Power Saws

I wonder how many of us are friends with our band saw and consider it one of the most useful and versatile machines in the workshop? My 43-year-old Robinson Cadet is not only my favorite machine, but it is also capable of incredible precision. This may come as a surprise to those who consider that a band saw is a machine for coarse work only.

While considering the content of this article, I came to the conclusion that a good band saw is capable of coarse, medium and fine work, and this ties in nicely with our esteemed editor’s views on handplanes.

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Coarse: Break Down Rough Stock
A good-size band saw can rip huge waney-edge planks, quickly disposing of the sapwood and bark. Wide boards often contain the pith at the center of the tree and many exhibit heart shakes. Cutting these planks up the center, into two manageable widths, is not a job for a table saw. The band saw is much friendlier and safer, as the flexibility of its blade will usually cope with the absence of a machined surface to ride on the machine’s table.

My machine has 20"-diameter wheels, so it should not be confused with small hobby benchtop models. I note that the band saw that is featured extensively in James Krenov’s book “The Fine Art Of Cabinetmaking” had 18" wheels. He states that it was capable of ripping 8"-thick hardwood, provided that a sharp, suitable blade was used.

Medium: Cut Then Refine
I do a lot of freehand cutting on my band saw, sawing perhaps 1/64" to a 1/16" away from a pencil line, depending on the circumstances. The small amount of remaining timber can be handplaned or machined quite quickly to achieve the desired result. For example: When using the band saw to make the long shallow triangular jigs that I use for dovetail cutting, the remaining stuff can be edge planed on the jointer with a few light passes.

Fine: Joinery, Veneer, Resawing
I have to confess that my handsawing skills are rather poor because I have not practiced as much as I have with planes and chisels. This is one reason I cut my dovetails on the band saw. The other reason is that my band saw cuts perfectly square every time.

Remarkably, the finish left by the .022"-thick, 3tpi, 5/8" “meat & fish” blade that I use for fine work and veneer cutting is just as good as that left by my best dovetail saw, even in 3/8"-thick hardwood. So from my point of view it is win-win – all the way to a good fit.

If you do small Krenov-style work, band sawing is almost the only way to do the female half of the signature bridle joints. These are so useful at the corners of delicate frames, for paneled backs and small doors.

Similarly, the face cheek of a tenon can be cut in exactly the right place after a few test cuts are made. Tenons are usually cut in multiples, and each and e...

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Sideboards

It’s unlikely you’ll find the “Kentucky Style” listed in any furniture-design textbook, but it’s real. I’ve spent the last 15 years tracking down examples of this 18th- and 19th-century furniture style to study and incorporate elements of it into my own furniture pieces.

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Kentucky furniture is less ornate than the pieces produced in the cities of its day, and this befits its frontier heritage. One of the things that sets Kentucky furniture off from other vernacular forms is the inlay that adorns the drawers and legs. While I’ve seen some examples of the Kentucky style with complex inlay designs, most times the inlay is simple and understated.

The furniture itself is usually made using walnut or cherry, two woods that are common in most parts of the Bluegrass state.

I’ve been building the sideboard design shown here for a number of years, and it has been received enthusiastically by my customers – no matter which side of the Mason-Dixon line they’re from. A three-drawer version also is popular, and it is an easy change should you prefer that arrangement.

This sideboard is built using straightforward joinery and requires only 2"-square material for the legs. In deciding which inlay design to use, I pay careful attention to the wood grain, looking for the perfect flow of grain and contour. Just as with the authentic pieces of Kentucky-style furniture built in the 1700s and 1800s, I let hand-carved knobs and inlaid diamond escutcheons add a special flair.

Begin Construction
If you’re interested in making your own version of this piece, I encourage you to try the inlay details. But if the sideboard itself is what you’re after, I’ve offered the article in two sections. The main article shows you how to make the case, while the side-story explains the inlay work.

Start building the case by first marking the legs for the mortise-and-tenon joints in the face frame. These are the only mortise-and-tenon joints in the piece. The back and sides are held in place on the legs using biscuits.

To mark the mortise and tenon locations, measure down 2" from the top of each leg and mark for the top rail. Then measure another 7" down to define the drawer space and the location of the top of the lower rail. Go ahead and measure another 2-1/2" and 4-1/4" from the drawer space. The 2-1/2" mark is the bottom edge of the mortise, while the 4-1/2" mark defines the starting point of the leg taper where it meets the lower rail. See the illustration for details. The legs themselves taper on the two inside faces to 1" square at the foot. You should cut the taper prior to assembly using either a band saw or table saw.

The mortises are 3/8" x 1-1/2" long x 1/2" deep and positioned so the front frame pieces are flush to the front of the legs. Whe...

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Honing Guides

Many sizes and shapes. Here are some of the tools I sharpened (or attempted to sharpen) with the four honing guides. From the left: plane irons for a block plane, spokeshave, bevel-up smoothing plane, bevel-down smoothing plane and shoulder plane. The chisels include: a dovetail, fishtail,
Japanese, bevel-edge, skew and mortising tool.

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With the exception of your two hands, there is no such thing as the perfect honing guide for every shape and size of woodworking tool.
Some guides are great for short tools. Some are great for chisels. Others excel at gripping odd-shaped tools. But none of the guides handle all the tools all the time.

During the last decade, I’ve taught a lot of people to sharpen chisels and plane irons, so I’ve gotten to use many of the student’s honing guides. Some of these guides I’ve purchased for our shop at Popular Woodworking. Other guides haven’t impressed me much.

The honing guides in this article are four models that I’ve found to be useful and commonly available. Now, I don’t think you need to buy four honing guides to get your tools sharp. Depending on your work, you might need one or maybe two.

Or, perhaps if your hands are willing, you might not need any of these guides at all.

The Case for Guides
More often than not, I use a honing guide when sharpening. Though I can (and do) sharpen without them, I find them to be brilliant at providing repeatable and quick results. And when I teach sharpening, I like to show students how to use a guide. Many woodworkers sharpen infrequently and have difficulty training their hands to do what they want every single time.

I’m not hostile to hand-sharpening. If you like the process and your results, please don’t change. But I also bristle when hand-sharpeners run down people who use guides. The act of sharpening already causes enough anxiety among woodworkers.

About the Dull Tools
Hand tools come in a wide variety of sizes and shapes, so I selected a broad range of shapes that have been both easy and difficult for me to secure in honing guides.

Some of the tools are common and are (usually) easy to secure in guides, such as 2"- and 21/4"-wide plane irons, a 1/2"-wide bevel-edge chisel and a 1"-wide Japanese chisel.

Other tools are tricky because of their shapes, such as a short spokeshave iron, a T-shaped shoulder-plane iron, a fishtail-shaped bench chisel and a skew chisel.

And I threw in one tool, a traditional English mortising chisel by Ray Iles, that gives almost all the honing guides a fit.

About the Guides
Honing guides have, in general, two ways of going about their job of holding the work. Some guides clamp a tool on its sides; the others clamp a tool from above and below.

Neither system is superior in all cases. The side-clamping guides exce...

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Using a Jigsaw

The jigsaw generally gets a bad rap as a rough tool that’s best suited for kitchen installations and odd-ball carpentry jobs.

And while I do use my jigsaw for coarse operations – I also consider it one of my essential tools for building fine furniture.

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With the right blade, a little confidence and – most important – the right body position, you can do almost anything with a jigsaw that you can do with a band saw. Plus you can do a lot of things that are impossible to do on the band saw.

Here’s a taste: Recently we were installing a kitchen and had to remove 1" of the depth from a finished cabinet against one wall. The only tool I needed was a jigsaw, and it took just a few minutes to do the job.

Here’s another: Early in my cabinetmaking career I made historical reproductions for another shop down the road. A lot of these pieces had fancy bracket bases, but we didn’t know what the profile would be until the customers placed their order. So we had to cut the scrollwork on the base after the entire cabinet was assembled. This technique worked so well that it’s how I do many of my cabinets today.

