I know not fitting a woodworking vise file has a powered jointer but the same thing can be accomplished with a hand plane and a little sweat. Privacy Policy Admin. Of course, after building the first bookstand,…. This is when you make your stiles longer than they need to be, usually…. Spacing Dovetails with Dividers — a Little History.

And then building on these new skills, complete a small-scale sprung footstool, by hand tying springs, and learning basic cutting and folding techniques, then finishing off the corners with proper blind stitches. The class will also include a complete discussion of tools and machines, as well as tip s on common repair techniques such as replacing buttons without having to open up the chair!

Students will receive a booklet containing, excerpts, illustrations, yardage charts, and sources of supply. This class is for anyone with an interest in the tools, terminology and techniques of the upholstery trade. All of the tools you will need will be provided by Mike but if you shoulld want to bring your own the list is below.

The use of hide glue and hammer veneering goes back thousands of years. The walls of ancient Egyptian tombs portray craftsmen sawing veneers, mixing glue in a pot and laying those veneers down with the same hammer technique that is just as effective today as it was back then. Why this ancient technique has fallen out of favor eludes me. Join nationally known furniture maker, Steve Latta for this information packed two day workshop where we will take a hard look at hide glue and its characteristics, veneers, their preparation and usage, and the hammer veneering technique for laying them down.

Sign up today- this is a class you will not want to miss! Did you hear? Books are actually cool again, and here's a nice way to show off a small part of your collection.

This compact bookshelf can sit on your desk or hang from a wall and it turns any space into your personal library. We'll even add some simple chip carving to finish off the project and add a new skill to your toolbox. In this two-weekend class led by Mike Pekovich, you'll learn efficient ways to cut dovetails and through-tenons, as well as how to construct and fit drawers. It's a lot of fun in a small package and it will definitely brighten your home.

Sign up today- Class is limited to 8 participants. This class is for people who are serious about woodworking and want to learn how to use the SketchUp 3D design program to save time and money in the shop. With SketchUp, you preview the actual construction of a piece and generate absolutely accurate plans, patterns, and templates.

The class is built around four rules for success for using the program to its best advantage. You bring a Windows or Mac laptop loaded with the free version of SketchUp. We spend the morning on exercises that introduce the important SketchUp tools and get you accustomed to working in a 3D space on the computer.

In the afternoon, you see how the rules for success work by designing a piece of furniture. You'll also learn how to create measured drawings and a cutlist. Go to www. Explore the art of seatweaving in this new two-day hands on class. Bringing old or new chairs to a sittable state can be achieved with a variety of different weaves and that is what this class is all about.

We will begin with some history of cane, rush, wicker and a wide assortment of seating styles. On your first day, you will choose to weave a small stool using either fiber rush or porch weave.

Learning these two techniques opens the doors to many variations using the same weave technique but moving on to different materials of your choice. Chairs should be in a finished state, as caning is the last step to a complete project.

Caning kits with cane, awl, booklet and wooden pegs will be available. We will need measurements of your chair 2 weeks prior to class to assure the correct size of cane. Sue Muldoon is a seatweaver among other things and owns Redux For You, repairing chairs and memories. She has taught over a hundred students in and looking forward to sharing her skills. You can use power tools all day long, but you'll never know the true joy of the craft until you introduce hand tools into your woodworking.

In this weekend class Mike Pekovich will take you through a series of skill-building exercises designed to boost competence and confidence using the essential hand tools. We'll focus on chisel, block plane, backsaw, spokeshave and scraper skills, and also take time to talk about getting truly sharp with each tool.

You'll gain a better understanding of the geometry and ergonomics involved in making a hand tool work for you. The emphasis of this class is on making shavings not furniture parts, so there's no stress involved. The aim is to have fun and gain some skills and confidence with your tools that you can then bring to your woodworking projects.

He prefers to work with handtools when possible. One of the foundations of superior furniture making is good layout. Good layout is based on the ability to cut a single accurate layout line. This is accomplished with a good layout knife and a good cutting gauge. Surprisingly good cutting gauges seem to be a thing of the past. Sure- there are some out there with really pretty rosewood and brass- but if you look a little closer you see how badly they are made, how poor the cutter is it is ground incorrectly and it is usually installed backwards!

Why not join Bob Van Dyke in this weekend class to make you own cutting gauge. Based on a design he learned from woodworking expert Will Neptune, this gauge has all the attributes of a great marking tool. In your choice of cherry or walnut. This tool will out perform any cutting gauge on the market today- and- you made it yourself!

You will learn some good woodworking techniques, shape your own cutting gauge to fit your hand and learn how to sharpen and use the tool, accurately over and over, meet some new people and have a good time doing it! Section A: Friday, March 5 am - pm. This class is an introduction for woodworkers interested in learning how to sharpen their own handsaws and backsaws. The curriculum will cover jointing, filing teeth to uniform size and gullet depth, setting, and final sharpening.

