Popular Woodworking Editors' Blog

We've narrowed down the entries for our contest to pick a T-shirt slogan for our Woodworking in America event. The front side of the shirt will say: Woodworking in America 2010." And the back will have a slogan.

Pick your favorite slogan using the poll below, but do it fast – we're choosing the winner on Wednesday, Sept. 8.

Friday, September 03, 2010 11:27:16 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [2] 

I'm spending the next few days in Boulder, Colo., at the Google SketchUp 3D Base Camp. Base Camp is a gathering of 250 expert SketchUp users from around the world. It's always fun to meet people face to face that you know from the Internet. And after a morning of great hospitality and excellent food, there was the announcement that a new version of SketchUp is now available. I'll have a full report in the next few weeks on the features woodworkers are interested in. The new release improves things, but it doesn't make the old release (or our instructional materials) obsolete.

Many of the features integrate Google Earth terrain data directly into SketchUp. The feature that grabbed my attention however, was the addition of solid modeling in SketchUp. Wouldn't it be cool if you could draw a tenon on the end of a rail, put that rail into a table leg and create a matching mortise with a couple mouse clicks? That sort of time saving is now a part of the Pro Version of SketchUp 8. Until now, I've advised most woodworkers to stick with the free version of SketchUp. You can still do everything you need to do for woodworking in the free version, but if you do a significant amount of detailed modeling, SketchUp pro is well worth the cost.

Look for more details next week.

– Robert W. Lang

• You can learn more about SketchUp on this page of our web site.
• Learn to use this software with these videos
• Or you can learn with this book in digital format

Wednesday, September 01, 2010 7:17:15 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [2] 

As woodworkers, we can build whatever type of furniture we'd like. Some styles require more complicated skills and time (early American pieces, a la Duncan Phyfe), while others are deceptively simple, but require time-intensive hand work and a sense of sculpture (such as a Sam Maloof rocker). Two styles that have enduring popularity are Shaker and Arts & Crafts. Both forms offer simple lines, solid construction and an accessibility that appeals to us as woodworkers. And why not? Both are great American furniture forms.

I like to refer to our books on these topics as the Great American Furniture series. "Pleasant Hill Shaker Furniture" was the first title in the series we published. Author Kerry Pierce took his depth of knowledge about the Shakers and focused on the Pleasant Hill, Ky., community. Shaker furniture was born from the need to have sturdy, functional furniture that could be created by a competent woodworker and that didn't require the adornment of earlier furniture styles. This book includes photos of the entire community (which now exists as a living museum), its dwellings and most importantly, its furniture. Kerry took measurements of many of these unique furniture pieces, and the illustrations are offered in the book for any who wish to build the pieces.

Arts & Crafts is a simple step from Shaker, but with a different look, and a different history. Arts & Crafts was born from a rejection of the Industrial Age philosophy. Its was a "back to basics" movement that raised hand-crafted, honest furniture to a "common man" ideal. While much of the furniture was priced somewhat out-of-reach of the common man of that time, the philosophy and the woodworking has found a new audience today. The author of "Grove Park Inn Arts & Crafts Furniture," Bruce Johnson, takes the reader on a tour of the largest public display of Arts & Crafts furniture in the country. Nestled in the hills of Asheville, N.C., the Grove Park Inn was built as a luxurious retreat from the busy world, and continues today in the same manner. The book is full of photos of this amazing resort and the many furniture treasures spread throughout its hallways.

By taking a good idea and adding to it, brothers Charles and Henry Greene created a new furniture style that evokes passion among many woodworkers. By infusing an Asian aesthetic to the Arts & Crafts form, the two architect brothers brought a new look to American furniture, and to Southern California specifically. Author David Mathias spent years gaining access to many of the homes and public spaces that showcase the Greene & Greene style. "Greene & Greene Furniture, Poems of Wood & Light" is the first book to focus on the furniture from a woodworker's perspective, looking beneath the form to study the mechanics and design philosophies that make these furniture pieces great American furniture.

We want to share these three impressive books with you by making a special offer. Buy both "Greene & Greene Furniture" and "Grove Park Inn" at 20 percent off ($28 each, for a total of $56), and "Get Pleasant Hill Shaker Furniture" free. When you add all three products to your shopping cart, use offer code WBS117 to get the third book free.