These cuts on the bracket base, when done well, require little or no sanding. I can usually just hit the edge with some sandpaper and am done with it.
And, of course, I’ve used my jigsaw for rough carpentry: cutting vent holes in roofs, framing stud walls, cutting drywall, PVC pipe and sheet metal.

A lot of woodworkers lack the confidence to make finish cuts with a jigsaw, but I contend that it’s easier than you think. Read this article, then take some strips of plywood and practice some cutting in the shop. It doesn’t take much practice to get good at it.
Choosing a Saw
This isn’t a tool review, but there are some general guidelines I would follow when buying a jigsaw. First, if you cannot afford a good saw, I’d wait until you can.
What’s a good saw? When I buy a jigsaw I’ll first turn it on. If it’s relatively quiet and doesn’t shake too much, that’s a good sign – low vibrations contribute to a smoother finished cut.

I also don’t like it when a jigsaw heats up in use. Again, this is something that you can only check by turning on the saw and putting some time in on it.
I also prefer the barrel-grip designs to the traditional top-handle designs – although a Metabo top-handle design is used for this article because top-handle models are more common. The top-handle tools are good, too, but the barrel grips allow me to get my hand closer to the work, which improves my accuracy.

Preparing the Tool
Jigsaws tend to get handled a little roughly and are frequently knocked around or dropped. This rough treatment is hardest on the base of the tool.
Why should you care? If you’re having trouble tracking a line then chances are your base is ou...

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Woodworking Tools

Editor's note: For more information on hand tools, be sure to visit the section of our store that is dedicated to hand tools. Click here .

When setting up shop, probably the last place you should search for the tools you need is in a tool catalog. The catalogs and supply stores are clogged with an array of tools, jigs and other equipment that all look absolutely essential.

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Truth is, most of those tools are essential, but just not for every shop and every woodworker. The core list of tools you need to build furniture is actually pretty small.
We set out to develop our own list of “must-have” tools for a shop that blends hand and power tools, but we quickly discovered that someone had already done the job for us – and done it well.

The late Charles H. Hayward was a 20th-century woodworking writer who had been traditionally trained in professional English shops when both hand and power tools were common. Hayward wrote many classics, including “Woodwork Joints,” “Cabinetmaking for Beginners” and “English Period Furniture.” He also was the editor of England’s Woodworker Magazine.

All of his books are out of print, though they are easy to find used on the Internet.

One of Hayward’s best books, “Tools for Woodwork,” explains how to use most basic hand tools and hand-held power tools. At the back of that book is a “suggested kit for the man taking up woodwork seriously.” We’ve decided to print his basic list and illustration (at right) with our commentary following each entry. Plus, we’ve included a list of what we consider to be the essential and recommended power tools.

The Preliminary Tool Kit
These are the hand tools Hayward says you should purchase before you cut your first stick of wood. The numbers before each entry correspond with the numbers in the illustration. Download the pdf at the end of this article for the full-size illustration.

1. Crosscut handsaw, 22": This is technically a panel saw. It is useful for breaking down large planks  you before flatten them.

2. Backsaw, 10": Presumably a carcase saw and filed crosscut, this tool will make your finishing cuts and is typically used with the bench hook.

3. Dovetail saw, 8": We prefer a 15-point saw that is filed for ripping cuts.

7. Jack plane: Hayward seems to prefer this plane for processing rough lumber. A 14"-long plane is typical.

8. Fore plane: Hayward seems to prefer this size plane (about 18") for shooting the edges of boards instead of a jointer plane.

9. Smoothing plane: The smoothing plane is the last plane to touch the work before scrapers or sandpaper. A 10"-long plane is a typical size.

15. Firmer chisels, 1/4" and 3/4": These were once common tools without the beveled edges that are comm...

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Carving

Wallace Nutting, in “Furniture Treasury Vol. III” (Macmillan Publishing Co.), separates shells from fans by calling them, “those cheaper modifications which more properly are denominated fans.” From a carving perspective, he was correct – shells are more difficult to produce. But from a purely aesthetic point of view, I think fans, when carved well, rival any shell design in beauty.

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As the popularity of fan carvings grew during the 1700s, each region of furniture manufacture developed its own style. Today, we evaluate the carved fan to help identify in which region a piece of furniture was built.

This design was developed from a number of New England pieces, and I have infused my own ideas as well.

As an introduction to fan carving, you might expect a flat design. However, creating an undulating design, a serpentine or an S-shaped surface, involves  only a couple additional steps during the carving process. And the results are worth the extra effort.

Accurate Layout, Better Results
I imagine there are woodworkers who carve exceptionally well who could position themselves in front of a blank of wood and freehand carve a masterpiece fan. I cannot.

The first step in fan layout is placement. This fan is carved into a drawer front. The carving is placed 11/4" above the bottom edge of the drawer front to gain additional shadow lines as the design rolls into the drawer divider below. Mark this distance up from the bottom edge, then use a straightedge and pencil to draw the baseline.
Most fans on period furniture are symmetrical designs. Mark the middle of the drawer front on the previously marked baseline. Use a square to extend a vertical line up the face of the front. The intersection of the two lines is important; a circle and a half circle are drawn from this point. The circle, from which the rays travel outward to the fan’s edge, has a 11/2" diameter, which is a 3/4" radius. Use a compass to complete the full circle.

The size of the circle influences the width of the rays at their smallest or narrowest section. If the circle shrinks in size, the width of the rays at the circle becomes too narrow to carve or distinguish. Your first instinct might be to increase the size of the inner circle, but I must caution you that you need to keep the ratio of the circle and the fan size in mind. Proportions are easy to lose if you’re not careful, and then the carving won’t look pleasing to th...

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Hand Scrapers

The first time I saw a hand scraper in use I was sure some form of magic was involved. How else could such delicate, wispy shavings be produced from a rectangular piece of steel? Excited, I bought one, rushed home and immediately discovered that it did in fact require magic to work -- or so it seemed. Years later, I learned that the magic behind a scraper is an invisible burr -- a tiny hook -- that you form on its edges. It's this burr that makes it possible to tackle jobs that will make a hand plane tremble in fear -- squirrely grain like bird's eye or burls where the grain constantly shifts and changes direction. A hand scraper can smooth surfaces like these without worry of tearing out fibers.

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But the No. 1 reason I reach for scraper is to quickly level high spots on a glued-up panel or tabletop. Sure, you could pull out a power sander, but why bother when a few quick passes with a hand scraper will do the job (and do it a lot quieter -- and without the dust). Once you slip one of these into your shop apron, you'll find yourself reaching for it constantly. It's like having a pocket-sized cordless sander that doesn't require sandpaper and a hand plane that can be sharpened in seconds all rolled into one. If this sounds too good to be true, it isn't. All it takes is a quality scraper and a simple procedure to create the burr.

There are several tools called "scrapers."There is the rectangular piece of metal, the rectangular piece of metal in an oversized spokeshave body (called a cabinet scraper) and a rectangular piece of metal in a plane body (called a scraping plane). Each has its uses. Cabinet scrapers and scraper planes attempt to make the work less tiring. There's also myriad ways to sharpen and tune them. In this article, I'll focus solely on the hand scraper. Get the hang of this tool, and then move on to its bigger brothers.

Scrapers 101
Before delving into how to form a burr on a scraper, let's look at what makes a good scraper. The best indication of overall quality is its metal and hardness. Inexpensive hand scrapers are often sheared from spring steel with a Rockwell hardness of anywhere from C-30 to C-40. This makes them easy to sharpen, but the burr won't last long. A high-quality scraper is made from tool steel with a Rockwell hardness closer to C-50. These take a bit more effort to sharpen, but the burr lasts considerably longer.

Scrapers come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Rectangular scrapers are either 3" x 5" or 2-1/2" x 6" and come in a variety of thickness, usually .020" and .030". Generally, the thicker the scraper, the more heavy-duty work it can handle -- jobs like scraping off dried glue or paint. Thinner scrapers allow you to flex them more to prevent the corners from digging in.

Which scraper is best for you? If you'll be doing mostly rough work, a thicker scraper wi...