Topics discussed in depth will include the geometric and functional distinction between rip and crosscut teeth and how fleam and rake are combined to maximize the function of cutting along or across wood fibers. Proper file selection, filing technique, and saw vise requirements will also be discussed. No prior knowledge of saw sharpening is required. The class will be hands on with each student learning to sharpen a rip and crosscut saw. Students are encouraged to bring one or two saws only.

These saws must be in decent shape. This is a sharpening class- not a saw rehab class! Matt Cianci is a professional saw doctor. Are you tired of trying to use dull chisels and handplanes? Many beginning woodworkers are sucked into the advertising for the latest and greatest jig to use when in fact, sharpening any chisel or plane iron is a simple and quick process that does not require a whole bunch of expensive and time consuming equipment.

We will explore the techniques required to do the initial tune up the tool in order to create a razor sharp edge. Using two stones, a simple and cheap honing guide and a simple projection jig that you will make in class you will learn how to maintain that edge in under 3 minutes each time you re-sharpen.

This class will focus on basic sharpening techniques but will also go into the many different types of sharpening stones, machines and guides on the market. We will also explore using a bench grinder to repair edges and what its role is in day to day sharpening. The key to successful and fast sharpening is to have a consistent bevel angle- whatever that is.

Before you start sharpening your own tools you will make a simple projection jig which ensures you are using the same angle every time you sharpen. Time permitting, sharpening a card scraper will also be demonstrated. Bring along a chisel or plane iron to work with- Please- Do not bother bringing an old beat up tool- This is NOT a Chisel Rehab class- A new tool will teach you much more and you will actually have success sharpening it.

This work is some of the most exciting green woodworking happening today. Hollowing the bowl is done with a tool called a hook knife, or spoon knife. Tools should be sharp. Follansbee will have some hook knives for students to use, but if you have some, be sure to bring them.

Sharpening the tools will also be covered. Take some time for yourself! Spend a week with some of this country's best woodworking instructors. Lunch break is approximately one hour. A refrigerator is available as well as local restaurants and convenience stores. Lodging assistance is available should you need it. This popular six-day intensive hands-on class is an opportunity to concentrate on the basics of woodworking and furniture making. Each student will make a Shaker style cherry hall table, which is a perfect vehicle to practice the machine and hand-tool techniques that we teach in the class.

Subjects covered include basic shop safety, machine use with particular emphasis on the tablesaw, jointer and planer , using handplanes, card scrapers and chisels effectively to surface and hand-fit the mortice and tenon joints, handtool sharpening, making tapered legs and grain matching and gluing up a top. This is not an appropriate class for absolute beginners.

Some experience is suggested. This class provides a strong foundation for more advanced furniture projects. Join nationally know inlay expert, Steve Latta as we explore and push the limits of adding distinctive decorative details to your work.

Furniture makers have lots of options for enhancing their work. Inlay and ornamental veneer work are two of the oldest methods dating back to ancient Egypt. We will begin the week with line-and-berry inlay, a technique native to Chester County PA, which is where Steve lives. Although a great deal of information will be presented, students will have ample time to practice and gain an understanding of these techniques.

We will use a variety of tools including handtools, power tools and some tools that we will make in class. You should plan on acquiring a few tools that are basic to this kind of work. A Dremel equiped with a foot switch and the Stew Mac base along with the radius cutter from Lie Nielsen toolworks are strongly suggested.

You will gain an understanding and dexterity in manipulating them all in this exciting and unique class. To many woodworkers, the tall case clock represents the pinnacle of furniture making.

This is your chance to reach that summit. Originally trained in England, in Harland emigrated to Norwich, CT, where he openned a busy shop,training numerous clockmakers, among them well known clock maker Daniel Burnap who later went on to train Eli Terry. During the class we will make a trip to the Wadsworth Atheneum to study one of the Harland clocks in their collection. Construction starts right at the top. Challenge yourself and your woodworking skills while building a piece of American history.

Chuck Bender is a master furniture maker who runs his own school The Acanthus Workshop in Pennsylvania. This is an opportunity to work with one of the best furniture makers in the country- You do not want to miss it!!

We will meet for five days in July, take a break so you can do your homework- and then come back for 3 days in September. This six-day class course will take you, step-by-step, through the process of building a traditional Windsor Sack Back Chair, entirely by hand.

It will cover every aspect of making a Windsor chair, beginning with lumber selection, riving parts out of a log, hand shaping, working with compound angles, all the way through final assembly. Concentration will be on the making of a strong chair joint. The building of this Windsor chair will be primarily with hand tools. Due to the limitations of time all the turned parts will be provided. Some specialized handtools will be required in addition to the "general tool list" below.

