Reviewing Saws (and Automobiles) is Kinda Dumb

First, let me say that I am guilty of the behavior that I am discussing below. When I reviewed tools for Popular Woodworking Magazine for 20 years, I fell into the trap I’m about to describe. After decades of woodworking, I have achieved a bit of wisdom. And I think this entry is some of it. Here we go. Reviews of new cars are generally crap. Most new cars drive […]

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The Ugly Tape Measure Contest

If you’ve got the worst of the worst, we’ll send you the best of the best. My Popular Woodworking blog series about measuring tools, squares, and tapes we use: “Precision Instruments” is now complete.  Now, I thought it would be fun to have a little contest for readers of this blog. As I confessed, I’m a bit of an obsessive when it comes to quality tape measures having spent years searching […]

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C-Clamps for Demanding Jobs

In my ongoing quest for finding adequate substitutions for the vanishing North American clamp manufacturers, I recently discovered an exceptionally strong forged steel C-clamp that will surely give us decades of dependable use. Woodworkers rarely use large capacity C-Clamps. Instead, we prefer the more rapid to open and close F-clamps, or the Parallel jaws clamps. However, C-clamps are better for repeated clamping of materials of similar thicknesses. Think about a […]

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A Simple Saw Till From One Piece of Construction Lumber

I bought my first set of nice joinery saws a decade ago. Since then, I’ve acquired a handful more. A saw till has been on the to-do list this entire time. Finally, when I discovered a design so simple that it could be finished in seven table saw cuts, the “King of Procrastination” got off his butt. The basis of the till is a single block of wood. Cut an […]

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Building Adirondack Chairs in Shop Class

Editor’s note: This article was submitted by Tavish, a Technology Education instructor in Central New York. He shares how he led his class in building 10 Adirondack chairs. – David Lyell Introduction to our process I spent quite a bit of time reading up on Adirondack chairs in an attempt to find out what issues the typical ADK designs have. Most of the ones that I’d sat in over the […]

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Exploded Sofa Table

My mom recently requested I build her a sofa table since everything she found was either too big or too small. Her size requires were 30″ High, 14″ Deep, and 46″ Wide. As long as I hit those dimensions she didn’t care what the table looked like. I took this as a fun opportunity to design on the fly, experimenting with some ‘new to me’ ideas and tapping into my creative side. Like any project that ventures into weird art, I fully expect some folks to not like it. Heck, I’m not even sure I totally like it. But it did allow me to explore some new ideas and test the limits of this construction method, which could be inherently problematic. Who knows, maybe I’ll start a new line of  “exploded” furniture! Or not. But hey, it was a blast to build!

I’d like to thank all of the folks on Instagram who contributed ideas during this build process. I’d also like to thank the folks who mentioned that the piece looked like an exploded diagram, as that helped me establish the overall theme for the project. Because of the design on the fly nature of this project, there is no plan.

Products Used:

• Hedgehog Spiral Featherboard
• West System Epoxy
• Titebond CA Glue
• Osmo Polyx
• ScotchBrite Pads

Gallery:

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Build a Folding Plant – Project Plan Spotlight

Less than one sheet of plywood and a long afternoon are all you need to build a functional and foldable floral display. When you have a lot of plants to display, you are always looking for ways to show them off to their best advantage. Or maybe you just want to cover that hole where a gopher dug under the house. Either way, this plant stand is a great way […]

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All Natural: Can Shellac Be Marketed As All Natural?

I got a question from a professional woodworker wanting to know if he could market the shellac he used as “all natural,” or if Zinsser put non-natural ingredients in their shellac that didn’t evaporate. Great question, because it brings up the issue of the safety of “natural” substances. This term is used a lot to indicate that the substance is safe for humans. But there are all sorts of poisons […]

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Unsettled

Dismantling a man’s workshop I’m sure others would feel the same way. Unsettledness accompanies everyone’s equilibrium in many ways, moving house, moving workshop (or both on one month again for me), but the sense of purpose is what’s important and I feel that. Mostly my workshops have been fairly long-lived with perhaps a short one […]

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Make Your Cooker a Looker: Affordable Stove Upgrade

Warning: This post falls under the category “First World Problems.”  This week we continue the kitchen design theme, but with an affordable stove upgrade instead of cabinets. Full disclosure: we’re talking about the most superficial aspect of a stove, its appearance. Yes, the stove is a tool – a conventional necessity for cooking food (at least in modern kitchens, which don’t typically revolve around a wood-burning hearth). Sure, you could fry […]