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Shelves

It's rare that bookshelves look as interesting as the objects you display on them. After all, how much can you decorate the edges of your shelves and sides? This unit is unusual because the shelves and sides are beefier than you would normally see, and the two bevel cuts on the front edges give these shelves nice visual interest. Best of all, perhaps, is that this piece is simple and quick to build.

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Dividers and Shelves
Start by cutting out the sides and shelves. The 1-1/2"-thick sides are made by gluing two pieces of 3/4"-thick plywood together. The 1-1/4"-thick shelves are made by gluing 3/4"-thick plywood to a 1/2"-thick piece. Note that the finished sides have a 3/4" x 1/4" rabbet for the back that's formed by gluing a narrower piece to a wider one. The adjustable and fixed shelves in the side openings are all the same width. The center shelves are 1/4" wider to account for the lack of a back.

To cut the sides, crosscut a whole sheet of plywood to the length of the sides first, then rip them to width (11" and 11-1/4"). Cut the sides a little wide (1/16"), initially, to give yourself a little room to saw off a square straight edge. This will give you a clean edge for attaching a piece of maple later. Now nail and glue the dividers together, remembering to offset the back edge for the rabbet. Place your nails so the shelves will hide them.

Here's an easy way to cut the shelves. Rip them to width from a full piece of plywood, then nail and glue up a length of shelving. Then crosscut the shelves to length from the long pieces. You can get five 16" shelves out of a 96" rip. For even less work, cut the shelves to length after attaching the edging.

Edges and Angles
The edges for the bookshelves are solid maple. Because the thickness of 3/4" and 1/2" plywood is considered "nominal," you will end up with finished thicknesses about 1/16" less. Rip your edging stock a little wide and attach it with biscuits and glue. With a flush-cut bearing bit in a router, trim the edging flush to the sides and shelves, then clean up your work with a plane or scraper.

The last step is to bevel the edging. The photo shows how I did this on the table saw. Remember that the setup must change for the different width pieces.

Making it a Stand-Up Unit
The next step is to mill stopped grooves in the topmost and bottommost shelves to accept the tapered sliding connectors that attach the sides together. The grooves in the ends of the shelves are 3/4" wide by approximately 3/8" deep, and milled with a dado set on the table saw. It helps to make a practice joint because the depth of the groove is critical to a snug fit using this style of connector.

Installing the Shelves
After cutting the slots in the shelves, lay out and mount the small part of the tapered...

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Chairs

A Morris chair is a great place to settle in and do lots of things, including reading a book, enjoying a drink, chatting with friends and watching a good rain storm. During at least half of the year in the Midwest these things are nice to do outside, as well as inside, but dragging a white oak mortise-and-tenoned Morris chair onto your deck isn’t the easiest thing. Not one to be put out of a comfortable position, I decided painted pine could work for a Morris chair as well, and so I headed for the home center store.

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The chair is made entirely from 1 x 4 and 1 x 6 pine, about $40 worth. The hardest joint on this chair is a butt joint, and if you’ve got a jigsaw, drill and a hammer you can knock one out in a day. With the help of a couple extra tools, my personal best time is under four hours. Your hardest work will be picking through the lumber racks to find the straightest and most knot-free lumber from the store.

The chair is designed to have a cushion, but you don’t have to add one. If you don’t use a cushion, the chair may feel a little deep when you sit in it. Because of this, I’d suggest taking 2" off the lengths for the side rails, arms, seat slats and side cleats. Readjust the spacing of the side slats to fit the shorter seat. My cushions came from a home center store and were modified with a little sewing. You also can check out Summer Living Direct and buy their “Winston cushions” (items # W1917 and W1907).

Start your building by cutting out the pieces to form the front and rear legs. Traditional Morris chairs typically have very stout legs, and I didn’t want to lose that look or stability, so I edge-glued and nailed two pieces together to form a “T.” Face-on or from the side, the sturdy leg is still visible. With the legs formed, the rear (shorter) legs need to have the top end cut at a 5-degree angle from front to back. Remember that the back on these legs is the top of the “T.” A miter box made quick work of this step.

The next step is to get your box of 1-1/4" deck screws (available at McFeely's ) out and attach the lower stretchers to the inside of the legs with the top edge 8" off the floor. With those attached, slip the top stretchers into place, flush with the front leg, and mark and cut the bevel on the rail to allow the arms of the chair to slope back. Then screw these stretchers in place, also on the inside of the legs and then screw the front and rear stretchers in place, above the lower side stretchers. With the side frames complete, cut the pieces for the side slats using the sides themselves to determine the angle to cut on the top of the slats. I spaced them evenly and used a pneumatic brad nailer to attach the slats as they’re more decorative than structural.

The two arms are cut from 37"-long pieces. Measure 4-1/2" in f...

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Workbenches

I’ve hauled my grandfather’s workbench across snow-covered Appalachian mountains, down narrow stairwells and into a dirt-floored garage that should have been torn down during the Eisenhower administration. I’ve built a lot of good stuff on that bench, but now it’s time to retire the old horse. For starters, the bench is too low for the way I work. And the top is pockmarked with three different shapes and sizes of dog holes. And during the last few years I’ve become fed up with the tool tray. The only thing it seems designed to hold is enough sawdust for a family of gerbils. So I need a new bench, but there’s no way I’m going to spend $1,200 to $1,400 for a high-quality bench from Hoffman & Hammer or Ulmia.

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Enter Bob Key from Georgia. He and his son have been building benches using off-the-rack pine for a few years and have even built a website showing how quick and easy this is to do. I was impressed with their idea. So I spent a week reading every book on benches I could find. I pored over the woodworking catalogs. And after a lot of figuring I came up with a simple plan: Build a bench for less than $175.

Believe it or not, I came in 92 cents under budget and ended up with a bench that is tough, sturdy and darn versatile. I made a few compromises when choosing the hardware to keep the cost down, but I designed the bench so that it can later be upgraded with a nice tail vise. However, I made no compromises in the construction of the top or base. You can dance on this bench.

Let’s Go Shopping

OK friends, it’s time to make your shopping list. First a word about the wood. I priced my lumber from a local Lowe’s. It was tagged as Southern yellow pine, appearance-grade. Unlike a lot of dimensional stock, this stuff is pretty dry and knot-free. Even so, take your time and pick through the store’s pile of 12-foot-long 2 x 8s with care to get the best ones possible. You can hide a few tight knots in the top, but with luck you won’t have to.

Here’s the story on the hardware. The bolts, nuts and washers are used to connect the front rails to the two ends of the bench. Using this hardware, we’ll borrow a technique used by bed makers to build a joint that is stronger than any mortise and tenon. The Bench Dog and Wonder Dog will keep you from having to buy an expensive tail vise. Using these two simple pieces of hardware, you can clamp almost anything to your bench for planing, sanding and chopping. The traditional face vise goes on the front of your bench and is useful for joinery and opening cans of peanut butter.

Preparing Your Lumber

Cut your lumber to length. You’ve probably noticed that your wood has rounded corners and the faces are probably less than glass-smooth. Your first task is to use your jointer and planer to remove those rounded edges an...

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Lathing

Practice at the grinder will pay off at the lathe. (Note that my hands are covering the toolrest.) Although my hands are close to the wheel, there is no danger as there is no pressure towards the wheel.

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Many years ago, I was cooking with a friend who was home visiting his parents during a college break. He struggled with a dull knife until he finally threw it down on the cutting board in disgust and declared, "There's a $2,000 stove in this house and not one sharp knife!"

In cooking or in woodworking, keen edges trump just about everything else in importance. You may have a $5,000 lathe with all the bells and whistles, but without sharp tools it's just a big piece of metal. Obviously every woodworker, whatever type of work he or she is doing, needs to use sharp tools. What isn't always so clear is how to get them that way — or even how to recognize a dull or sharp edge in the first place. This is especially true of turning tools, because there are so many different shapes and sizes. Figuring out how to sharpen all of those can be a little confusing. But understanding a few basic principles will definitely help.

