Shop Blog

If you love to read about people screwing up, this post is for you. This week I’m shooting a DVD in the Popular Woodworking studio on building a traditional 18th-century tool chest (it should be [...]

My background is mostly based in family run businesses that depend on woodworking to put food on the table and keep the lights on. Because of this, I learned to make furniture with power tools. [...]

My friend Gil Arad, an Israeli woodworker who lives, works and teaches in a small village outside of Jerusalem has recently published a really cool video that depicts the kind of work that he [...]

Water causes wood to swell, so most people think that wetting one side and not the other will cause the wetted side to bow – that is, increase in width so the center is higher than the edges. If [...]

I cut my first dovetail in 1993 and that was also the first day I learned to use a marking gauge. The instructor didn’t tell me how to use it, so I set it and worked things out for …

A smooth feel is critical when judging the quality of a finish. It’s natural for people to run their hand over a finish, feel dust nibs and say, “This is not a great finish.” The problem is, [...]

There’s a lot going on in the photo above that’s important when making casework. I have two case sides for a chest clamped together before dovetailing them. Here is a quick summary of what I’m [...]

David Marks wrote the step-by-step photo feature below detailing the build process of his bentwood laminated lamp. His “Woodworks” Seasons 4-6 Collection has just been released on [...]

More than five years ago I built myself a full-size 18th-century style tool chest to replace the beat up blue one I’d been using since 1997 or so. That new chest was the subject of the book “The [...]

When I first began teaching at our school, I noticed that many of the rasps and files our students were using had a gooey buildup of masking tape around their tips. This blob of glue and paper [...]

In my introductory blog post, I mentioned that there are a lot of fascinating advances being made in the coatings industry. This one may top the list. Most of us guys have done it, and maybe even [...]

When I was offered the job at Popular Woodworking Magazine, the first thing my friends asked me was, “Do you get to meet Roy Underhill from “‘The Woodwright’s Shop’?” There was no [...]