That list will be posted here early David Douyard is a well-known chairmaker in Northwest Connecticut. His work has been featured in several magazines and he has taught contemporary and Windsor chairmaking extensively. Are you starting to gather a hand tool collection but have no place to put it?

Here's a great tool chest that's big enough for an essential tool set, but small enough to take along with you to your next woodworking class.

It features a tool well at the top where you can easily access all of your planes, saws and chisels. A pair of drawers below offer even more storage as. Finally, we'll build dovetailed drawers and outfit the interior with dividers custom-fit for your tools.

Your collection of tools need a safe place to be and what better way to bring them to your next class at CVSW! What better way to spend a week than to put a woodcarving gouge in your hand, create something beautiful- and have fun! Mary May, a well-known professional woodcarver and instructor from South Carolina, will walk you through the carving process using a variety of relief carving projects.

Starting the week with a floral relief design and then moving onto a scallop shell, the class will cap off the week with that wonderful and traditional acanthus leaf that is seen on so many period furniture pieces.

Throughout the week Mary will also demonstrate a variety of tricks and techniques on how to efficiently use the gouges, how to make difficult carving cuts, how to sharpen tools to a razor sharp edge, and how to make the carving appear deeper than it actually is.

Students will have the opportunity of working on projects of their own choosing along with projects that Mary has selected for their suitability in teaching the skills being demonstrated. This is a perfect class for both beginners and experienced carvers. Sign up today- This is a week that you will not want to miss! The idea of making jigs and fixtures for the tablesaw is always one that creates a lot of debate. This class is Not a beginning tablesaw class. Note: because of the design of the jigs for the table saw you must have a table saw with a Biessemeyer type fence.

Bench top or "Job site" saws will not work with these jigs. Please specify tablesaw you have when registering for this class. If you have any questions please contact Bob Van Dyke directly at This email address is being protected from spambots. We will start out the week making a cross-cut sled. Armed with the knowledge to make the sled you will probably go home and make more- for cutting dados, wide panels and specialized tasks. The next jig to be made will be a tenoning jig- but this is not just any tenoning jig.

This jig is designed for accuracy and versatility. Mass is what it is all about. The mass of this jig means no vibration which translates into complete accuracy. The size of the jig means that you can easily clamp large assemblies to it think breadboard end table top. Used in conjunction with two rip blades and a precisely made spacer, accurate tenons are a snap.

The next two jigs were developed by Bob and are two of the most valuable tablesaw add on jigs you can imagine! How many times have you clamped a sacrificial scrap of plywood to the fence to cut a rabbet and then had to move the clamps because they were in the way of the cut?

And- have you ever heard of pattern cutting on the tablesaw? Any extra time during the class will be devoted to making a series of small fixtures for the tablesaw: drop stops, sliding stops, hold-downs and really simple feather-boards. This six day hands-on class is an opportunity to concentrate on good solid furniture making techniques.

Maybe you have been working in the shop for years but never really knew if you were doing things efficiently or correctly- or- maybe you are fairly new to woodworking and want to get a good solid foundation in the basics of furniture making. Grain matching is essential to any table and we will concentrate on that when we glue up our tops.

Dovetails are an essential skill and the dovetailed drawer blades and the dovetailed drawer will give you a good chance to practice this. This is not a class for complete beginners. It does assume some experience with tablesaws, routers and some handtools.

This class provides a strong foundation for more advanced furniture projects while making a great side table that will compliment any home. And who knows? You might make some new friends and have a great time doing it! A chest of this size lends itself to a variety of uses other than storing blankets — coffee table — toy chest — hope chest - etc. The project will be built using wide Honduras Mahogany. This insures continuity throughout the whole piece- both in color and grain type.

The finger joints for the case will be machined using a routing template which will also be available for sale should you want to make more in your own shop.

Students should have a basic familiarity with table saws, routers and bandsaws for this class. It is not a beginner level class. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about your readiness for the class.

Sign up today- space is limited and I am sure this class will sell out. Section A: Monday - Saturday, June 7 - 12 , am - pm. With its angled joinery and curved parts, a chair can be an intimidating project to build. Along the way you'll also learn how to update a classic style by adding simple details.

The slip seat frame will be made in class and well-known upholster Mike Mascelli will be here on the last day to guide you through making the upholstered slip seat. We will have more information on the "show cover" as the class gets closer. If not we will at least discuss and demonstrate it. I took the weekend woodturning class this weekend with Cory Anderson and just wanted to let you know how fabulous I thought he was.

Click here for more information. Workshops are designed to satisfy beginner, intermediate and advanced woodworkers in a relaxed, hands-on format. Tool snobs beware: This post is about an inexpensive tool that is useful for woodworking and without an ounce of style or charm. In the cabinet industry, plastic laminate files are used for filing the edges of plastic laminate after trimming with a router.

