Techniques

One of the best things about going to an exhibit of new or antique furniture is getting to examine the joinery , closely and from the inside of the piece....

Like most home woodworkers, my dang day job tends to get in the way of my woodworking. Despite the fact that our magazine’s woodshop is exactly seven paces from my...

While learning to saw with a handsaw on our farm in Arkansas, I had one fond wish: Please Santa Claus, bring me a Skil saw for Christmas. (He never did.)...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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....

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...

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...

I always enjoy tours of tool factories to see people (or robots) make things that are useful to my work. How a company can harness hundreds of minds and hands...

After finishing college, two of my closest friends joined the Peace Corps and were posted to rural Morocco. But within a year they were back in the United States: 20...