Popular Woodworking Editors' Blog

Make plans to be in Cincinnati on May 16-17, 2009, for a free woodworking show at our offices here at Popular Woodworking and Woodworking Magazine.

Lie-Nielsen Toolworks' traveling Hand Tool Event is coming to Cincinnati. There will be free demos, tours of our shop and plenty of time to ask questions about setting up and using hand tools.

In addition to Lie-Nielsen, there are several other toolmakers planning on exhibiting at the show, including:

John Economaki of Bridge City Tools. See the Jointmaker Pro (which we awarded a Best New Tool of 2008 award) in action.

Ron Hock of Hock Tools. Ron is a long-time bladesmith who is extremely knowledgeable about steels and sharpening. Ask him about his forthcoming book on sharpening tools.

Kevin Drake of Glen-Drake Tool Works. Kevin builds my favorite marking gauge of all time (the Tite-Mark), plus other thoughtful tools, including chisel hammers, plane hammers and the thought-provoking double-handled dovetail saw.

Ron Brese of Brese Planes. Ron makes incredible infill handplanes at down-to-earth prices. If you're in the market for an infill, he's should definitely be on your short list.

Bob Zajicek of Czeck Edge Hand Tool will be showing off his wares. He makes fantastic marking knives, awls and other tools.

Jameel Abraham of Benchcrafted will be showing his awesome wagon vise, plus I hear he has a new product in the works that is very interesting.

And the entire magazine staff will be there. Senior Editor Glen D. Huey will be demonstrating how to hand cut dovetails (pins-first). Senior Editor Robert W. Lang will be demonstrating how to cut through-mortises. And Managing Editor Megan Fitzpatrick will be reciting bawdy early modern poems on the hour.

I'll be there, too, showing off drawboring, advanced nailing (yes, it exists), sharpening, sawing, stock preparation and running at the mouth (my best skill).

As a bonus, we'll have some great workbenches there for you to examine and use. Lie-Nielsen Toolworks is bringing some of its benches. Plus there will be Glen's Shaker workbench, Bob's modern workbench and my Roubo. And if Megan gets her act together, you'll be able to see her new bench that we're helping design that uses a very unusual material.

Be sure to bring the family. We're one block from the area's biggest upscale mall. And Cincinnati has lots of excellent attractions (Megan has written about them here), good watering holes and great restaurants (I'll follow up with my favorite list in a couple weeks).

You don't have to register. Just show up. The hours are noon-6 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday; admission is free. So set your GPS for 4700 E. Galbraith Road, Cincinnati, OH, 45236. Or use this handy Google map to plan your trip. We hope you can make it.

— Christopher Schwarz

If don't show up for work tomorrow, it's because the Asian plywood industry has taken out a contract on my life.

But here's the truth: All of the Asian plywood I've purchased from the big box stores in the last five years has been almost impossible for me to build furniture with.

The veneer on the outside of the plywood is too thin. How thin? Today I carefully delaminated some plywood from a job I completed last year, scraped off the adhesive and measured the result. The exterior veneer was about .015" thick.

Then I went and measured the thickness of the toilet paper in our publishing company's men's room. Let me say that our single-ply toilet paper is not the highest quality. We occasionally use it on our random-orbit sanders when we're low on #80-grit paper (that was a joke, by the way). In truth, the stuff is rough and thin at .005" thick.

So the veneer on the plywood is about three thicknesses of inexpensive paper. Or about two shavings from my jointer plane. Or about 30 seconds with #120-grit paper in a decent random-orbit sander. It is just too darn thin.

What's worse, these sheet goods are also poorly sanded at the factory. There are deep machine marks that have to be sanded out – so burning through the stuff at the edges is inevitable.

And there's more. The stuff is sold wet, has internal stresses or has both problems. When I rip up a sheet of the stuff, some of it will curl like a coopered door. So you can forget about dimensional stability (unless you build coopered doors).

I've had much better luck with Baltic birch-like products and some premium plywoods from specialty suppliers. But this stuff is hard to find in some locations of the country. Our retail supplier closed down a couple years ago, and I have yet to find another convenient source within 30 miles of my home.

As a result, despite the fact that I'm not opposed to plywood (I quite like it in contemporary furniture), I've had to rely on solid wood more and more because of the plywood supply around me.

So I was surprised by the results of our poll last week that showed about 45 percent of our online readers use equal amounts of plywood and solid wood. Either you've found a good source for plywood or you're using it in places that don't show.

Or you're members of the plywood mafia and I should watch my back during my drive home today.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. How do you feel about plywood in freestanding furniture projects? Leave a comment below and let us know. Your comment might just help us improve our content. Also, if you'd like to learn more about plywood, read our free article about how we tested the different kinds and came up with surprising results. You can read that story here.

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Raymond McInnis is an amateur woodworker and scholar of woodworking history who maintains the web site woodworkinghistory.com. At his site, you’ll find “A Decade-by-Decade Narrative of Amateur Woodworking in America From 1900 to 2000” as well as a glossary of woodworking terms, vintage woodworking manuals and more. Raymond has been following the discussion of “favorite woodworking books” on our blog, and writes:

“[I] think that while the authors discussed have merit, the list is too contemporary – too much simply "re-inventing the wheel" – to the neglect the pioneers, many of whom are listed [on my site]. Perhaps my opinion is a bit strong, but after my work assembling the material for the names listed below, I have acquired a genuine respect and humility for what these woodworkers of earlier eras accomplished.”

Click here to read his list as well as excerpts from each title and biographical information on the authors.

— Megan Fitzpatrick, managing editor