In that world, they are a consumable item and are purchased…. Zachary Dillinger. I hate end grain. In my work, I take great pains to hide every square inch of it.

This often means cutting joinery that is more involved. For example, on my spice chest, I could simply have used through-dovetails to join the top to the sides of the case. Like the original maker, I chose…. Glen Huey. In fact, building the Carolina cellarette in the February issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine is the first time I have used if I remember correctly. When the time came to build bottle dividers for the bottom of the case,…. As a child, I disliked assembling puzzles.

But Lincoln Logs, on the other hand, had my full attention. Yes, I know I was not a consistent child. This week I drove to the Headley-Whitney Museum…. The new Domino XL makes much larger joints— large enough for almost any project. If you consider the original Domino to be the…. By Christopher Schwarz From the Spring issue of Woodworking Magazine, pages When I was taught to cut rabbets in my first woodworking class, we made them with two cuts on the table saw.

For the first cut, the work is flat on the…. We wanted perfect dados: precise in size and location. All it took was a router and a simple T-square jig. In the world of design, you read a lot about the acceptance or rejection of symmetry. Wait, wait. You can reject symmetry in design based on the fact that human beings are decidedly not symmetrical.

A perfectly symmetrical…. Matthew Teague. Steve Shanesy. One of these is what kind of wood surface yields the strongest joint when using wood glues, typically white or yellow glue, but also hide glue.

This came up a few weeks ago. Slideshow: Keyed Miter Joints I like the decorative effect that keyed miter joints lend to an otherwise simple box. But they also add a great deal of strength to a notoriously weak joint. Using clamps to glue up any small box is tricky and almost always frustrating. The clamps are too large for the….

Because chairs take abuse like a rented mule, the simple mortise-and-tenon joint is sometimes not enough. In traditional Windsor chair construction, the legs and spindles are attached to the plank seat using tenons that are cone-shaped along their lengths.

So the mortises have to be the same shape. These tapered joints are clever. The more…. Knowing how to measure things is one of the keys to improving the accuracy of your work, but taking a measurement and using the result of that measurement to mark your work or set up a tool often leads us down the wrong path, leaving us farther away from making two pieces that fit together…. In hand-tool woodworking, brains almost always trump brawn. For example, when I need to remove a lot of material from a localized area, I need to think like a tree assassin and exploit its weaknesses.

Think about it for a minute: Trees are much stronger in the vertical axis than they are in the horizontal…. Even if I have an entire shop filled with power equipment, I like to cut my rabbets by hand.

Once you master a rabbet plane or a moving fillister plane, your router table and table saw will get a lot less use. To push you along this path, I wrote…. This Infinity Tools thick-kerf, flat-top blade eliminates….

I started using stringed packing tape to glue up mitered joints on small jewelry boxes years ago. To glue up mitered boxes you just tape the points of the miters tight and add glue to the joint.

The plain and simple pine boxes with trays. The pre-industrial monster truck chest with scantily clad tarts, parquetry, secret compartments and a bottle opener. A personal list. Your reasons may vary. I first learned to use this method — which I love — from Rob Cosman.

He learned it from legendary craftsman Alan Peters. But where did Peters learn it from? When I took my first woodworking class in I was gung-ho to learn two things: through-tenons and through-dovetails. For many woodworkers, I suspect that exposed joinery sends a message: This piece is made well. Internet woodworking forums are great places. In 19th-century English workshops you could be sacked fired for wearing eyeglasses.

There are even accounts of how a shop might have a certain phrase that was spoken when the master was about to walk through the workroom. When that phrase was Fitting A Woodworking Bench Vise Image uttered, all the eyeglasses would go into hiding. I would have been fired…. Campaign chests had to take a beating. They traveled all over the British Empire during the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. And yet they bore their burden without complaint or explanation. Yes, the drawers were dovetailed. Sooner or later, someone will ask you to make a picture frame.

Here is how to get it right the first time. Lang Pages From the Summer issue of Woodworking Magazine, issue 14 Buy this issue now Picture frames are one of those woodworking projects that we all assume we….

Anyone who has glued up a few doors knows how frustrating it can be attempting to build assemblies that turn out both flat and square. If you…. Jointers are simple machines with few moving parts, but the two beds, the fence and the cutterhead all have to be in alignment for a jointer to function properly. Few things…. This is a stupid trick. This week I glued up a couple Welsh stick chairs — each had 12 spindles and 28 through-mortises that must be glued and wedged.

The top spindle deck of each chair was one massive glue-up,…. From the November issue Buy this issue now. Ajax Alexandre. Contributing Editor Glen D. Huey made this short video while working on the cover project for the upcoming November issue of Popular Woodworking Magazine which should start arriving in subscriber mailboxes the week of Oct.