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Safe Key-ping…Or One For the Kids

In need of a safe, inconspicuous spot to keep a spare gate key, I made this fake nesting box. It could be a permanent nesting site for cavity nesters too, with a little modification. Though I have never forgotten or lost my keys in all my 68 years, things could one day change. A Masters […]

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Join Me Live on PopWood Playback! #12

Sometimes I have hair-brained ideas. I really have no idea how this one is going to go, but I’d like to invite ANYONE who produces YouTube woodworking videos to join me on PopWood playback LIVE. We film PopWood Playback every Thursday afternoon, which I understand will not work for many people who have a day job and produce content as a side-hustle, but we are willing to accommodate a different […]

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Dealing With Wood Tension – Friday Live!

1:11 – Welcome to Friday Live!

1:38 – Support the show at Patreon!

1:42 – New question answering format

3:09 – Gifts from Australia

3:18 – Eyemuffs

6:03 – Tage Frid Teaches Woodworking

7:25 – IsoTunes Pro giveaway part two!

7:51 – Lie Nielsen chisel set giveaway for the guild!

9:03 – Sofa Table – Will be on free site!

11:26 – Are you still shipping TWW Mugs?

12:20 – TWW Guild Leather aprons are back in stock!

12:39 – Significant binding when sawing 8/4, what’s going on?

15:10 – Paint sprayer to decrease finishing time? Fuji HVLP

16:08 – Sizing tenons properly. Chris Schwarz article

20:13 – Any recommendations for a small compressor? California Air Tools

21:46 – How do you feed a kids natural passion for woodworking? – I made it Workshops

25:58 – Are the TWW WoodTaps coming back? Available at Eagle America.

26:28 – What’s the strength difference between the domino and a beadlock tenon?

29:08 – How many challenge coins does Nicole have? Will Marc ever build her a display rack?

30:10 – Do you design with kids in mind? Do your kids ever run into your freshly completed project?

32:53 – What hand plane should I get to start? Check this out. 

36:14 – How do you feel about resin in wood over time?

37:27 – Is there anything you would do differently with the Barrister Bookcase?

39:01 – Why doesn’t Marc upload as much to his YouTube channel?

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Bring a Drawbore Home with Andy Rawls – Community Post

Editor’s note: We have some great content on drawboring – check out Chris’s article here and some of Chuck’s period furniture observations here. Andy Rawls submitted this video and caption to the Shop Blog – if you have a tip, commentary or any other type of content to submit to the blog, send me a note. My email is linked here. – David Lyell  Drawboring is a technique that allows […]

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Experiment: Plastic Rotting Strips

One of the important features on tool chests are what I call “rotting strips” – pieces of wood between the chest and floor that protect the bottom of the chest from water. And, if the chest does get wet, these strips rot before the bottom of the chest. I’m in the middle of building a couple of tool chests for customers. And one of the customers wanted to add casters […]

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Lunette & Floral Carving

This traditional pattern can dress up any panel. by Peter Follansbee I’ve carved so many oak boxes that I lost track of their number long ago. I’ll sometimes bump into one, or a photograph, and say, “Oh, I forgot I did that one…” But one design I come back to over and over again is the first pattern I learned, which I did three decades ago by studying museum examples. […]

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There’s a Book You Should Read

I’ve written so much on how I feel about my work, how I chose what I chose as a way of life, why I work the way I do and do what I do. The way I do it is not mainstream any more that’s true, and I rarely meet others like myself any more, […]

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Shop Supports – Learn to Cut Three Joints by Hand

I have used what I call “shop supports” for many years. These are not sawhorses, and they are not outfeed tables – they’re somewhere in between, and I find them indispensable. I use them to temporarily store and sort lumber that I get in for workshops I teach at the Woodwright’s School. And when I process stock, the shop supports are tall enough that I do not have to do […]

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High-Five to All of YOU!

