Popular Woodworking

As I sit here and write this, there’s a subtle change happening here in Iowa. If you’re not from here, you probably won’t notice. It’s still hot and muggy. But it’s not as sticky as it was a few weeks ago. The leaves are still green but the walnut tr

Shaker Side Table – pg. 18 Dillon Baker attended Iowa State University and majored in Studio Arts. For the past five years, Dillon has been a Project Designer and Design Editor for Woodsmith Magazine. Recently, he's been contributing to Popular Woodw

To keep things simple, burn these three numbers in your memory banks: 25°, 30°, and 35°. These are the three most commonly used angles when grinding and honing chisels and plane blades. • If you prefer to grind and hone your tools with a single bevel

Here’s a classic tip that everyone should know: It’s not hard to make a dent in wood, but fortunately it’s not hard to get one out, either. All you need is a household iron and a damp clamp. Put a couple of drops of water onto the dent and let it soa

EDITOR IN CHIEF ■ Logan Wittmer SENIOR DESIGNER ■ Danielle Lowery DIGITAL EDITOR ■ Collin Knoff PROJECTS EDITOR ■ Dillon Baker TECHNOLOGY EDITOR ■ Chris Fitch PHOTOGRAPHERS ■ Jack Coyier, Austin Day COVER PHOTOGRAPHER ■ Austin Day CONTRIBUTORS ■ Will

It happens to everybody. On your sample, the color was perfect, but on your piece, it doesn’t look right. Don’t despair. There’s an easy way to remove water-soluble dye color so you can try again. Sponge the surface liberally with regular household c

Wooden wing nuts are much easier on your hands than metal ones. Making them is a great way to use up shop scraps and leftover hex nuts—and avoids a trip to the hardware store. Start with a strip of wood that’s about ¾" thick, at least ⅛" wider than t

This swing-out drill bit rack means no more peering into a dark cabinet or trying to reach over a forest of sharp bits to get the one way in the back. Instead, just swing out the block and all your drill accessories are right where you can easily and

I buy glue in gallon jugs and have tried every glue bottle on the market. None of them worked how I wanted and I thought I would never find the perfect one. However, my search ended one evening while I was washing dishes with my wife. The dish-soap b

How did you get started woodworking? Who were your mentors? It was only three years ago—I was moving into a new apartment with my girlfriend in Brooklyn and she would not stop showing me furniture that was upwards of $3,000. As two people who have wo

Like most of the woodworking community, I spent more time in my shop during 2020 and 2021. Over the last two years, I used a variety of tools and gained new appreciation for a handful of them. Some of these are new tools, others are ones that I’ve si

The amount of well known “master” woodworkers that I’ve heard say the one tool in their shop that they wouldn’t live without is a band saw has always amazed me. That is, until I really spent some time with mine and came to understand how versatile of

An important lesson I learned during my five-year military enlistment was the concept of always leaving something better than it was. My unit would ensure a range used during a field operation was cleaner than it was before we came. When required to

Yakisugi siding is common in rural areas of Japan. This house, close to my own, was built prior to World War II. The current resident’s father purchased the house after the end of the war for his family. Though the house was not originally covered in

I count myself lucky to meet some of the most outrageously talented people in the woodworking world. Amongst those is Scott Grove. Scott, hailing from western New York, is the unprecedented leader in compound (3D) veneering. And while Scott’s often k