Last winter, I was puzzling out a way to make edge joints that are just the opposite of what we normally want — perfectly straight. I wanted free-flowing curves and I wanted to join contrasting colors of wood species. So the question was how to match the two joint lines on the different pieces of….

Made from rugged fiberglass reinforced plastic, with a new metal cam lever, Clamex P can join any miter angle without the use of glue or screws. The base of the desk holds two drawers set side-by-side. That means there is a drawer runner centered in the…. Many woodworkers choose to work that way, but to us it was a detriment in…. What makes woodworking fun for me is that I learn something new nearly every day. The project for the day was a joinery exercise that walks through nine….

One area that I have used hand tools primarily is for dovetail work. At this…. Many of these dovetails have been mitered at their front corners, which I cut freehand thank you Joseph Moxon …. It is a massive example of carved oak and many mullions…. When I first started working here at the magazine we actually had time to go out for lunch each week we now eat at our desks , and one day after eating at a Thai restaurant we wandered into a hippie-run gallery.

Want it? After making the down-and-dirty folding bookstand in a video last week, I decided to make another pair as a very late Christmas gift. I am not a good friend. Of course, after building the first bookstand,…. If it still vexes you, however, then this short video might help. Disclaimer: This may or may…. One of the most-popular projects I made last year was the Moxon Double-screw Vise from the December issue.

One guy built 12 of them. I have received some complaints about the Moxon Double-screw. Not about how it works — I…. I have four bookcases filled with woodworking books in my office at home, another two bookcases in my office at work and boxes and boxes of them in the basement.

It is time to do something radical. But until you are clenching like a pro, there are some baby steps you can take. Peter Follansbee and Mike Siemsen have cleared up the mystery of the pinwheel-shaped wooden nails.

The pinwheel shape of the nails is caused by the shell or gimlet bit used to make the hole. The long edges of the bit bite into the grain, tearing it. When the peg is driven into the hole, it…. The pegs that hold the joinery of old furniture together are always interesting. Whenever I stink at something in woodworking, it becomes my lunch-hour obsession. This is how I learned to saw, to sharpen, to cut moulding by hand, clean my ears, mortising and…. If you ever needed more evidence that woodworkers have always been a parsimonious lot, look no further than the December issue of the British magazine The Woodworker.

In an article on wedging tenons the author offers the above illustration with the comment: Fig. One Fitting A Woodworking Vise Key of the unsung heroes of our Woodworking in America conference is Mike Siemsen. Mike is an accomplished woodworker and teacher from Minnesota, and his enthusiasm is unmatched. There are few things worse than too-soft screwdrivers.

Lima beans, Care Bears and eye surgery with a teaspoon immediately come to mind. I have four sets of screwdrivers. Three for loaning and one for using. The set I never loan is made up of tools that were made mostly by the H. They are single drop-forged pieces of steel with a…. It will be saying…. However, as some viewers have pointed out, the plans on the DVD are for a cabinet with a solid-panel door.

Woodworking is a wonderful avocation because there is an obsessive diversion available for every personality type and every occasion. Usually there are many to choose from, branches you can follow to feed any part of your psyche that seems hungry. You can go down the path of ultra precision and measure everything you own to…. This is my third chair class.

I took my first one in Canada with David Fleming. My second class was with bodger…. If you ever decide to delve into traditional woodworking, you quickly learn that wedges are your friend. Build chairs? You need to wedge all the joints.

Traditional doors? Wedge your through-tenons. Wedge everything you can. But where do wedges come from? There is not an option to glue things up in stages and still guarantee success. As a result, I tried to give myself some wiggle room.

I fit the edge cheeks of the tenons a little looser…. The answers to your questions are: 1. Almost any species of wood will do fine for your workbench. There is no quality difference between Veritas and Lie-Nielsen handplanes. Eagle, and sometimes plov.

When I stop answering my phone and…. Being able to spot a potential problem is the gift of experience, but it is also like a tranquilizer dart used to take down a rabid African elephant.

Today I was cleaning up the sliding dovetail socket for the fourth and final leg of this French-style workbench…. To modern eyes, old-school workbenches look like they are going to self-destruct. The legs are tenoned into the benchtop which moves with the seasons. Something has to give, right? After a little tweaking of the mortise, the first leg went in.

Assuming, that is, I…. I started cutting the mortises and the dovetail sockets in the benchtop today and I can tell you a few things: 1. Things I hate: Gouging my own eyes out with a spoon, and being pulled away from a project for more than a couple days.