– David Thiel

Tuesday, August 31, 2010 9:49:56 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0] 

At the Association of Woodworking & Furnishings Suppliers show in Las Vegas three years ago, Steel City Tool Works (SCTW) took the woodworking world by storm with the introduction of granite tops on table saws. Granite used in woodworking machines extended to jointers, lathes and even planers.

During the next couple years, the woodworking business as we know it changed. Companies found a difficult path toward keeping the doors open and many companies shut those doors or significantly downsized. SCTW was no different. There were rumors that the company was out. No longer were you able to get machines. In fact, I read more than once that the phones at the company headquarters were turned off. That's not a good sign.

At this year's major woodworking show in Atlanta, the International Woodworking Fair (IWF), exhibitors were at a premium. However, Steel City Tool Works was there in full splendor. Not only was the SCTW booth full of machines and sales people providing free-flowing information, the company displayed more innovation. In particular, the company showed table saws with a newly designed top.

Take a look at the photo above. Do you notice anything different? Look closely. I almost missed this detail while I was standing directly in front of the saw. Give up? Where are the seams that are generally found where the wings meet the saw top? Don't see any do you? That's innovation. No longer does your fence catch on the seam as it slides across the tabletop.

Here's what the engineers at SCTW did. The table attached to the cabinet has been downsized to stop just at the far edge (away from the blade) of the miter slot. The wing edges are milled to complete the miter slots, so when the two are joined, the seam disappears in the miter slot. Cool. Ingenious.

The first question that springs to mind is: With the amount of finagling that one has to do to get the wings set correctly, is the miter slot usable given that is where the joint is? I tried a few slots and they worked fine. The company representative whom I spoke with explained that the wings fit to the table in the same manner as most other saws, but that there are set screws that allow you to perfectly dial in the fit.

Also, many of the company's saws have the motors and pulleys tied together – both move in unison – and the motor is no longer hung by the belt. This setup translates into less vibration during start-up and run time. The rep. bypassed the nickel test and went right to conducting the test using a penny. The penny stayed balanced on its edge until the saw was shut off – the knock against the paddle caused the machine to shimmy.

If you're looking for an entry-level saw, take a look at SCTW's model #35990CS. This saw, with a cast iron tabletop and stamped wings, is priced at $499.

And, check out the knobs that lock the blade guard and pawls on the riving knife. With a quick turn you either attach the guards or pull them from the saw. It's easy to do and maybe that will keep us using them.

— Glen D. Huey

Tuesday, August 31, 2010 9:11:39 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [1] 

In most woodworking shops, space is at a premium. If you could increase the size of your shop, you would. And unless you have oodles of space, I'm willing to bet your finishing room is even more tightly crammed. In fact, many of us move the machines to the side and finish in the same space.

When finishing a piece of furniture with many parts, such as a chest of drawers, it's especially important to make use of all the space that you can. Placing drawers and backboards on horizontal surfaces takes up too much room. At IWF, in The Finishing Store booth, I found an answer to our problems. If you cannot spread the parts around the shop, you must go vertical. Erecta-Rack has a system that allows you to build layers of shelving to space your parts in an upward fashion, and the price is more than reasonable.

Erecta-Rack is a combination of galvanized pipe and injection moulded plastic support blocks that fit in together – think tinker-toys for the finishing room. Build the first layer, fill it to the brim with your pieces by laying the materials across the galvanized pipe supports then add the next layer of blocks and pipe. The setup is easy and the racks are good to 500 pounds when at 10 levels. If you have extra-long materials to dry, you set out a third support tower and you're good to go.

I said the prices are reasonable. Try this: A Five-level Erecta-Rack kit, including a custom carry bag is $125. Double that to a Ten-level Erecta-Rack kit, including a custom carry bag and the price only increases to $198.

— Glen D. Huey

Tuesday, August 31, 2010 8:59:56 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [3] 

Working on this little block has been an interesting experience, and I hope you'll give it a try. Explaining it on the blog has made me think about a lot of basic things that have become habit over the years. The Gottshall block is a hand tool education, and one of the lessons is that what works going with the grain will need to be adapted when going across the grain. Slicing off the edges of long wood fibers is different that cutting across them.

One assumption I'm making is that the chisel has a sharp edge and a flat back. What we're looking at is the notch marked "dado" in the drawing. The saw has cut across the grain, so I can quickly split out most of the waste with the chisel. I'm not worried about the ends, but I don't want the wood to split past the edge line. I put the end of the chisel about 1/4" in from the edge of the wood and smack it with a mallet.