Sharpening is a skill; as with any other skill, learning it will require practice. This may seem obvious, but it's easy to forget. It's certainly not as much fun to practice sharpening as actual turning; no lovely shavings pouring off the piece and so on. There is just — well, the grind of grinding. But time invested here will pay off exponentially at the lathe.

Understand that sharpening is really nothing but dressing the tool's bevel. When you think about the edge instead of the bevel, the tendency (albeit unconscious) is to raise the handle of the tool in order to get that edge to appear more quickly. You can't grind an edge; but produce a good, clean bevel and you will have a good edge. You can see when that edge arrives by watching for the sparks dancing across the edge or shooting down the top of the tool. Don't try to hurry it.

Don't worry too much about the exact angles of the bevels. It's more important to develop an understanding of how the tool should work, and when and why you might want a longer or a shorter bevel, than it is to produce a precise, predetermined angle. If the tool is working well, simply try to reproduce that angle.

Let the grinder do the work. Pushing the tool into the wheel won't take the metal off any faster; it will only overheat the tool and wheel. Just enough pressure to keep the wheel cutting is all that's required.

Dress the wheel frequently to keep it flat and clean (more on this later).

Make sure you're comfortable at the grinder; you'll be less inclined to rush it. Be sure you have good light, and that the working area is at an appropriate height. I'm 5'2" tall, and most shops I've been in have the grinder mounted too low even for my comfort. The base of mine is 40" from the floor; get yours u...

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Drawboring

Drawboring is a simple and fundamental skill that will radically transform your joinery. The few extra steps it requires will virtually eliminate gaps in a mortise-and-tenon joint – even if the wood still needs to reach equilibrium with its environment. Plus, drawboring reduces clamping and the need for a perfect fit.Drawboring is one of is one of the simple reasons that so much antique furniture survives today, some of it as sound as the day it was made.

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What is drawboring? It’s a technique that greatly strengthens a mortise-and-tenon joint, transforming it from a joint that relies on glue adhesion into a joint that has a permanent and mechanical interlock. In essence, you bore a hole through both walls of your mortise. Then you bore a separate hole through the tenon, but this hole is closer to the shoulder of the tenon. Then you assemble the joint and drive a stout peg through the offset holes. The peg draws the joint tight.

Drawboring offers several advantages compared to a standard glued mortise and tenon:

• The joint will remain tight. A common problem with mortise-and-tenon joints is that the joint can open up and develop an ugly gap at the shoulder. Sometimes this is caused by the wood shrinking as it reaches equilibrium with a new environment (such as your living room with its forced-air heat). Sometimes this gap is caused by simple seasonal expansion and contraction, especially with woods that tend to move a lot,
such as flat-sawn oak. The peg in a drawbored joint keeps the tenon in tension against the mortise during almost any shrinkage.

• The joint can be assembled without clamps. Drawboring is excellent for unusual clamping situations. Driving the peg through the joint closes it and clamps are generally not needed. Chairmakers use drawboring to join odd-shaped pieces at odd angles. It’s also an excellent technique when your clamps aren’t long enough. Or when you don’t have enough clamps. Drawboring also allows you to assemble a project one piece
at a time if need be.

• The joint can be assembled without glue. There is good evidence that drawboring allowed early joiners to assemble their wares without any glue. This is handy today when you’re joining resinous woods (such as teak) that resist modern glues or when you’re assembling joints that will be exposed to the weather, which will allow water to get into them and destroy the adhesive.

• The joint doesn’t have to be perfect. The mechanical interlock of drawboring means that your ...

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Benches

With nothing more than wedged tenons and some good engineering, this is a phenomenally strong bench. The wedged tenons create a splayed dovetail effect that completely locks this bench together. I built this bench using only The Little Shop Mark II, a workshop on wheels that uses only $1,000 in tools.

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Begin construction by cutting out the four boards according to the Cutting List. The extra length on the stretcher and legs is to accommodate a little extra length on the tenons for trimming.

After cutting and cleaning up the tenons, lay out and cut the through-mortises, which are angled to accommodate the wedged tenons. Cut the mortises to fit right over the tenons. To lay out the arc on the stretcher, drive a nail into the top of the arc at the center of the board. Then drive a nail into the starting point of both ends of the arc, as close to the edge of the board as possible. Take a strip of wood approximately 1/8" x 1/2" x 36" and bend it into an arc between the nails and trace a line on the stretcher. Remove the nails, cut out the arc and clean up the edge with a drawknife.

Now make the cutouts in the end panels. Lay them out according to the diagram, then cut them out with a coping saw. Make some relief cuts into the waste side to make cutting it out a little easier.

Once you have all the joinery fit, it’s time to get ready to assemble the bench. This is a completely clamp-free glue up. The wedges driven into the tenons act as the “clamps” to hold the entire bench together. The wedges are cut at an angle wider than the 5° of the mortise because the wedge itself becomes compressed when driving into the tenon. This compression takes away some of the wedges’ ability to spread the tenon. That’s why you make wedges with a 7° taper. This yields a good spread on the tenon during assembly.

Now is the time to test a set of wedges in a joint. Using no glue, assemble a joint. Tap in a couple of wedges and see if they completely spread a joint apart before bottoming out in the tenon slot. If they leave a little room, cut a little off of the wedge’s narrow end and taper it to fit the top of the slot accordingly. This gives a little more play to spread the tenon apart. Gently disassemble the dry-fit joint and proceed to glue up the bench and drive home the wedges with glue on them. It helps to wait a bit to clean...

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Veneering

Veneering has been practiced for thousands of years. It’s a way to take some of the world’s most spectacular but unstable woods, cut them to paper-thinness and glue them to a stable foundation. By veneering, you can repeat natural patterns, create intricate borders and inlays, arrange grain direction and create surface designs that would  be impossible to make with solid wood.

Using veneer adds a new dimension to furniture making and offers wonderful opportunities to the woodworker. However, from a technical perspective, there is the problem of attaching this skin securely to a wood substrate. You don’t want a veneered surface to peel, crack or buckle.

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From an aesthetic perspective, it allows the maker to design the “look” of his or her creation, almost like a painter working on a canvas. Veneer can change the perception of a piece. A delicate inlay can emphasize a feature: a cuff around a leg visually anchors a piece; bookmatched doors provide symmetry. Veneer can elevate your furniture from simple to sophisticated.

But, some woodworkers shy from using veneer. First, the term “veneer” implies to some people poor quality and shoddy, dishonest craftsmanship. Then, the process itself is so mysterious. Veneer is thin, fragile and prone to breaking apart. The tools and techniques used in veneering seem difficult and strange.

If a woodworker were interested, where would he or she start? What tools would be needed? How large and difficult a project should be attempted? As a teacher, I’m always searching for ways to make woodworking more accessible. A project such as this gentleman’s dressing mirror is a perfect introduction to traditional veneering.

I’ve taught this project class at the college level, and the Philadelphia Furniture Workshop is planning to put it on the schedule soon. (Complete plans for the dressing mirror are available through the school for $40 at philadelphiafurnitureworkshop.com ).

Traditional Hot Glue and Hammer Veneering
There are several ways to apply veneer to a piece. And if you’re serious about veneering, it’s a good idea to become familiar with all of them. I think the best method to learn first is traditional hammer veneering.

Of all the methods, gluing veneer with hot hide glue and pressing it with a hammer can be the most challenging – and the most satisfying. To achieve success takes a generous amount of patience, a delicate but firm touch and a critical eye. Tackling this method on a small but manageable scale will build confidence and develop your skills.

For this project, I used mahogany crotch veneer. This is a rich and shimmering veneer filled with light that often features a feather-like grain pattern down the center. Because the cabinet is small, the feather should also be small, and scaled to the cabinet. Many veneer suppliers have ph...

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Bending Wood

In my mind, there are three classifications of woodworking techniques. There are many that I classify as “useful,” a smaller number that I think of as “indispensable,” and then a very few that represent a true breakthrough in woodworking technology. Bending wood is one of the latter.