This morning I sneaked into the shop and hid there for three hours…. It was easy going until my enormous saw suddenly stopped cutting. Had the flesh-detecting technology in my tenon saw kicked in? A few weeks ago I posted a blog entry about using a flush-cut saw to slice tenon shoulders. I must have written it poorly because several readers requested a video of the process.

So here you go. A couple details and thoughts: 1. My joints are tight and I get things done. Heck, I can even teach dovetailing to others when pressed. Tenons require a lot of precision sawing if you want to avoid farting around with a shoulder plane, chisel or float.

And teaching others to cut perfect shoulders is a challenge. I usually…. My next project is a close copy of a walnut side table from the White Water Shaker community. I spent a summer afternoon measuring the project and…. Dovetail maestro Rob Cosman again makes us all feel inadequate with his latest video in which he cuts a half-blind dovetail joint in 6 minutes and 52 seconds. Cosman uses Northern white pine, which you might think is cheating , he can cut the tail in one stroke.

However, his pins are so skinny just…. In his efforts to stop the chair from wobbling, he kept cutting down the legs until they would look about right if they were attached to an opossum. The ad is a…. Everything else about miter joints is a hassle. But there are ways to minimize those…. Tablesaw Box Joints A shop-made jig with micro-adjust guarantees perfect joints. Strong, great-looking and quickly made, box joints are an especially good choice when you have a large number of items to produce.

To make them, you need your tablesaw, a miter…. Perfect Butt Joints in Laminate An underscribe router attachment guarantees success. By Brad Holden Long countertops or those that turn corners need butt joints. You can use several methods to make this joint, but the easiest way to get tight-fitting, professional-looking results is with an underscribe attachment on a trim router.

The term underscribe…. During the Woodworking in America Conference, there were two quotes that really stood out from all the bon mots that were hurled. Even though I am percent confident in my ability to join two boards together using the tail-of-the-bird joint, I am always riveted when I get to see how other accomplished woodworkers go about the task. In fact, when I watch others work, I never fail to pick up some important details. On Saturday at our…. Back in June, some of you might remember that I was building an Ohio copy of a fascinating three-legged Chinese stool.

And some of you might also remember how I flamed out at the very end of the project, cutting a single tenon at the wrong angle, ruining the entire thing with no time to….

Question: I often see dovetail layout lines left showing on the exterior of pieces. However, the lines do not uniformly show on all edges. This morning I decided to repair the vintage Chinese stool that we knocked apart earlier this year. Senior Editor Robert W. I need that…. Big cauls are the answer. A caul is simply a thick, straight board. I make my cauls from stiff wood, such as…. By Seth Keller After I learned to cut tapered legs on the jointer, I never went back to my bandsaw or tablesaw.

Legs cut on the jointer take less time and, best of all, require a whole lot less sanding. This is…. One of best ways to learn how a piece of furniture is put together is to take it apart. Many of the best furniture makers I know who work in historical styles have done a fair bit of restoration or conservation work Last week at the Woodworking in America: Furniture Construction and Design conference, all….

In early Gustav Stickley pieces, doors with divided lights were joined with mitered mullions. My reply has always been: Better too much than too little. And because I am working on a book which should be out this fall on English furniture construction circa , I took an afternoon during my visit to prowl one of the largest…. In my review of drawbore pins in the Summer issue, one of my gripes with many of the tools were the round handles.

A round handle plus a round pin equals a tool on the floor. My vintage pins had tapered octagonal handles. They stay put on the bench. I praised the Lee Valley…. During the early stages of learning to cut dovetails, I foolishly tried to read everything I could on the topic. It was foolish because it would probably take two lifetimes in dog years even to…. Do you like stories about gladiators? How about stories about idiot woodworking editors?

This week I was finishing up work on the joined Chinese stool for the cover of the Autumn issue of Woodworking Magazine. I took the components to my shop at home , mostly to avoid all the scatological jokes we all…. With every project there is always some tool that deserves an Academy Award-style acceptance speech.

Traditional cut nails can be made from pretty soft steel, especially the useful cut headless brads. As a result, you have to be careful when installing them. Here are some of the things that can go wrong and how I deal with them. Your pilot hole is too shallow. One early book on woodworking…. When making through-mortises by hand, one of the occasional problems is that you get a little mallet happy, you drive the mortise chisel a little too deep and you blow out a piece of grain on the exit side.

Or you drive a too-tight tenon into the through-mortise, the tenon hits the rim of the…. One of my hobbies is chairmaking. That statement might sound kinda dumb. Making stick chairs uses another part of my brain. And any time I venture into building chairs I have to re-learn some of the rules. In some ways, chairmaking…. In the tool world there is an ugly and erroneous slur. Anyway, I have no dog in this fight.

The real point was that today while I…. I like a good carcase saw in the same way I like to eat most parts of the pig. I like the way that its well-tuned crosscut teeth slice into the grain and leave behind a glassy smooth cut. I like how easy the saws are to start.

