Though digital woodworking tools may be different and the scales are finer, the importance of precision is the same for every woodworker. If you’re working to a precision standard and your processes reinforce it, then the only differences between digital and machine tool woodworking are the numbers. Essentially, digital woodworking is to…