A Coffin-building Party

When I die, I want to leave this world in the same way I lived in it. As a woodworker who has spent his entire life building furniture for myself and others, I couldn’t imagine being placed into a box that someone else made. In 2005, I read this article in TheNew York Times about Chinese coffins that were made much like a dugout canoe (and were banned by the […]

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Sketching and Design Development

In addition to using sketching to solve problems on the fly in the shop, I also use quick sketches while making formal drawings to visualize the appearance of the finished drawing. When I’m at a museum or an auction, I take along pencil and paper and make quick sketches for use at a later time. When I’m trying to design a new piece, several quick sketches will get me headed […]

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Labor Day Laughs

This post has nothing to do with woodworking – so stop reading now if you’re just going to complain about that. I imagine with the long Labor Day weekend in the U.S., many of us are heading off to end-of-summer picnics. And if you’re looking for dishes to take along, click on the link that follows, then click on the individual recipe cards. This site is – hands down – […]

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3 Types of Classic Tools you Should Question

It is important to understand which classic tools should be bought and which shouldn’t. Because tools vary in quality, many are not worth owning. In fact, you must be careful and selective. The majority of second-hand tools are, for one or more of the following reasons, unsuitable for use. Antique Tools Beware of tools with prices that are determined by their appeal to collectors, or that have a high value […]

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Like Riding a Bike

Our next online course in Popular Woodworking University is a 1-hour, live web seminar with one of the hardest-working educators in our network. Bill Rainford is a North Bennet Street School graduate, traditional joiner, restoration carpenter and, as of this week, first-time father. He’ll be presenting to our audience on a topic he knows well and uses constantly – traditional drafting. Bill says: Drafting by hand is a timeless skill […]

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Moxon’s Ingenious Bench Vise

17th-century design saves your 21st-century back. by Christopher Schwarz pages 64, 66 If you cut dovetails by hand, then I’m sure you’re aware of the other part of your anatomy that is involved: your back. Bending over rows of tails and pins all day is murder when you try to stand up straight. Several people have come up with solutions, including a cute mini-bench that you park on your full-size […]

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Best Veneer of the Year

The IWF and AWFS show (held in alternating years in Atlanta and Las Vegas) are known as places where machinery manufacturers and industry suppliers show their latest products. One of the highlights of these shows for me is the announcement of the winners of the annual Veneer-Tech Craftsman’s Challenge awards. I was a judge for this contest in 2010 and 2011, and you can click here to read posts I […]

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Newport Tea Table with Alf Sharp

The video shoot of Alf Sharp building a Newport Tea Table continues. The legs are shaping up quit nicely, as you can see in the short video below as Alf discusses the knee carving on the Goddard design. (If you missed Alf’s comments on carving the open talon Ball & Claw foot on this table, click here.) It’s great to watch a talented woodworker doing what he does; I’ve picked […]

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Big Steel City News

The folks over at Steel City Tool Works (SCTW) have teamed up with Columbus, Ohio woodworking icon WoodWerks’ Todd Damon to revitalize and energize their line of tools. I spoke with the managing partners (David Campagna & Damon) and president of SCTW (Lucas Chang) about the formation of the Axiom Tool Group (ATG) and what it means to the woodworking world. ATG is setting the pace and direction of both […]

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All About Try Squares

One of my favorite parts of our now-retired publication, Woodworking Magazine, was the back cover. Each issue featured a handy, illustrated guide to something every woodworker should know – and about which some woodworkers are too proud to ask. The following post on try squares is a perfect example. We are releasing the new “Woodworking Magazine Compilation” soon. Stay tuned to your e-mail newsletter for the announcement! –Dan Farnbach Handy […]

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Thomas Day House: Pre-WIA Special Tour

Come to North Carolina a day early for Woodworking in America (the conference is Sept, 12-14 in Winston-Salem, N.C.) and make plans to visit the Thomas Day House/Union Tavern (a National Historic Landmark) in Milton, N.C. between 1-5 p.m. on Thursday, Sept 11. Jerome Bias (who is speaking in Day and his work at the annual woodworking conference) has organized special tours to introduce you to Day’s home and shop, […]