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The ability to alter the grain direction as our imagination dictates while preserving the strength inherent in a straight piece of wood allows us to create the elegant beauty of a continuous-arm Windsor chair and the inspiring sweep of a vaulted ceiling. We first explored our world in sailing ships with bent wood hulls, then left it in airplanes with bent wood wings. Our world would be much less beautiful and much less exciting without this simple woodworking technique.

I’m currently engaged in a woodworking project designed to create a little excitement, and bending wood is at the very heart of it. I’m part of a group of historians and aviators who are recreating the six experimental airplanes of the Wright brothers, beginning with their model glider of 1899 and ending with the 1905 Wright Flyer 3, the first practical airplane. The frames of these primitive aircraft are a collection of bent wood parts — ribs, wing ends, braces and skids — ingeniously arranged to catch the wind and lift a man into the air.

True Geniuses Prefer Cold Bending

When most of us hear the words “bending wood,” we think of steam bending. The wood is heated briefly in low-pressure steam to soften the lignin (a glue-like protein that holds the cellulose fibers together). While the wood is still hot, it’s clamped into a bending form. The cellulose fibers telescope to conform to the curve, and the lignin cools to hold them in place. Or almost. In actual practice, the fibers never quite conform, and when you remove the wood from the bending form, there is a great deal of springback — the wood loses some of its curve. If the wood is not attached to the other parts in the project so as to hold the curve, it may continue to relax and it will spring back even more. This problem plagued the Wright brothers while they were doing their glider experiments — they calculated precise curves for the ribs to fly as efficiently as possible, only to have the ribs relax and lose a good deal of curvature before they could get their gliders in the air.

To solve this problem, they eventually abandoned steam bending for an early form of cold bending. They arranged the parts of the ribs for their Flyers in a bending form, then nailed them together with brads. They could not use glue — the adhesives 100 years ago were not weatherproof. A good rain and the wings would have come apart.

Fortunately, we have a much larger and more reliable selection of adhesives to choose from than the Wrights. We decided to make the bent w...

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Magazine Rack

During the Arts & Crafts heyday at the turn of the 20th century there were an extraordinary number of designs for bookcase and magazine stands offered to the public as completed pieces and construction plans. Most included simple designs and straightforward construction. A variation of the design shown here appears in the Dover Publications reprint of the 1906 Roycroft Furniture Catalog from the Roycroft Shops in East Aurora, N.Y.

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Slabs
In keeping with the Arts & Crafts style of stout furniture, the sides and shelves of this piece are called out as 7/8"-thick material. You may find the design more economically feasible by changing that to 3/4" material. Start by milling and matching the grain patterns on the two side pieces. If possible, try and use only two boards per side for the width. If this isn't possible, the trapezoidal design will allow you to use two 7"-wide boards for the center of each side, adding a 2" strip on the front and back edges of the lower half, keeping the exposed glue lines to a minimum.

With the sides glued, squared up and sanded flat, mark the location of the shelves as shown on the diagram. The top and bottom shelves will have angled through-mortises cut into the sides, while the other four shelves are captured between the sides in 3/8"-deep stopped dadoes. To mark the start and stop locations of the dadoes, draw the shape of the sides on the side blanks, then measure in 3/4" from the front and back edges.

Cut the dadoes with a plunge router and a router guide. Even though the sides of the stand are angled 3 degrees, the dadoes can be cut at a 90-degree angle to the side leaving only a slight gap on the underside of each shelf. If you prefer to eliminate the gap, a wood strip can be used to tilt the router at a 3-degree angle. If you opt for the angled dadoes, run a test piece or you may inadvertently transfer your gap to the top of the shelf.

The through-mortises can also be cut using a router with the base tilted to a 3-degree angle or marked and hand cut. In either case, cut from the outside surface to keep any tearout to the inside of the case. Use a scrap backing board to reduce the tearout even further.

Trapezoids & Shelves
With the dadoes and through-mortises complete, crosscut the top and bottom edges of the sides at a 3-degree angle, then use a band saw or a jigsaw and a plane to shape the sides. Next, mark and cut the elongated half-oval at the base of each side to form the legs. Lastly, mark the back edge of each side for a 1/4" wide x 3/8" groove for the back. The groove should be set in 1/2" from the back edge and start 6" up on the sides, running through at the top.

Next cut the shelves to size. The four center shelves can be cut to the sizes given in the Schedule of Materials, with all four edges cut on a 3-degree angle. The top and...

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CD Racks

No other joint looks like a miter. Miter joints allow the wood grain to flow around a corner, without exposing any end grain. Good miters aren’t always easy, but a few tricks make them manageable.

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A four-sided frame or box is the usual starting point for mitered joinery. In this scenario, the beginner will likely be frustrated by tiny errors in the degree of angle or the length of the parts. Any errors made will show up in the last joint to be closed.

At this point errors aren’t tiny any more. On a square frame with 12" sides, even with only 1/10° of error, the gap at the last corner will still be 1/8". The degree of perfection required is obtainable, but there are two other hurdles to overcome for successful mitering.

This I Can Do That project addresses the two problems that can cause even perfectly cut miters to fail: Getting a strong glue joint and clamping the corners together. There is a simple solution for each, and knowing these will make getting perfect corners easier.

Two Sticks, Glue and Packing Tape
One 6' length of 1x2 (actual size 3/4" x 11/2"), and one 2' length of 1x4 (actual size 3/4" x 31/2") provide all the material. These were available in red oak at our local home center. Look for the straightest pieces in the pile. If you don’t have yellow wood glue at home, pick up a small bottle before you leave the store. And while you’re there, purchase a roll of clear packing tape.

Begin by cutting two pieces of 1x2 to 22-5/8" long. This length isn’t critical, but both pieces should be the same length, and both should have two square ends. Sometimes the material you buy has a ragged end, so I usually cut 1/4" or so off the end of a new piece to make sure it’s square and clean.

Make a mark on the edge of one of these pieces that’s 41/2" from the end, and with your combination square draw a line at a 45° angle back toward the end. Only mark one piece –...

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Desks

This is an original design by Armand Sussman, an amateur furniture maker living in Pennsylvania. The design creates an illusion of wood twisting and turning. By using contrasting woods, an endless stripe is created, adding movement to this piece. The glass top serves as a work surface, but it doesn’t obscure the base. The numerous lap joints (called “step-miters” by Mr. Sussman) have been worked into a novel Greek key design on the ends of the desk, which is built using cherry and walnut.

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The desk is constructed by laminating strips of wood together. By making some of the layers shorter than others, you make the joints for attaching that lamination to another. As a result, all of the materials for this project must be machined precisely. Any variances will show up as gaps in the joints after final assembly.

Tricks to Dead-on Components
There are two tricks to make sure your pieces are all the right size and won’t slide around when you glue them up. First, when cutting out the pieces for this desk, I found it easier to cut them grouped by letters, such as A1, A2, A3. A1 is the longest piece, A2 is 1-1/2" shorter, and A3 is 3" shorter than A1. Because all of the desk’s components are stepped like this, I came up with a quick way to make these cuts. Cut the longest piece first using a stopblock on the fence of your table saw’s sled or miter gauge. Then take two scrap pieces of 3/4"-thick wood from the project and glue them together to form a 1-1/2"-thick spacer. Hold this piece against the stop block to cut the second piece. Then make a second spacer using two more scraps and use both spacers to cut the third piece. This method makes the desk components perfectly sized. Cut out all your pieces, then get ready to glue them up.

To keep your pieces from sliding around during gluing, make a jig from two pieces of melamine-faced particleboard put together lengthwise at a right angle to create a straight fence. Then put a small piece of wood on the end of the jig to act as a stop. This gives you a square corner to work out of.

On to Assembly
Start by gluing the E pieces and two sets of the D pieces together to form a shallow “U.” (When gluing these step-mitered joints, I found it best to use polyurethane glue. It provides a strong bond for this type of joint.) I dry-fit all the parts to be sure I would be able to get all the pieces to come together tightly. After applying the glue, clamp the length of the E pieces first. By using 3/4" spacers at the ends of the D parts, applying even clamping pressure is easy on the lengths of the D parts. Make two of these assemblies.