As a result I almost always get the stink eye from the others in the shop. What are horns? This is when you make your stiles longer than they need to be, usually…. While I own an electric plunge router and all manner of bits and guides, I tend to cut my stopped dados using hand tools for a couple reasons.

And two: The hand-tool method involves less…. For those of you who chisel out all your waste when dovetailing, this post is not for you.

Please move along. I have. There are lots of people who will show you how to handplane the edge of a board. A few less who will show you how to really flatten the wide face of a board. A smaller number will show you how to flatten a glued-up panel stay tuned , that tutorial is already written and…. Developing your eye , plus your ability to sense the perpendicular , will do more for your dovetailing skills than any….

While my dad was sleeping off the flu in February, I was plundering his drawers. The man has an English chest problem like I have a hammer problem. I pulled out all the drawers of his six or seven 19th-century chests of drawers and gave a close look at their construction details. One of the…. But what is really astonishing about the mallet is how it…. In the shop, my mechanical pencil is as important as my eyeglasses.

I use a mechanical pencil with a 0. I like the really thin lead because I can usually drop it into a knife line and , with just light…. When most people think about cutting dovetails, they think: handsaws. They can create gaps or help prevent them. Plow planes are some of the easiest joinery planes to use , once you know a few tricks to getting good results. Milford Brown writes: Since you are interested in the older hand-powered woodworking, I wonder what, if anything, you know about the history of marking knife use?

I recently had occasion to dismantle an old pine blanket chest because of extensive powderpost beetle damage in the sapwood edges of its top and bottom boards that had….

While teaching a class on handsawing a couple years ago, one student lost his cool. He was cutting a tenon for his sawbench, and he strayed over the line and the result looked rough to him.

He grunted, threw his saw down with a clatter and stomped away from the bench. The classroom got real…. When I glue up panels from several narrow boards, I use my jointer plane to dress all the mating edges. So I find it easier to dress my edges by hand than to fuss with the powered jointer…. I noticed the head on my trusty Hamilton hammer was loose last weekend as I was driving a bunch of nails good thing I have an extra hammer or two.

This morning I decided to do something about it. Conventional wisdom is that the head works loose because of the shock that the tool is…. In my kindergarten class, someone was snitching cookies from the lunchboxes of the rest of the class. Spoiler alert: It was the fat kid. That clever monkey got out of a speeding ticket by saying he was trying to…. Blacksmith David Maydole was the SawStop of the 19th century.

Sometimes hammerheads would fly loose from their handles on the job site. This could be troublesome or deadly because occasionally the steel head would strike a fleshy one the steel usually wins this competition. Some of the best workholding ideas rely on simple wedging action. This weekend I stumbled onto one more great wedging trick using cut nails.

This might be old hat for you. If so, forgive my waste of bandwidth which should be the motto of my blog.

The most stressful glue-up of my life was assembling my tool chest in The main carcase had mating surfaces that had to be glued. Foolishly, I chose yellow glue as the adhesive. As a result, another editor and I spent an hour furiously beating and clamping the chest together. In the end, there….

I got interested in David Maydole, the father of the legendary adze-eye hammer. There are so many ways to construct a drawer that someone could write an entire book on the variations across time and cultures. Drawer slips are narrow pieces of wood that are grooved to accept the…. Making Cathedral Doors A complete recipe for making beautiful cathedral raised-panel doors. By George Vondriska Cathedral raised-panel doors are beautiful, but they can be intimidating to make. Stile and Rail Joinery A reversible stile and rail cutter makes perfect-fitting frames for doors and cabinets without dowels, mortises or biscuits.

By Tim Johnson One of the best buys you can make for your tablemounted router is a set of stile and rail cutters. These cutters allow you to join frame pieces together at…. You can do fancy things with a hammer and the right nails. The more I learn about nails, the more I…. Even though most dovetail jigs are basically the same, some…. Tips for Building Cabinets with Pocket-Hole Joinery New tools and improved techniques make pocket-screw assembly faster than ever. There are no unsightly face-frame nail holes to fill.

And you…. Lock Miters This simple set-up process guarantees perfect joints! By George Vondriska Lock miters are strong, attractive joints that make assembly easy. Well,no more excuses. After watching Frank Klausz cut a set of dovetails in three minutes using a special bowsaw blade see the video here in our video section , Rob Cosman decided to show that it can be done by cutting the tails first.

Frank cuts his pins first. Want one? Exhibit A is over at WKfinetools. You can shorten the workpiece a hair with a quick touch of the disc. You can also adjust the angle by a fraction of a degree. Instead of…. Even better, I had a mentor with an incredible collection. Owen Riley was a photographer at the newspaper where I worked, and he…. Whenever John Economaki of Bridge City Tools teaches classes about furniture design, he always asks his students a question that seems to have no good answer.