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Be at Midwest Lumber Saturday

I can’t seem to locate the images I know I took of Christopher Schwarz at Midwest Lumber when last we were there…and that’s probably a good thing. If I recall correctly, they showed him scrambling up the many and highly stacked wood piles to unearth the perfect pieces of pine, teak, mahogany and sapele. Mission accomplished…but probably not whilst displaying the safest practices. So instead, I’ll show you my full-size […]

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The 9 Principles of Hand Tool Storage, Part 3

My kids – even the 18-year-old in college – do not want their meats to touch their starches or vegetables. And so we have divided plates for them – just like at the school cafeteria. If they keep this habit up, I’m sure their weddings will be interesting, but I’m not one to mess around with their personal way of organizing their world. So this is my way of saying […]

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Alf Sharp in the Shop

This week we have the pleasure of working with Alf Sharp in the Popular Woodworking Magazine shop. Alf is a woodworker with one foot in period work and the other planted firmly in the realm of studio furniture. He’s also the 2008 Cartouche award recipient from the Society of American Period Furniture Makers. (A visit to his web site is time well spent.) Under the pressure of hot lights and […]

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Stop the Watermarks: Don’t Cook!

A friend recently asked me about the creeping white haze on the wooden cabinets over her stove. I told her the problem was caused by actually using the stove; she needed to quit cooking. That was an unpopular suggestion (she has two young boys, one of whom is reaching the hollow-leg stage of food consumption). So plan B: Reverse the problem, then stop it from happening again with a new […]

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The 9 Principles of Hand Tool Storage, Part 2

Before we launch into part 2 of this series, allow me to ask a question. Do you enjoy looking for a tool that you cannot find, but you saw just a couple days ago and you have looked for everywhere? If you answered “yes,” then you don’t need to read this article and can return to the eternal game of Where is My Tapered Bung-hole Reamer? For the rest of […]

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Can You Smell It?

For the last couple days, there’s been an odd and slightly offputting scent lingering in the air wherever I go (and yes, I’ve showered today.) I’m pretty sure it’s the ripe smell of panic. It just hit me that Woodworking in America is less than three weeks away (Sept. 12-14 in Winston-Salem, N.C.). In my brain, the conference is still months from now. In reality, it is fast upon us. […]

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The 9 Principles of Hand Tool Storage, Part 1

If you ever write a book on workbenches or tool chests, be prepared for this question: “Off the record and just between you and me, what’s your favorite chest or bench?” The easy way out would be to give them a direct answer: a Dutch Roubo Nicholson with Japanese planing stops and Krenov-style tills. But that answer would be a lie. Many of the strong opinions and hard-and-fast rules in […]

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Benefits of Working in the Round

As primarily a “flat” woodworker, I enjoy and appreciate watching a turner work. The payoff – completing a project some hours (or less!) after you start – is very attractive. And you have the benefit of spending your money on a smaller piece of wood, so you can buy more expensive and exotic pieces and the wood itself can speak. I have ultimate respect for Tim Yoder, who not only […]

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On Logging and Woodworking

The first time I visited the hardwood forests of Pennsylvania I was handed a hardhat. At first I thought the loggers were just trying to get me to wear a stupid hat, but within about three minutes, I realized I was wrong. Logging is incredibly dangerous. And while I marveled at the beautiful forests and huge kilns during that visit, I was mostly astounded by how easy it is to […]

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The 1 Plan Every Woodworker has Overlooked

Shop floor plans, furniture project plans, woodworking business plans and – most important during summer – vacation plans. Woodworkers are planners. The craft relies on our uncanny ability to envision something that doesn’t exist yet, then bring it into existence by sticking with the scheme and seeing it through to completion. So I ask you, why don’t we bring that same level of prescience to the finishing process? Why do […]

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Veritas Planing Stop (Or, Some Tasty Crow)

I scoffed a few months back when I opened a box from Lee Valley Tools in which was enclosed a 17-1/2″ Veritas Planing Stop. It’s a thin stick of aluminum with two steel posts that drop into dog holes. I could see how it would be handy, but hey – we’ve got garbage cans full of offcuts (the dumpster is sooooo far away); an offcut clamped across the bench (or […]