The next assembly consists of the C, B and A parts. The glue-up of this assembly is done the same way as the E and D assembly. Make four of these assemblies.

Next glue one of the E and D assemblies and two of the...

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Using a Mortise and Tenon

In furniture making, while carcases and drawers are dovetailed together, tables and chairs have mortise-and-tenon joinery. In this article, I make a through mortise and tenon three different ways. First by hand, second with a hollow-chisel mortiser and table saw, and third with a plunge router and band saw.

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In 1991, I had a very nice commission to make about a dozen pieces of Egyptian furniture for the Newark Museum in New Jersey. I had the opportunity to see the real, original ancient pieces and make measured drawings to do the work. The pieces I had to make are more simple ones which are less well known than the spectacular furniture from the tomb of King Tutankhamun.

This stool at left is a copy of a New Kingdom craftsman stool. I made it 2" higher than the original. The Egyptians were squatting before they had stools and the low height of the stool was designed for sitting in this squatting position.

All the stools have through mortise-and-tenon joints with the seat rails meeting above and below one another at the legs. Some of the stretchers are the same way. Some tenons are pegged and some are wedged; the ancient stools were held together by the webbing. I glued mine.

The seats on the stools are also different. Some have a solid, curved seat carved from four planks, others are woven with reed and rush fibers, while still others have holes on the inner edge of the seat rails and are woven with simple double-braided rush webbing that looks like caning. The ends of all the strands are carefully knotted below the holes and hidden from sight. I made a bed in this manner for the museum.

Chop and Saw by Hand
To do mortise-and-tenon joints by hand, you have to do a lot of marking. After stock preparation, you mark the corner of the legs with a scribble to indicate the outside corners. With a square and a sharp pencil, mark the thickness of the seat rail 1/2" below the top of the leg. Flip the leg and mark first under the lower rail’s location. For a through mortise and tenon, transfer these lines to the outside of the legs. Make sure you end up with pairs. Mark the location of the stretchers at the bottom in the same way.

To locate the tenon shoulder from the rail ends, mark the seat rails and stretchers, using the width of your leg as your guide, plus 1/4" (which is how much the tenon sticks out from the leg). Measure the width of your stool and mark your other shoulder.

Set the two cutters of your mortising gauge to the thickness of the chisel, as shown at left, then move your fence so the cutters are centered in the stretchers and mark them.  Do the same with the seat rails. Reset your marking gauge and mark the legs. Make sure you are in the middle. Clamp the leg to your bench and start chopping. Stay away from the pencil line and take 1/8" chips. Keep going deeper and pry out you...

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Holdfasts

by  Robert W. LangWe love nothing more than to completely tear apart a tool, project or technique to figure out exactly how it works. Most of the time our efforts are rewarded with enlightenment, but in the case of holdfasts, we’re still a bit in the dark. It seems that making and using a holdfast has as much in common with art or religion as science.

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Before the era of metal vises, woodworkers secured work to benches (horizontally and vertically) with holdfasts. Until the 1920s these were so common that if you saw a workbench, you would likely see a holdfast. Little was written about them because they were so common. To explain holdfasts would be akin to explaining shoes. But they eventually fell out of general use as manufacturers added mechanical gizmos to benches such as tail vises and bench dogs.
And as we found out, that’s a real shame.

Using a holdfast for the first time can be an epiphany. A good holdfast drops in a hole in your bench, and with a few light taps secures a workpiece solidly to the bench. As the holdfast’s pad hits your work, the shaft wedges itself in the hole and against your work.

It is one of the quickest, most secure and efficient methods of holding something down, whether you work with hand tools or power tools. A good pair of holdfasts is like having an extra set of super-strong hands. They can be set in a fraction of the time it takes to secure a clamp or tighten a vise, and their use soon becomes second nature. A light rap on the back of the shaft releases the holdfast’s grip on the work.

Not as Simple as it Seems
As simple as the idea is, the execution and engineering involved in making a good holdfast are complex. The angle of the holdfast’s shaft as it sits in the benchtop, as well as the angle between the pad and shaft are key elements. The size of the shaft, the diameter of the hole and the thickness of the benchtop affect these angles. We found that holdfasts with an angle of about 83° between the shaft and pad functioned best.

The type of metal used, and how it is made are also crucial. We found a difference in performance between mass-produced holdfasts (such as the broken one shown above) and those that were hand-forged (the unbroken one above). We tested them side by side, and found only one mass-produced holdfast we could recommend, and that recommendation comes with reservations.

For our tests we prepared samples of workbench tops using yellow pine and hard maple with various-sized holes between 11/16" and 1" to represent different types of benches. With these workbench samples secured in a vise, we tried each holdfast to see how easily and how securely it would seat. We tried securing pieces of varyin...

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Cabinets

Besides a table and chairs, no piece fits the dining room better than this quintessentially American country-style cabinet with storage behind doors and a flat surface for serving food. This project fills both needs perfectly and is a study in simple construction. Build a face frame, attach that frame to a four-panel carcase, then add a top and a few simple details and you’re set to store and serve.

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Start the Cabinet Face First
Prepare the face-frame pieces according to the cut sheet, but add 1/16" to the width of the stiles so they can be trimmed flush to the frame later. This ensures the assembled face frame overhangs the case when following the cut sheet. Locate and lay out the mortise-and-tenon locations on the rails and stiles.

Because a bead wraps around the inside edges of the face frame (it’s not an integral part of the frame) there is no need to leave shoulders on the tenons. In fact, with the center and upper rails being narrow, I like to use the entire width of the rails as a tenon, which adds strength. The mortises are 3/8" wide and 1-1/16" deep.

Cut the mortises into both stiles of the face frame. I use a dedicated mortise machine for this task, but you can also chop them by hand or use the drill press to start the mortises then square and clean out the slots with a chisel. The mortise for the top rail is open on the top edge of the stiles. These are the only mortises for the project.

Next, create the matching tenons on the ends of the rails. I set up a dado stack and hog away the waste material, leaving a snug-fitting tenon. With these tenons, because they are the width of the rails, cut only the face cheeks of each end.

Set the dado stack for a 3/16" deep cut. Set the fence to create a 1"-long tenon, then make passes for each face to form the tenon. The last pass is with the end of the rail tight against the fence. This ensures that all tenons are the same length. And that extra 1/16" of depth in the mortise is just a glue reservoir.

Check the fit of the first tenon and make any necessary small adjustments. Finish the tenons and assemble the face frame. Apply glue in the mortises and on the tenons then add clamps and allow the glue to dry.

Wrapping Up the Frame
The added beading gives the face frame a “pop” and is so simple to make. Start with a piece of stock surfaced on four sides and milled to 3/4" thick. Next, chuck a 1/4" corner-beading bit into the router table. My setup looks different because I position my router horizontally. With the setup in a standard router table you’ll run the stock vertically to form the bead.

Run the profile on both edges of one face of the stock and rip those pieces off at the table saw to a 5/16" width. Then, after running the edges over the jointer to get a cle...

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Side Tables

Patterned after the model #562 taboret shown in the L.&J.G. Stickley catalog of 1914, the original of this table now sells for $1,600 at auction.

As with all white oak Arts & Crafts pieces, wood figure is important to make a simple design stand out. Choose the best figure for the top and the panel pieces. If the stretchers and legs are also well-figured, so much the better.

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After cutting the legs to size, mark the best faces for showing off the grain. Then cut 3/8" x 2-5/8" x 1"-deep mortises in the legs for the stretchers, and 3/8" x 1-1/8" x 1"-deep mortises for the aprons. These mortises are centered on the width of the legs and located as shown in the diagram. I used a benchtop mortiser for this step, but you could also use a plunge router with an up-spiral bit to cut them. Now change the bit (either mortiser or router bit) to a 1/4" bit and mark and cut the 1/4" x 5-3/8" x 1/2"-deep mortises for the panels in the aprons and stretchers.

