Archives

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. I will pull every drawer out (if [...]

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 desk, getting in there [...]

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 …

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 [...]

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 and mechanical pincers to produce [...]

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 pounds lighter, two shades [...]

In China, 2005 was the year of the rooster. In our shop, 2005 was the year of the anvil. We built a guillotine out of framing material and dropped anvils of three weights on joints to see how [...]

Trestle tables have always looked notoriously spindly and rickety to my eye. Compared to a traditional apron table, there’s just not much material there. Add to the fact that they are [...]

I get called a Luddite all the time for my affection for hand tools (Recent quip from spouse: “You know, we own a blender for a good reason”). I certainly don’t consider myself [...]

One of my favorite movies as a teen-ager had a scene where a 1940s-era G-man goes to a mystic for help in becoming a superhero. The G-man shows the mystic , named Sombra , a photo of a caped hero [...]

One of the themes coursing through the next issue of Woodworking Magazine is rethinking the role of nails in woodworking. And so I’ve been whacking a lot of cut nails lately and setting [...]