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My Favorite Hardware Sources for Roorkee Chairs

As a woodworker and former editor of a woodworking magazine, I am amazed at how some woodworkers decline (or refuse) to share their sources for hardware or finishing supplies. Even with the Internet, search engines and friendly online assistants, there are still some dark arts in our craft. I refuse to have secrets. Secrets have almost snuffed our craft several times in the last few hundred years. So here is […]

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Breadboard Ends – Why and How

Cross-grain construction tends to freak out most beginning woodworkers, but it’s a viable construction method in many cases. Wide tables and chest lids often employ breadboard ends to keep things flat, as well as cover end grain. If it’s done right, expansion and contraction problems can be nearly eliminated. There are many methods to attach breadboard ends, but only a few actually accomplish the primary goal of keeping things flat. […]

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Fred West Commemorative Tool Chest Giveaway

If you’re a hand-tool woodworker, you have – at least in large part– Fred West to thank for the astounding number of high-quality hand tools available today, though you may not know it. But if you’re a maker of high-quality hand tools, there’s little doubt you had the pleasure of knowing Fred. Fred was a true patron of the hand tool world, in the best Renaissance sense of the word; […]

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Advertisements in Woodworking Magazines

While building the new American Woodworker Magazine Compilation CD (you can get this as a download, too), I was asked to check the issue PDFs as they came in. I checked every page in all the issues, one at a time. Many of the articles were immediately pulled out for my personal use (I guarantee that you’ll find a library full of woodworking articles, too), and I was amazed at […]

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The Epicenter of Wood – Cincinnati, Aug. 23

Without exaggeration, I have at least 10 blog entries I need to post. What with my trip to England, some new Lost Art Press products and a short journey to Charleston, S.C., I have a lot to tell you about. But before I launch into any of that, this is a news item. On Aug. 23, 2014, there will be another (perhaps the final) wood sale at Midwest Woodworking in […]

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Campaign Furniture in Charleston, S.C.

Charleston, S.C., has always been an excellent place to study British furniture for a lot less money than a plane ticket to Heathrow. Today I spent a few hours stomping up and down King Street recording some very rare and nice examples of campaign furniture. The first stop was Golden & Associates Antiques. Andy Golden’s collection of pieces overall is incredible, but two of the things he personally favors are […]

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Supercharge Your Brain and Shop with 5S

It has been my pleasure over the last several weeks to help Steve Johnson develop content for his new video series with Popular Woodworking University, “More Space and Time in Your Shop.” This 19-day online course is totally revolutionary – not because the concept is new (it’s actually quite old), but for the way Steve applies it to today’s woodworking shop. What is the concept? It’s called 5S. Originally developed […]

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The Lee Valley Tools Collection

Last week, I took a quick trip to Ottawa to visit Lee Valley’s headquarters for a press event – and gosh do I wish I could spread the news, but I can’t…yet. There will be a couple of “reveals” in the near future for the company, the first at the 2014 International Woodworking Fair (IWF) in Atlanta (Aug, 20-23), and the second at high noon in the Lee Valley booth […]

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Woodworking in America Speakers – Drew Langsner

Drew Langsner, while new to Woodworking in America, is far from new to the topic of woodworking. A quick look down his resume clearly indicates his chops for woodworking. Plus, he’s had articles published in many magazines and has authored a number of books, including The Chairmaker’s Workshop (Lark Books), 1995 Green Woodworking – revised edition (Lark Books), Green Woodworking (Rodale Press), A Log Builder’s Handbook (Rodale Press), Country Woodcraft […]

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Happy Birthday, You Big French Baby

It usually takes a year for a new workbench to settle down, and for me to put enough hours at it to form a half-decent opinion. Every bench has plusses and minuses. I’ve never encountered a bench that was 100-percent perfect. And I’ve never encountered a bench that was 100-percent crap. (OK, that last part is a lie. Writers have to say things like that to appear even-handed. A lot […]

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