With the mortises complete, head for the table saw and get ready to cut tenons.

I use a rip blade to form my tenons. I cut the cheeks first, then define the shoulders, so there isn’t a chance of the shoulders being accidentally notched by the saw blade during the cheek cut. By cutting the shoulder last, any “notching” will happen against the tenon cheek.

When making the shoulder cut on the table saw, it’s easiest to use the rip fence to define the 1"-tenon length. If you use the fence to the right of the blade, and the miter gauge to the left of the blade you will trap the fall-off piece between the blade and fence, causing it to shoot back from the blade. Instead, set the fence for 13" to the right of the blade and use the miter gauge to the right of the blade as well. This way you can cut both tenoned ends with a single setup, and the waste will fall harmlessly to the left of the blade. If you’re paying careful attention, you will realize 1" tenons are going to bump into one another in the mortises. After cutting the tenon shoulders, reset the fence and the blade angle to cut 45° miters on the ends of the tenons.

Don’t leave the saw yet. You still need to form the 1/4" x 5-1/4" x 1/2" tenons on both ends of the panels. You might have noticed that the tenons are 1/8" less wide than the mortise dimensions. This is no mistake. When the side panels are positioned between the stretchers and aprons, the shoulders of the panel tenons will fit snug against the stretchers and rails. If the mortises in the legs were the exact width of the tenons, and off by even a little bit, they would force a gap between the panels and the two rails. The 1/8" extra space on the panel tenons is to allow for wood movement.

Next, mark the 1" curve on the bottom edge of each stretcher and cut the shape...

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Tables

In our living room, we keep a mahogany table that I vaguely knew one of my ancestors had built. After I began my internship at this magazine, I became more interested in that table. I asked my paternal grandmother about the table, and she told me that my great-great-grandfather, Carl Edward Wulff, built it at his furniture shop in downtown Cincinnati about 1870. She even had a photograph of his shop dated 1878. In the picture you can see the simple sign that says “Furniture.” With this proof, I knew that woodworking was definitely in my blood. Having the family tradition in mind, I set about building a slightly simplified facsimile. In fact, the joinery in this project is so simple that almost any beginner can do it.

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Start with the Basics
After cutting all your rough stock to length, surface your wood down to 3/4" thick (except for the legs). The original 19th-century table’s top was only one board. You can still find mahogany in these widths, but I couldn’t. To obtain the appropriate width, I had to glue up two boards for both the leaves and the tabletop. I used three biscuits at each joint to keep the boards aligned during glue-up. Also, if you can’t get 2-1/4"-thick stock for the legs, ask for turning blanks at the lumber store instead; you might just get lucky.

Mortises, Tenons and Tapers

The first step is to make mortise-and-tenon joints where the aprons join the legs. I made the tenons using a dado stack on the table saw. Cut the shoulders as shown in the photo on the next page. Make the tenons 3/8" thick, 1" long and 3-1/4" wide. After cutting your tenons, cut a groove in the aprons for the tabletop fasteners, which will attach the top to the table’s base. Make this slot by cutting a kerf in the aprons that’s 7/16" down from the top edge. For a nice detail, I routed a bead on the bottom edge of the aprons.

The mortises on all the legs are made 1-7/16" from the inside for the short aprons and 7/16" from the inside for the long aprons as shown in the diagram below. Cut your mortises on the legs; I used a mortiser, but you can use a chisel or Forstner bit.

The original table had turned legs, but in order to simplify things, I tapered the legs. Tapering jigs for the table saw can be tricky, so I used a band saw to cut the tapers about 1/16" shy of my line and then cleaned up the cut on the jointer. The taper should start 1" below where the aprons end and result in a leg that tapers to one-half the original thickness. Remember: taper only the sides that have mortises.

Install the Hinges

After tapering, sand the legs and aprons. Start with #100-grit sandpaper, move up to #150 grit, then finish with #220 grit. Next, glue up the legs and aprons and clamp. After gluing up the base, turn your attention to the top.

Install the hinges that connect ...

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Finishing

Some say that finishing can be a “ruination of a nicely built piece of furniture.” Well, to build that piece you have to study the different techniques and have access to good plans. Plans and procedures are now shared openly by most woodworkers. But when it comes to finishing, some of the best woodworkers slip into a secret back room and never let their exact procedures see the light of day.

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How are you supposed to become a better finisher if you are not shown the techniques and formulas? That’s why we are “blowing the doors off” this little-shared but highly important aspect of woodworking. This article is an all-access pass to the finishing methods I’ve used for a number of projects from my books and magazine articles.

Sand Less Than You Think
All finishing starts with the sanding, and I think that many of us sand more than necessary. Once you move to a paper that’s finer than #180 grit, you begin to close the wood pores, which will affect the stain’s penetration. Because these stains depend on soaking into the wood to obtain the best results, sanding too fine should be avoided. I hope that’s music to your ears because most of us complain about sanding.

What’s important is to remove all imperfections, so while you don’t need to go past #180 grit, you do need to sand effectively to gain the upper hand. I use a random-orbit sander and begin with #120 grit, if necessary, and move through the #150 and #180 grits, followed up by hand sanding with #180 grit, making sure to move in the wood’s grain direction. Also, use sandpaper to knock off any sharp edges on the project because these will show wear first.

A Homemade Wipe-on Finish for a Clear Topcoat
Once the sanding is complete we can move on. Some projects require that you add only a protective clear topcoat. I have used the commercial products that are available for a wipe-on finish, but I keep returning to my own mixture. Why? It’s cheap and easy to make with ingredients from a hardware store.
My mixture is one-third turpentine, one-third spar varnish (a marine finish) and one-third boiled linseed oil (sometimes abbreviated as BLO). Make sure it’s boiled – not raw – linseed oil. I mix enough in a batch for about 11/2 applications to my piece.

The turpentine thins the mixture, which allows it to seep into wood pores. As the oil/varnish dries, the first coat acts to bridge between the pores. Successive applications then allow the finish to build. Keep the surface of your work wet for five minutes before wiping away any excess.

After the first coat, you need to allow the mixture to thicken before wiping the exce...

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Glazing

By applying glaze between coats of finish you can add the appearance of age to furniture. For the opening photograph, I applied and left glaze in the recesses on the right side of a ball-and-claw foot.

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Glazing is the act of applying, and then manipulating, color over a sealed surface.

The color can come in many forms, including common stain, oil color, Japan color, universal-tinting color or a specially made product called “glaze.” A glaze is simply a stain that is thick so it stays where you put it, even on a vertical surface. Gel stain, for example, makes a good glaze. Note that it’s the position of the colorant in the order of finishing steps — over at least one coat of finish, but under a topcoat — that defines glazing. You don’t have to be using a glaze to be glazing. On the other hand, even if you are using a glaze, you are staining, not glazing, if you apply it directly to bare wood.

Though it’s easy to do, glazing is still a sophisticated decorating technique because of the many effects you can create. These include adding depth to three-dimensional surfaces such as raised panels and mouldings, faking the wear and dirt accumulation associated with age, adding definition to painted surfaces, adjusting color after the actual finishing has begun, and creating faux (fake) grain or other decorative patterns.

Besides its ease, glazing is also one of the most forgiving steps in finishing. You can actually practice on the wood you’re finishing, and if you don’t like the effect you get, you can remove the glaze and start over without damaging any of the finish.

Though the application of glaze is not difficult, there is skill involved in knowing the look you want to create (having an artistic sense), and in maintaining consistency when glazing multiple objects, such as all the doors on a set of cabinets.

Glazing Products
There are two types of glaze: oil-base and water-base. Oil-base glaze gives a deeper, richer appearance and is easier to control because of the longer working time. You can remove oil-base glaze for up to an hour or more by wiping with paint thinner or naphtha, neither of which will damage any paint or finish.

Water-base glaze is more difficult to work with because it dries so fast. But it has much less solvent smell, so it is less irritating to be around. Once you’ve applied a water-base glaze, you have only a few minutes to remove it using water before it dries too hard.