The question goes something like this: Would you rather have a piece of furniture with great lines but so-so craftsmanship, or a somewhat dumpy-looking project with perfect and crisp…. David Thiel, then an associate editor at the magazine, has been assigned to give me a…. When I first opened the package, I assumed that the tool inside was a prototype that had a plastic blade. But no, the white chunk of stuff at the end of the Gladstone…. As woodworkers dive into handwork, they usually start with a block plane, then the bench planes, the saws and the joinery planes.

Joinery planes , such as plow planes, router planes, shoulder planes and rabbeting planes, are some of the easiest planes to set up and use. Their irons are straightforward to sharpen no curves…. Our goal for these columns is to show that attractive, well made projects can be made with a minimal amount of tools and time. For me, finger joints have always been the nerdy, square cousin to the dovetail.

Finger joints are immensely strong when glued properly. But they are usually used by beginning woodworkers in places where a dovetail would be more appropriate, such as on a piece of 18th-century casework.

Add to that the fact that finger joints…. There is something deep inside our DNA that ties us to the chest as a form of furniture. First off, how many other kinds of furniture do we have that are named after critical parts of our own bodies?

I am planning to order a corner chisel, to use when I install hinges, and have seen several styles. Which do you prefer? The piece of wood has a routed mortise with rounded corners. The corners need…. Cut by Eye When dovetailing by hand, be bold. After gauging a thickness line across the board, lay out the pins with your saw as you make each cut. Trust your eye to find a…. Some tools are like high school girlfriends. Other tools are like good spouses.

The relationship gets better with time, even when you are both a little worn around the edges. And there were a couple things I was wondering about. One is the question of glue longevity. If I glue together a tabletop with….

This weekend I put the finishing touches on two Stickley tabourets; and while the little tables turned out to my satisfaction, the construction process proved quite vexing considering there are only nine pieces of wood in each. The theme of Issue 9 is sawing , understanding sawtooth technology and how to use that knowledge in…. Plus the projects are fast and , if I do…. Sometimes your woodworking improves like a slow and steady climb up a mountain. Sometimes, however, you get to ride the elevator.

Then I traded up to a mechanical pencil, which never needed sharpening. Then one day I found my old…. Whenever I get into some serious handwork, I always try to boil down the processes so that I can 1 remember it myself and 2 occasionally explain it to others including a couple children who are slack-jawed with boredom. Today as I was cleaning up the half-lap joints for the Stickley tabouret on my…. Men have become the tools of their tools. My aversion to the machine had nothing to do with safety, accuracy, philosophy or….

I enjoy a good beating. Chopping dovetails or mortises is almost as pleasurable as sawing or planing. For years I tried to make myself like the traditional round mallet used in carving and cabinetmaking. When this happens, it takes you back to the blog entry, but your comment is still unposted and at the bottom of the page.

If you enter your code…. Contemporary writing on woodworking, of which I am woefully guilty, always seeks to make the craft as simple as possible. We try to make the joints easy, quick and straightforward. We tend to promote furniture designs that have straight lines and wide appeal. Yet the grain in the stretchers near the floor runs horizontally. One of my favorite tasks in the shop is making solid-wood tabletops.

Before using a router bit, I dress the edge with a diamond file, and I usually touch up the chisel before machine cutting mortises. Sharp is good, but…. Question: Looking over the current and past issues of Woodworking Magazine, I see how drawboring or wedging a mortise and tenon joint will improve the strength and fit of the joint. But is there a reason to pick either drawboring or wedging over the other technique in terms of the strength or durability of the….

In the Stickley side table from the November issue, there are enough variations of mortise and tenon joints to give your hands and your head a real workout.

One of the things I enjoy most about woodworking is puzzing out how to do things. This is the top of one of the back legs. However, cut nails can sometimes be difficult to find. Tremont Nail is an…. If you do any work at all with hand tools, a good marking gauge is an essential piece of equipment. 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 allowed , stick my head in a carcase and send my fingers probing into the darkest voids. Like most home woodworkers, my dang day job tends to get in the way of my woodworking. Gerunds, appositives and dangling participles have all conspired to keep me chained to this keyboard.

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 cut the curved transitions between the apron and cabriole legs. The walnut for the top…. 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 and techniques.

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. But even if I…. 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 things is fascinating, and every tour is surprising and different.

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 paler and singularly disillusioned. Their job in Morocco could be boiled down to one simple lesson for the villagers: Do not…. In China, was the year of the rooster. In our shop, 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 they fail.

We learned a few things. First: You can get paid for doing juvenile stuff with….

Kreg Trak And Stop Kit 01 Wilton Belt And Disc Sander 30