Sometimes I forget the unwritten rule of woodworking blogging: If you don’t show the finished project then everyone assumes you failed and threw the thing in the trash. Earlier this year I wrote about some Japanese sliding-lid boxes I was building for a forthcoming article in Popular Woodworking Magazine that were based on a 20th-century …
Caleb Rogers lives in a spot that, while enviable at any time, seems especially so in the midst of a pandemic: a cabin of around 500 square feet, close to California’s Joshua Tree National Park. From his desert home he can see just three houses within a space of many miles, and of those three, two …
Every year, your spouse and friends ask us which books they should buy for you during the holidays. And if they aren’t sure which book you want, they ask us: “Well, which books are your best-sellers?” Until today, I had only a gut feeling about it, but I’d never really looked at the statistics. After …
J. Norman Reid of Wood News Online reviewed Roy Underhill’s “Calvin Cobb: Radio Woodworker! – A Novel with Measured Drawings” for the most recent issue. Here’s a short excerpt: “Fun, fast-moving and filled with vivid though sometimes arcane period details about farm machinery, computing and radio equipment, government agencies and cat faces staring out from …
First Review of ‘Calvin Cobb: Radio Woodworker’ – Read More »
The following is excerpted from “The Essential Woodworker,” by Robert Wearing. In our opinion, “The Essential Woodworker” is one of the best books on hand-tool usage written in the post-Charles Hayward era. Wearing was classically trained in England as a woodworker and embraced both power and hand tools in his shop and in his teaching. …
Figure 2.1. Legit. Many forms of workbenches work well for making furniture. Find one that suits your work, your personality and your wardrobe. The following is excerpted from “Ingenious Mechanicks,” by Christopher Schwarz. This book is a journey into the past. It takes the reader from Pompeii, which features the oldest image of a Western …
Here’s a dirty secret: If it weren’t for my job at a woodworking magazine, I’d be almost unemployable. I cannot sit for more than a few hours at a time. During long meetings and dinner parties, I’ve been known to just stand up and rudely leave the room. My legs feel like involuntary muscles when …
The more I use soap finish, the happier I am with it. But many woodworkers are skeptical. And I applaud that. For too long companies have tried to sell us this, that or the other as the “miracle” finish that is easy to apply and will leave furniture looking like glass. Well I don’t want …
We are delighted to have Monroe Robinson, author of “The Handcrafted Life of Dick Proenneke,” as the host of today’s Open Wire. Monroe earned a degree in fisheries from Colorado State University before moving to Alaska. Turning down an offer with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, he built his home, much of the furniture and …
LAP Open Wire with Monroe Robinson, July 8, 2023 – Read More »
This week I’m deep into reading Joseph Moxon’s “Mechnick Exercises” – the first English-language treatise on the craft of joinery. Published in 1678, the “Exercises” cataloged the tools and practices of the blacksmith, joiner, house carpenter, turner, bricklayer and those who make sundials. For the modern reader, the book can be a horrible slog. The …