A woodworker friend called me with a problem. He had just built a bookcase and was trying to match the approximate sheen of a factory-finished piece of furniture he had and couldn’t find a polyurethane that was flat enough. What should he do? He had tried rubbing it with coarse abrasives to match the sheen…

As I’ve said many times, one of the reasons finishing seems difficult to amateur woodworkers is that the manufacturers targeting these woodworkers provide bad directions that don’t produce good results. One reason for many of these bad directions is that these manufacturers believe amateur woodworkers want to be able to finish their projects in a…

Our finishing expert shares some tips gained from a house-painter friend.

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…

By George R. Walker Meet Reid Schwartz: artist, interested human, maker of tools, worker of wood and restorer of old things. It’s hard to think of a craft that’s not tied to woodworking in some way. Wood is either the material of choice or it’s found in the tools used to shape other materials, such…

Try Squares While you can certainly use a typical machinist’s combination square for layout work, they aren’t particularly friendly to the hand, they are heavy and they can easily, if mishandled, ding the wood. In contrast, a wooden square feels soft, light and warm to the touch and is a thing of beauty to look…

A woodworker friend called me with a problem. He had just built a bookcase and was trying to match the approximate sheen of a factory-finished piece of furniture he had and couldn’t find a polyurethane that was flat enough. What should he do? He had tried rubbing it with coarse abrasives to match the sheen…

A lot of woodworkers avoid staining whenever possible because of the problems that can occur. Instead of staining, they use a beautiful wood that gives the color they want to begin with. Most think of blotching as uneven coloring in the wood caused by stain penetrating deeper in some areas than others. Most tight-grained woods…

Read part one of the story here. After most of the rough excavation was done (using an adze or a gouge – what ever works best for you) we need to clean out the vault and even out its surface. I held the hollowed branch in my Jawhorse Workbench and with some medium sweep gouges…

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

Resawing on the bandsaw allows you to cut logs into lumber, make thin boards from thick and cut your own veneer. Here’s how.

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…

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…

In this series, I’ve covered tools for standardization, tools for measuring and tools for precision. Now, it’s time to bring it all together with a few recommendations for different kinds of woodworking. How much accuracy you need depends on the kind of woodworking that you do. Remember that for hundreds of years, woodworkers got away…

Over the last few weeks, I’ve made several posts about measuring tools in the series Precision Instruments for Woodworkers. The purpose of the series is to introduce the idea of precision through establishing standards for accuracy with a few high-quality instruments and to test all of your measuring tools against them. It’s a simple theory: If…

When people injure themselves in the shop, their first reaction is to grab the wound and refuse to look. Sadly, this is the same attitude many woodworkers take with the squareness of their components: They refuse to look and hope things will work out. While there are lots of areas of woodworking where squareness doesn’t…

This simple plywood cover ensures the base of your drill press won’t collect lost hardware, or become home to the occasional shop mouse.

A mobile workbench is handy in a small shop—until you want it to stand still! These levers work like a cam and prevent the bench from wiggling.

This towel-bar style glue-up rack takes up very little shop space and comes in handy when you need to clamp up a small panel.