That's  much like splitting firewood, and the back edge may not run straight up and down. I may need to flip the piece over if the grain runs back toward the bottom of the cut. After a few splitting cuts, I put down the mallet and grip the chisel with two hands as shown. This gives me good leverage with both hands, and my shoulder is directly above the end of the chisel. I can bear down with my body weight to remove a thick slice.

As I get closer to the line, I make a trade-off-more control for less leverage. My right hand moves closer to the edge of the chisel, and I'm holding it like a pencil. My left hand rests on the wood, and my bent finger provides a reference to keep the back of the chisel vertical. At this point I'm taking off a thin slice to finish up.

So far so good. The notch on the end is similar, but the cut is turned 90 degrees to this one. Removing the bulk of the material by splitting isn't going to work. It is possible to chop one's way through the grain, but there is a lot of risk of leaving raggedy end grain inside the cut.

I still have saw cuts at the left and right sides, but the amount of wood I can cleanly slice off the end grain is limited. Compare these thin slices with the big hunks I was able to remove in the other direction. So, I cheated (in a manner of speaking) by removing most of the waste with a coping saw. We'll talk about the coping saw soon, as well as additional chisel techniques for working on the curves. For these cuts, I'm holding the chisel vertically, close to the line and pushing straight down.

In Gottshall's text about making this block, he never mentions other tools beyond the chisel. A router plane, a float or rasp, or a plastic laminate file are tools I often reach for to make the finishing cuts on things like this. Perfection with just a chisel isn't easy. I'm doing OK, but I'm creeping past my layout line on the right, and you can see a bit of light between the square and the wood in the upper right hand corner. I may not get a grade of A on this after all.

The chisel work for the rabbet on the end is similar, but once again the work is rotated 90 degrees. Now I want to remove as much of the waste as I can by splitting; this time horizontally. It doesn't take much effort with the mallet to split the wood. I can only bring the mallet back a couple of inches because my hip is in the way. That's OK, because it only takes a tap.

I still have a way to go to reach the line. My left hand is holding down, and my right hand is pushing in. I can lever out a thick slice, with a good degree of control. Now is a good time for a reminder from the safety police; never, ever hold down the wood with your left hand while pushing the chisel with your right. Clamp the wood down and keep all the parts of both hands behind the sharp edge.

As I get closer to the line, I take finer and more controlled slices. Here I'm working across the grain, using the flat back of the chisel as a guide in slicing off the high spots. I will also slice in from the end if I need to. The vertical cut is from the saw. If you look close, you can see that I left some material beyond the pencil line when I made my saw cut. I will pare down across that end grain to correct that. I'm pretty good with a chisel because I'm not so good with the saw.


One of the last cuts dislodged a small chunk of wood at the far corner on the inside of the rabbet. Lucky for me I was able to find it and glue it back in place. If nothing else goes wrong, I may be able to salvage a B+ on this.

--Robert W. Lang

This series of posts began, innocently enough with this.

Then Mike Wenzloff suggested this exercise.

It seemed like a good idea, so I began to lay it out.

I ran out of room, and needed to continue about marking knives.

Then I felt a little guilty about not mentioning marking gauges.

Finally, I picked up the saw and started to work.

Monday, August 30, 2010 12:33:12 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [2] 

I received a question from a reader, concerning a problem he was having modeling a kitchen cabinet door. In my book and video I cover how to make a similar door using a cope-and-stick joint. This door uses the same profile and groove, but the corners of the door frame are mitered. Here's my technique, and it's also a good way to make anything with a molded edge and mitered corners. This stumps a lot of modelers, so I thought I would share it here.

I want to make the door to fit the opening, so I begin by making a rectangle, clicking on one of the corners then dragging to the midpoint of the opening. Then I move the rectangle away from the cabinet, and dragging in the face profile to the midpoint of the edge of the rectangle. If you want to play along at home, the cabinet model (which contains the profile) is part of our 3D Warehouse collection.

I erase the face of the rectangle and explode the profile component. Then I select the lines and the profile face and make a door component. I have to open this new component for editing to make the following moves, but this locks out the rest of the model, so I don't change anything I don't want to by mistake.
To run the shape around the perimeter of the door, I first select the four lines of the rectangle, pick up the Follow Me tool from the toolbar and click on the face of the profile. This extrudes the profile all the way around and gives a general idea of the appearance of the finished door. If I only want the finished door size, I can add lines on the outer face to represent the miters, click out in space to close the door component and call it a day. I can add a panel, move the component back to the cabinet and make a copy for the other door. But what if I want to generate a cut list showing the exact sizes of all four pieces of the frame. Sounds like a good idea, but can that be done without taking all day?