We sailed right past the 275,000 mark on my YouTube channel in a matter of a few hours when the call went out thanks to you being there with us. It’s been fun for all of us here and everyone out there too to see the comments and the support you always give. Remember that […]

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My Latest Design—How it Unfolds

When an idea occurs it arrives with no plans and no prior planning. In a split second a picture appears as if from nowhere and the train of thoughts begins. Not copying the designs of others does not mean you didn’t see something and allow components to register in your psyche. No written notes, no […]

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Smart Paint for the Blind and Visually Impaired

This is another installment in my series on smart coatings. You can access the others by typing in “smart” in the search box near the top of my main blog page. For this installment, I’m reporting on some pioneering work being done at Ohio State University. If you live in or near Columbus, Ohio you may be familiar with some of the testing areas. The goal is to make it […]

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How Tight Should the Table Saw Arbor Nut Be?

We’re working on adding a lot of back content to our YouTube channel. So, just as a heads up, you’ll see some basic videos, like this one, from time to time. These videos are really fundamental to many of our readers, but in an effort to serve the next generation woodworkers on YouTube, we’re adding reference material to our channel. These videos will be recommended through the YouTube search feature (that […]

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We must practice to gain facility…

Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt from The Art and Craft of Cabinet-Making. This book provides an incredible look into traditional woodworking instruction. Though the English sounds peculiar to the modern ear, the commentary is evergreen. Pick up a copy and connect with a bygone era of craftsmanship. – David Lyell The tools being ready, it may fairly be supposed that the novice is anxious to use them, and to […]

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Quit Worshiping at the Church of Inside Corners

One of my stranger findings from years of working with clients to redesign their kitchens is that people will guard their cubic footage like an angry vulture with a road-killed skunk. Suggest that they leave some portion of the space unused and they break into a cold sweat. Don’t get me wrong. I understand the importance of utilizing space. Most of the kitchens I work in are small, typically in […]

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The Building Works!

We moved in and the building team followed The construction is going well and we are a third of the way through. Steel girders and beams, steel studs, insulation and sound-block plasterboard are all in place and, well, to be honest, it’s beginning to feel more like home again (whatever that is?). The mezzanine that […]

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Why Build a Tool Chest?

During the last six years, I’ve built a lot of tool chests for customers. To many woodworkers, this might seem odd. Why not build one yourself? The answer is simple. Why not build your own handplanes? Your chisels? Forge the steel for your tools? Mine the iron ore and learn to transform it into steel? We all have a point at which we’ll say: Someone else can do that job. […]

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Popwood Playback #11 – Top Woodworking Videos of the Week

This week I’ve been busy working on building the Ultimate Lathe Stand. I’ve needed a home for my old Craftsman lathe, so why not build the ULTIMATE stand for it?! It’s a great build by Alan Lacer, though I’ve had to adapt the plans for a larger lathe and I’ve decreased some of the complexity by removing the 5-degree angle on the legs. It’s been a great aerobic exercise in moving […]

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SawStop Breeds Complacency? – Friday Live!

Today we tackle a number of questions including whether or not SawStop breeds complacency.

Time codes will be available soon.

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Harbor Freight Clamps One Year Later

A year ago I wrote about the demise of America’s clamp manufacturers and my choice to try a few inexpensive alternatives for the obsolete Pony, Wetzler and the like. We decided to buy a few types of Harbor Freight clamps and give them a try. A year of use has passed and here are my thoughts on the matter. Harbor Freight F-Clamps. We got six small clamps and I have […]

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Win an X-Carve CNC from Inventables

Inventables is hosting a contest for aspiring and seasoned entrepreneurs. Their CNC, the X-Carve, has been a go-to machine for many startups and hobbyists for years. It’s great to see them giving back to the community and inspiring makers to produce video content at the same time. They have two categories, each eligible to win a X-Carve Business Bundle. The first is for “Individuals who do not own an X-Carve.” You have […]

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The Power of User Groups – How to Learn CNC

In the December 2017 Popular Woodworking article called “Digital Artistry… How five masterful makers integrate CNC and CAD technology into their woodworking”, five professional woodworkers showed how they’ve added digital woodworking skills and tools to their traditional, hybrid and hand tool woodworking skill sets. The makers are Darrell Peart, Curtis Erpelding, Bob Spangler, David Myka and myself. All of us have traditional woodworking backgrounds but have embraced new technologies as […]

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I’ve 3 Giveaway Prizes to Share

To share my skills and abilities with woodworkers around the world I use my blog, social media, our woodworkingmasterclasses.com channel and my YouTube channel. The platforms have served me well as we explore the different channels for passing on our work to a global audience. YouTube seems to need a constant boost and I don’t […]

