Learn why certain oils cure better and what makes an oil suitable for finish. Oil is one of the most important ingredients used in finishing products. Besides being a finish all by itself, oil is an important component in varnishes, polyurethanes and furniture polishes; a primary binder in stains, glazes and pore fillers; a plasticizer…

Apply layers of milk paint to add depth and contrast to your work. A visitor asked, “Paint over wood? Aren’t you obscuring wood’s natural beauty?” There are two assumptions behind these questions: Wood is naturally beautiful. Paint is thick, looks like plastic and hides whatever it covers. I’d say both assumptions are partially correct. Paint…

Gain more control over your staining with these techniques. The most popular types of stains are oil stains, also called wiping stains (though most stains are wiped after application). Oil stains are widely available at paint stores and home centers. They are very easy to use because they provide a long working time; water-based stains…

Three years ago while teaching a woodworking class at Peters Valley I met Blacksmith Eric Dennis, who was at the time the studio assistant in the iron shop. When I entered the noisy, coal-smoky, old building, Eric was in the middle of forging some impressive looking tool. Coincidentally, that very summer I was trying to…

Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from Nancy Hiller’s English Arts & Crafts Furniture: Projects and Techniques for the Modern Maker. You can get your copy at Shop Woodworking. Enjoy! Many pieces of English Arts & Crafts furniture, especially those of the Cotswolds School, feature a cheerful detail known as decorative gouging. It’s a simple…

Below is a sidebar from my “Medicine Cabinet” article, from the June 2016 issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine – how to install butt hinges using hand tools (and there are, of course, other techniques…but this is how I do it). — Megan Fitzpatrick  

Conquer some fun joinery challenges with this geometric Baillie Scott build. As soon as I saw Mackay Hugh Baillie Scott’s 1901 occasional table on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, I knew I had to make one. Baillie Scott (1865-1945) was an architect at the forefront of the Arts & Crafts…

Tool: Rectangular Mallet Manufacturer: Blue Spruce Toolworks MSRP: $85 For some woodworkers, building your own mallet is a rite of passage. After using dozens of student-made mallets, however, I wonder if many of us would be better off with a well-balanced, professionally made mallet. If you are a person who wants to buy a thing…

When you slide open a small drawer that fits nice and tight, it’s a pleasure to see well-crafted joints.  Small, handcut dovetails answer well, but sawing and chopping them requires a lot of skill and practice. Here’s a joint that’s far easier to make: a half-blind tongue and rabbet. It’s all done on the tablesaw….

Chris Schwarz shares some handy, nearly-forgotten handsaw tricks to use in the shop.

Safely make shaper-quality molding on your tablesaw without fancy jigs. By Eric Smith and Richard Tendick This how-to story has a picture-perfect ending. In fact, you might want to round up some spectators for applause in the final steps. Richard Tendick has developed a safe, simple technique to help you make narrow, complex picture-frame stock…

My dovetails are always at their best if I warm up before sawing. But I’ll be honest – when I am pressed for time I have no patience to cut an entire joint, much less prep the wood for a practice set. So here are two things I do to get my sawing on track…

In earlier posts in this series, I explained how you can take simple computer drawings and make paper patterns. In my last post, I revealed the process I used for years for making MDF patterns. But, how do you do that if you don’t own a CNC?  Outsource it. Here are a few tips on finding and…

Dale Barnard has been building furniture professionally for decades. And during a recent video shoot, it was very comforting to see that I wasn’t the only one breaking the rules on sanding. Building a Greene & Greene furniture piece means changing transition levels in the wood frequently. And that leads to either rasping, filing or…

Ebony plugs are essential to the Greene & Greene style. In fact, it would be almost inconceivable to design a Greene & Greene piece without them. They are simple to make, but woodworkers often struggle with the process. Over many years of building and teaching in the Greene & Greene style, I have developed a…

Affordable line lasers and a simple setup make for perfect angled drilling. I’m a 21st-century Windsor chairmaker. I build chairs using mostly hand tools: froes, drawknives, spokeshaves, travishers, scorps, an adze and other tools that, even in the fast-paced computer age, still comprise the most efficient way to follow the inherent strength of fibers in…

For the cost of one large piece of machinery, you can set up a complete shop with hand tools. Here’s what you need to get started.

A few shop-made appliances allow you to add stunning face-grain inlay to your work. Geometric bandings and inlay patterns, or parquetry, are widely used, from Japan to Egypt to Spain. I developed a method of creating parquetry while learning to build ouds, a musical instrument that is the ancestor of the European lute and modern…

Too many times we look for complex solutions when the answer is right in front of our eyes. This is an old trick, but a good one – drilling pilot holes for nails using the nail itself. It works with both wire nails and cut nails. With a pair of lineman’s pliers, clip the head…

Here is a handy, inexpensive way to organize your shop screws and other small bits of hardware. I cut an old section of black PVC pipe lengthwise down the middle, then into sections to fit my workshop drawer width. The 1⁄8” kerf from my table saw blade created an exact space for the 1⁄8” hardboard…

Many new chisels, especially most premium-quality chisels, have sharp lands (the beveled side edges). Some people wear cotton gloves to protect their hands when using these, but I don’t like the loss of feel and sensitivity with gloves. So I came up with a simple solution to avoid getting cut by these edges. I cut…