First I want to zoom on in and draw the miter lines on the large wide pieces. There is also a small line I need to draw next to the groove on the inside of the bead. Zoom way in and you'll see what I mean.

Next, I orbit around and draw the miter lines from corner to corner on the back side. These lines separate the faces on the door parts. There are a few tiny lines that are hard to reach that need to be drawn eventually, but at this point I only draw the lines that are obvious and easy to get to.

I hit the spacebar to exit the pencil command and bring up the selection arrow. Then I draw a box from left to right around the vertical piece on one side. When that is highlighted in blue, I right-click and select "Make Component" from the menu. This component now lives inside the door component I made to begin with.

I do the same thing to one of the horizontal pieces; select the geometry with a bounding box, and make it a component. Now I have a stile component and a rail component nested within the door component. I select everything else by drawing a crossing box (moving right to left with the selection arrow) across the corner that is opposite the intersection of the two components. Now I open one of the components for editing, zoom in and draw a few lines to complete the face on the mitered end. When the lines are in the right places, a face will appear.

I'll need to move the other component over to work on the other end, and I'll need to erase any legacy lines left over from the earlier steps. These are junk, and the model will be more manageable without them. When all the end faces are on both components, I move them back together.

The last two pieces are copies of the rail and stile components. Click on one, type "M" for move and press the CTRL key. When you see a + sign next to the move icon, click on an outside corner and drag the copy to the opposite corner. When you get there, left-click to stop the move, then right-click to open the pop-up menu. Select "Flip Along" then the appropriate axis from the menu to make a matching piece. When all four of the frame components are in place, click out in space to close the main door component. Add a panel by editing the door component and move the door back into position.

--Robert W. Lang

If you want to learn how to use SketchUp, my Shop Class: SketchUp for Woodworkers, Getting Started video is a great beginning.

If you want a comprehensive guide to SketchUp, from a woodworker's perspective, check out this digital book with embedded video, Woodworker's Guide to Google SketchUp

Do you like free woodworking plans? Here's where you can find 186 of them in Google SketchUp format, The Popular Woodworking Magazine 3D Warehouse Collection.

Sunday, August 29, 2010 12:37:32 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [1] 

One of the greatest moments in marketing history was the mass adoption of power tools following World War II. Before then, the standard thinking was that just about anyone could pick up a saw and cut a piece of wood. Within 20 years that notion became an eccentricity. If you want to sell anything to a woodworker, the first thing to do is sell him on the idea that he can't possibly perform a given task without your tool, gadget, jig or gizmo. So many people bought into the notion that an average person couldn't use a handsaw to cut to a line, that tools that actually could work nearly disappeared.

That situation has been changing, but a great number of otherwise rational people are convinced that one simple skill, sawing to a line, is beyond them. And there is also a large group that is willing to consider it possible to saw, but are paralyzed by two things; how to practice, and what saw to start with. There are a lot of premium saws on the market, and you really can't go wrong with any of them. But without some experience, you won't be able to intelligently choose between them. The saw pictured above is half the price, works very well, and is the one I would buy if I were just starting. Get the 14tpi to start with, and don't give in to the temptation to buy the set.  You should also make a bench hook, similar to the one in the picture.

Keep your grip relaxed; pretend your shaking hands with your great-grandmother. And stick your index finger out and rest it on top of the back. You don't need to muscle your way through sawing, this calls for a gentle touch and some finesse. The saw is heavier on top, with the center of gravity in line with your extended finger. Lean it from side to side and you will develop a feel for when it is vertical.

The right body position is important. My right leg is back, and my foot is pointing in the direction of the camera. Most of my weight is on the other leg, and my knee is bent so I'm not leaning uncomfortably. My right arm is in the same plane as the saw, so I can move my arm back and forth from the shoulder. I don't want to be flopping my wrist or swinging my elbow. Move with the shoulder, guided by the index finger.