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Crosscutting Sled – Just 5 Pieces of Wood

The sled we use the most in our shop is the one shown here. I built it five years ago, and it is as accurate as the day I made it. I built it in response to my frustrations with fancy sliding tables, Jim-crack miter gauges and other silly devices used to crosscut wood at 90°. This sled and my panel-cutting sled handle all of my crosscutting needs. Here’s how […]

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Which Way Does the Router Spin? – Tricks of the Trade

I learned this in engineering school and soon found out it worked for my router. It is called the “right-hand thumb rule.” When trying to remember which way your router bit is spinning so you can feed the wood in the correct direction, you can use the right-hand thumb rule. Pretend your right hand is a router and your thumb is the router bit. If you are holding the router […]

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Aftermarket Splitters & Riving Knives for Powermatic 66 Table Saw

I recently posted a video to our YouTube channel that discussed proper tightening of a saw blade nut (hand tightened is usually enough) and was surprised by the number of comments not on the focus of the video, but on the splitter shown on our Powermatic 66. I apologize for getting a bit technical (tool nerd!), but this is worth a bit of discussion. First, our Powermatic 66 table saw has […]

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It’s Not Too Late!

Sometimes some people just think things are always black and white and then comes colour to colour our lives. Let’s take a stab at this and see where we end up. Woodworking is for everyone that wants it at any time they choose to take it up. With that out of the way let’s look […]

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Surviving A Shop Move 101 – Camille Woodworking

Editor’s note: Bryant documented his move process on his Instagram account, of which I have been a follower for a long time. I asked him to write a blog post to share his thoughts in a longer format. Enjoy! – David Lyell You’ve been putting it off for months, you knew it was coming. Perhaps the lease is up on your shop, or you bought a new house with a […]

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Compatibility of Applying One Type of Finish Over Another

A professional woodworker got in touch with this question. He had finished a sixty-foot long countertop for a brewery tasting room with catalyzed (conversion) varnish. After the finish dried for three weeks, the client decided he would like the finish to be glossier and have the same amber tone as the other countertop, which had been finished with polyurethane. To complicate this woodworker’s situation even more, he couldn’t spray this […]

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An Extra-Thin Frame and Panel Back

A current job called for a solid wood frame and panel back that would fit in a 5/16″ rabbet. That’s really thin for a frame-and-panel assembly, at least in my world. (Granted, for Bill Robertson, it’s positively gargantuan.) Ordinarily, I like such backs to be 1/2″ thick. One way I’ve dealt with this combo of frame-and-panel back plus shallow rabbet in the past is to make the panel 1/2″ thick, […]

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Hannah’s Work in Progress

A Year Soon Passed It’s a little over a year now since I started working with Hannah. She’s practicing her craft and has made many projects ranging from smaller boxes to clocks, her workbench and then all things in between. From the beginning she’s proven herself willing and teachable and that she loves every element […]

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Dovetail Angles are Style, Not Substance

For dovetails, I use what I call a “redneck slope” – 1:4 or 14°. I like this slope because I’ve seen it on a lot of vernacular pieces I’ve studied. It says: Dovetail y’all! And not: Ill-defined box joint. But that’s just what my eye sees. Truth is, dovetail slopes are more about fashion than their mechanical properties. When I started woodworking, my head was injected with a lot of […]

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A Dovetailing Trick for Beginners

I don’t think I’ve cut a single dovetail for eight months – my work has been mostly chairs and casework that relied on other joints. So I’m a bit out of practice. When this happens and I need to cut dovetails, I quickly default to the method I use to teach students to dovetail. This method helps build good habits when sawing and helps you fix any mistakes. This method […]

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Powerless Woodworker – When a Nor’easter Rolls in to Town

The latest Nor’easter left us powerless. On Wednesday afternoon we lost electricity to the elements. The snow that began falling that morning didn’t seem that hospitable, to say the least. It was wet and clingy. When I noticed the rate of accumulation and the sagging branches on all the trees in our neighborhood, I said to my partner, “this storm is a limb killer.” And indeed my dire prediction came […]

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Beyond Piston-Fit Drawers and Perfect Dovetails – With Saw, Plane & Chisel

