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The August issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine starts going out to subscribers this week (both print and digital subscribers), so here’s a peek inside to pique your interest.

The cover story is a Spicy Pennsylvania Box (a Queen Anne-style spice box) built by Senior Editor Glen D. Huey – with three secret compartments and a unique double-arched door (and – perhaps needless to say given its maker – it’s in figured maple).

Columbus, Ohio housewright Ron Herman is back this month with a story on how fitting your tools to your body can help make you a more efficient (and more comfortable) woodworker – and yes, he shares details of his sawbench so you can build one that’s just right for you – in If the Tool Fits…

Along the same lines, Executive Editor Robert W. Lang shows how some simple martial art movements will help your balance, concentration and efficiency – and lead to easier work – in Tai Chi & Woodworking.

Editor Christopher Schwarz had A Bright Idea for a lamp that’s shaped like an incandescent light bulb – and he had the router screaming (that’s right – the one the plugs in, not the plane) as he shaped the plywood “blades.”

I built a Shaker-inspired Coffee Table (that you may be sick of reading about – I know I am!) with through-drawers of somewhat curious construction and turned legs.

Jameel Abraham is back with Condor Tails – really honkin’ big dovetails, appropriate for a bench, that fit together like magic right out of the cuts.

Our final feature story is from Don Williams, who shares the story of how some parquet from Paris made it into his shop floor in Royal Flooring in Appalachia.

Plus, we have all the regular columns – On the Level from our editor; Letters and Tricks of the Trade from you, our gentle readers; we review the Festool CXS Drill-driver, the Lie-Nielsen Shoot Board Plane and Jet’s new dust collector in Tool Test; George Walker writes about Color Value in his Design Matters column; SAPFM member Dean Jansa is (or was at one time) The Naked Apprentice in Arts & Mysteries (I’m pretty sure he’s clothed himself in some old-school knowledge by now); Mag Ruffman (a.k.a Tool Girl) is back in our pages after a long break with the I Can Do That project, a lap desk to help keep your legs and computer cool; Bob Flexner writes about Refinishing Furniture in Flexner on Finishing; and Glen shares his plans for a new box to house his dad’s old carving tools in End Grain.

We have single issues up for sale on our web site now (both print and digital), and anyone who signs up between now and August 8 for a digital subscription will get this issue. And of course, print subscriptions are still (and will be for the foreseeable future) available for those of you who prefer to do your reading in the privacy of your “library.”

— Megan Fitzpatrick


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Showing 9 comments
  • yleteigner

    I just received my August issue mailed inside a protective plastic sheet (polybag?). Very nice!
    Is that going to be the case for every new issue?
    I hope so, as without it my magazine always arrive in a pretty bad shape..

  • Steve

    Can’t wait to see those ‘tuned’ legs…

  • Duncan D

    Dear Megan

    Don’t know about you Yankee folks but us folks down under think that if you say NOW it means from that moment on. Have been waiting to sign up to the digital subscription until the August issue comes out (as I had already bought a digital copy of the June issue) so that my subscription would start with the August issue. Read your latest blog – which I greatly enjoy – and saw in your ending paragraph

    “and anyone who signs up between NOW and August 8 for a digital subscription will get this issue”

    and signed right up, only to get the June issue delivered. I do LOVE your magazine – and your website – but maybe not enough to buy two of everything.

    PS In truth NOW in Australia generally means sometime in the distant future. A term frequently used by all levels of government, large companies and banks.

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