To get a cut started, put the thumb of the left hand up and against the side of the blade. This is to give you a reference for vertical as you start the cut. You can also check the reflection of the board in the saw blade. The reflection and the real board should form a straight line. To take the picture above, I had to look through the viewfinder of the camera, click the timed shutter and get my hands back in position. I'm getting old, so my eyes aren't so good and I'm not as fast as I once was. I'm lined up a little off square; to make the cut I want, I should swing the handle of the saw to the left a little, so that the reflection makes a nice horizontal line.

If I've been away from the shop for awhile, or using a saw I haven't used lately, or feeling less than 100% confident, I will make some practice cuts in the waste area. For those of you playing along at home, I'm cutting the notch in the end of the Gottshall Block. Actually I'm about to cut it, this is just warm up. Try this on a piece of scrap; cut 8 or 10 lines without marking anything. Try to cut across squarely and vertically. When you're done, check with your square to see how close you came. 10 minutes or less of doing this will get you much farther than trying to cut exactly to a line to get started.

My grandfather, father, uncle, older brother and several skilled cabinetmakers all told me to "let the saw do the work". It only took me about twenty years to realize that what they meant was "let the saw do the work". The tool has evolved and been optimized to cut wood cleanly and easily. I just need to give it a gentle push to get it started. It's hard to describe how gentle, but it's almost as if I'm trying to hold the teeth above the board. If I can get the teeth to move across the wood along my line, they will start to cut. From there on in, the saw will follow along in the kerf if I let it. Knife or gauge lines make this easier.

This simple skill is one of the most empowering in woodworking. If you can successfully saw to a line, you can make just about anything if you know where to put the line. Frank Klausz once said, "if you're learning to cut dovetails, and you can't stay on the line you shouldn't be practicing dovetails. You should be practicing sawing to a line." Frank knows his stuff.

--Robert W. Lang

Saturday, August 28, 2010 4:40:06 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [4] 

When you work with power tools, machine set up is everything. The quality of your joinery, and your entire project is based on your level of accuracy at that stage. With hand tools, layout is everything. You can't depend on your table saw's fence to make certain that every cut is the same, so how can you be sure of consistency? The best way is to gauge your measurements whenever you can. Set a measuring device to the distance you want, and leave it set to make all the marks you need at that distance. I did that in the last post with the adjustable square, and I have a few so that I can leave them set for different distances as I work.
A marking gauge takes that concept one step further. One tool will set the distance and mark the cutting line. There are several styles and configurations, some wooden ones have metal points, and some have flat blades. Like adjustable squares, you will eventually want/need/have more than one. The one in the picture is a Tite-Mark made by Glen-Drake Toolworks. I try not to recommend particular brands or tools unless there is a compelling difference within a group. As with the Starrett square, the Tite-Mark stands out from the crowd, and you won't regret buying one. You may find another gauge that looks like this for a lot less, but don't be fooled.

When the gauge is set, it will mark a nice clean line as you push the brass stock against an edge of a board and pull the tool toward you. This works a lot faster than using a knife and a square, and when you turn a corner to mark all the way around a board, the marks will meet and be consistent. You can set the tool directly, from the edge of a mortise for example, and use that setting to mark your tenon. The distances will be the same, and that is far more important (and far easier to achieve) than measuring something two or three times.

The cutter on the end has a triangular profile. The line on the left was cut with a knife. The cut on the right has a straight side and an angled side. This is the rabbet on the end of the block, and the straight cut from the marking gauge is actually the edge of the joint that will show when all is said and done. My joint already has a nice clean edge, and I have barely started to make it yet. If I can do the rest of the work without goofing up that edge, everything will be fine, the part that shows in the end is done.

You can get the same effect by carefully making a slice along a knife line with a sharp chisel held at an angle. You don't need to go very deep, you only want to establish a wider and deeper channel for your saw or chisel when you get to the next step. The shape of the channel, as well as the larger size helps to get the first saw cut headed in the right direction.

There is less material on the angled side, so when you push the saw to get it started it will meet less resistance toward the angle, and it will easily hug the straight side as the cut goes deeper. The most important part of sawing accurately by hand is getting the first stroke right. After that, gravity and momentum help to keep the cut on track. When your skills increase, you'll be able to get a line started straight without this, but when you're new (or the cut is important) this is a big help.

Next time, we'll start sawing.

--Robert W. Lang

We've been writing about hand tools for a long, long time. You can find our favorite articles from years past in book form. And we now have a Look Inside feature in our book store.
Click here to check out Hand Tool Essentials.

Friday, August 27, 2010 2:33:48 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [3]