Editor’s note: The following post is from Zachary Dillinger out of his book, With Saw, Plane & Chisel. I’ve wanted to share more of this remarkable text for some time, so we’ve arranged for Zachary to share excerpts for the next month. Enjoy! – David Lyell “I have written this book in a manner that reflects the techniques I used to make the furniture projects herein. I cannot pretend to have provided […]

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Popwood Playback #10 – Best Woodworking Videos of the Week

We tried a new format this week for Popwood Playback. We ended up with a slightly longer video, but we included a pretty in-depth first look at the installation of the Kreg Precision Router Lift. Let us know if there are other types of tools or equipment that you are interested in seeing on Popwood Playback! The form to enter the contest is at the bottom of the post. Enjoy! – […]

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Is the Scrub Plane a Sledge Hammer?

Someone wrote in and said, “Sharpening a scrub plane iron to strop level,10,000-grit—Really?” Well, I thought to myself, ‘Where did that come from anyway?” I mean, Yes! Why not? Then I said to myself, ‘Why, anyway?’   I’m not altogether sure if it was a rhetorical question but it felt like it. The short answer […]

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A Quick Method for Creating Tabletop Buttons

Tabletop buttons are an easy and effective way to attach a table to its base. They allow for seasonal movement as they pivot and slide within their mortise. This video shows a quick and simple way to make buttons with hand tools.   You’ll want to mark a centerline with your marking gauge down the length of your blank, then saw to this line on each side of your blank. […]

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The Artisan Process – Woodworking Without Electricity

Editor’s note: You can pick up the Jim Tolpin’s Classics Collection for a great price right now over at ShopWoodworking.com.  When I approached the writing of Measure Twice, Cut Once–and especially later when developing The New Traditional Woodworker – I realized I needed to step back to a time when we woodwrights worked without electricity. I needed to immerse myself in the era in which we produced furniture solely with the […]

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Precision Instruments for Woodworkers – Part Four: Recommended Tools

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 with few or no measuring tools, yet still produced amazingly accurate work. How? It’s because […]

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How to Make a Plywood Throat Plate for Band Saws

It is surprising how important is a tight throat plate to ensure successful sawing on the bandsaw. A  throat plate with a narrow kerf that flanks the blade neatly will prevent small wedge-shaped parts that separate during the sawing process from jamming the blade. Our Grizzly Band saw came with plastic throat plate that had unusually wide kerf. This plate agonized us for a long time, that is until I […]

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How to Get Rid of Black stains on an Exterior Door

In the October, 2017 issue of Popular Woodworking, page 10, I answered a question from a reader concerning how to handle paint on an exterior door that was beginning to lift at the cross-grain joints where water was able to get in and work its way underneath. This inspired another reader to ask how to remove black stains on his clear-finished exterior door (at least one coat of polyurethane) and […]

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Ruskin’s Moral Elements of Gothic: A Foundation of the Arts and Crafts Movement

Kudos to all who accepted last week’s challenge to match features of my recently completed dining table commission with the list of John Ruskin’s “moral elements of Gothic” from his magnum opus, The Stones of Venice. I am impressed by the thoughtful answers submitted by everyone who wrote in. The winner,  by virtue of having responded first, is Edward Hopkins. As I write this post on Sunday evening, I am […]

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Percentages %%%%% Make Sense in Outcome!

When I first arrived to live stateside as a migrant in the USA, people seemed highly respectful toward craft and a crafting background. Having apprenticed through a bona fide indentured apprenticeship in woodworking, I was often invited to speak at different engagements and it soon made me feel quite settled. I was surprised by the […]

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How to Make a Cloud Lifted Ebony Spline

Greene & Greene (G&G) breadboard ends are never flush with the edge or top of a table top.  This proud look is then capped with a polished Ebony spline embedded in a mortise between the breadboard end and the table top infield. The spline profile is lifted (often called a cloud lift) to accentuate the proud look of the breadboard end relative to the infield.  Furthermore, the spline is pillowed […]

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PopWood Playback #9 – Best Woodworking Videos of the Week

We had some great videos this week, thank you all for submitting the best woodworking videos! I’d like to draw special attention to Simple Cove’s video series on building a cherry wall cabinet. He adapted the build from plans that appeared in the pages of our magazine and has shared the entire series in an easy to follow along format on his site, simplecove.com. Thanks, Sean! Here are the best […]

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