Oil-base glaze is best for cabinets and furniture when the finish is lacquer, varnish or shellac, and you’re applying the glaze in a shop with good ventilation.

Water-base glaze is best for faux finishing on large surfaces like panels and walls in buildings where there is very little air movement, and on furniture and woodwork when you’re topcoating with a waterbase fini...

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Pattern Cutting

Sure, I have a router and a handful of pattern-cutting bits. But many times when I need to make duplicates of an odd-shaped part, I turn to my table saw instead.

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With a shamefully simple jig (it’s two pieces of wood) clamped to my saw’s fence, I can cut patterns all day long. I think it’s faster than pattern cutting with my router for several reasons.

First, when roughing out the shape of the blank on my band saw, I don’t need to cut real close to my line like I do when pattern routing. I only have to get within 1-1/2" of the line instead of within 1/16" to 1/8".

Second, there’s less clamping involved with this table-saw method. Normally I screw or nail my template to the side of the part that won’t show (the underside of a shelf, for example) and go. I can do this with pattern routing, too, but I’ll still need to clamp everything to my bench, make part of the cut, readjust the clamps and then finish the cut. When I use the table saw, I screw it and cut it.

Build the Jig
The jig should take five minutes to build. It is simply two narrow strips of 3/4"-thick wood nailed and glued on one long edge into an “L” shape. One of the strips of wood should be as long as your table saw’s fence. Its width depends on how thick your project’s stock is. For cutting patterns in 3/4" stock, rip this board to 1-5/8" wide. The second one should be 1-3/4" wide and about 6" shorter than the first board. Nail and glue these two boards together using the drawing as a guide.

Set Up Your Jig and Use It
Install a quality combination blade in your saw. Clamp the jig to your fence with the jig flush to the table. Slide the table saw’s fence over so the jig overhangs the blade and raise the blade until it almost touches the jig.

Using a square, line up the edg...

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Wainscoting

If you ask a woodworker to picture a room they’d like to spend time in (besides the shop) they frequently form a picture in their minds of a room with lots of wood in it. Perhaps ceiling beams, a wood floor and wainscotting. If you have an older house, you might be lucky enough to have such a room. But if you have a newer home, more likely than not your rooms are painted drywall. You could pay a contractor to install a lot wainscotting, but because you already have woodworking tools, why not do it yourself? Here’s a quick, easy and amazingly cost-effective way to turn a “so-so” room into a “something else” room.

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Don’t Waste Plywood

The basic ingredient to making this project affordable is carefully cut 1/2" plywood. By making the wainscotting a respectable 32" high, a sheet of plywood will give you 12 lineal feet of paneling. Start by determining the lineal footage of the area you want to cover. Sketch out the wall sections on a piece of paper, including doorways. Using a two-panel, 46" wide section may not always work best for your room needs, and you’ll have to decide if changing the panel size will give a better overall look. Regardless, the techniques used in the article will work on any size panel. Remember, if you run into a corner, allow an extra 3/4" in length on one panel so it can tuck behind the opposite panel, without changing the panel spacing.

To provide a less “flat” appearance to the wainscotting, you cut inset panels from the main panel, sort of like removing the doughnut holes from doughnuts. Then you trim the hole with moulding that has a rabbet cut on the back. After that, you fasten the inset panel back into the surrounding face panel. Because of the way the moulding is made, the panel will be recessed. Finally you shim the backside of your wainscotting and attach it to your wall with 2" finishing nails.

The other tricky element to this project is joining adjacent panels of wainscotting in a way so there is a minimal amount of seam visible. Here’s how I tackled that: Each face panel has two inset panels in it that you remove from the surrounding panel by plunge-cutting on your table saw (which is covered in the story at left). One of the inset panels is surrounded on all four sides by the surrounding panel. The other inset panel is surrounded on only three sides by the surrounding panel. After you remove the inset panel, the end of the surrounding panel looks like a large “C.” When you attach two adjacent panels, you’ll have only two small 3"-long seams.

Start Cutting

The first step is to cut the plywood sheets to size, and then remove the inset panels. To be able to reuse the inset panels, you’ll need to use a table saw for this. The accompanying story at left explains how to cut out the inset ...

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Varnishing

Of all finishes available, none offers as much protection and durability with as little difficulty in application as wiping varnish.

With wiping varnish you can achieve a run-free, brush-mark-free, air-bubble-free and almost dust-free finish, which after several coats is very protective against moisture penetration, and resistant to scratches, heat and solvents. And you can do this with no more effort than wiping or brushing on the finish, and either leaving it, or wiping off some or all of the excess.

No other finish offers all of these great qualities. The only finish that competes is gel varnish, but it's messy to apply, and it can't be built up as fast on the wood without leaving brush marks. Wiping varnish is arguably the single best finish for most amateur woodworking projects.

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Wiping varnish is simply common oil-based varnish (any type, including alkyd varnish, polyurethane varnish or spar varnish) that is thinned enough with mineral spirits (paint thinner) so it is easy to wipe on wood. You can easily make your own.

The name, which I created in 1990, and which has been adopted by most writers and teachers of wood finishing, makes sense because the purpose of thinning is to make the varnish easy to wipe.

You may already be using wiping varnish and not realize it because it isn't sold under that name (maybe because that would give away the simplicity of the finish). It's sold under many different brand names, and few indicate what the finish really is.

This is the problem with wiping varnish and the reason it isn't widely recognized as one of the best finishes for anyone not using a spray gun. Manufacturers obscure the true nature of the finish by their misleading, and sometimes outright deceptive, product labeling. They want you to think they are selling you something different and special.

In this article I will tell you about varnish, how wiping varnish came to be, how to make and identify wiping varnish and how to apply wiping varnish. I will also explain how wiping varnish differs from oil, and mixtures of oil and varnish. (See "Testing for Oil: Does It Get Hard?" on page 74.)

Each of these finishes is a type of varnish. You can thin any one of them with mineral spirits to make a wiping varnish. The wiping varnish will have the characteristics of the varnish you use.

Varnish is a very common finish that is appreciated for its terrific moisture, scratch, heat and solvent resistance. No matter how new you are to woodworking, you have probably used some type of varnish or oil-based paint, which is varnish with pigment added.

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Entertainment Center

I chuckle to myself every time I build one of these cabinets for a customer. A Shaker entertainment center. Now that’s an oxymoron. But everybody loves Shaker and everyone needs an entertainment center these days. So who am I to argue?

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As cabinet construction goes, this is about as basic as it gets, and it still offers old-world joinery, styling and strength. The entire piece is solid lumber, using a face-frame front and a shiplapped back. The raised-panel doors are held together with mortise-and-tenon joinery, and the crown moulding is all simple cuts on the table saw and jointer.

I start construction on face-frame cabinets by making the face frame first. All the other pieces will be sized to fit the frame, so it just makes sense to begin there. Also, the width of the face frame’s stiles are 1/16" wider than shown in the drawing. This will allow you to trim them flush to the case after assembly.

There are a number of ways to fasten a face frame together, but when I’m making a piece of furniture that has the potential to be moved every so often I prefer the strongest joint I can think of — mortise and tenon. That’s because if it’s moving it’s racking. While a strong back will help keep the cabinet from racking, the face frame does most of the work. In addition, if the piece is a reproduction, like the one here, it’s appropriate to use a mortise-and-tenon frame.

I prefer to cut the tenons on the ends of the rails first, then use the tenons to lay out the mortises on the stiles. Set up your table saw to cut the 3/8" x 1"-long tenons, centered on both ends of the top and bottom rails. Then set up your mortiser to cut the mating mortises, setting your depth to 11/16" to avoid having the tenon bottom out in the mortise.

Once the mortises and tenons are cut, assemble the frame by putting glue in the mortises. Don’t overdo it; glue can keep the tenon from seating properly in the mortise. After the glue is dry, I pin the joints using 3/8"-square stock.

Three-Panel Doors

Since I’m already set up for making mortise-and-tenon joints, I go ahead and make the doors next. The doors are basic frame-and-panel construction using raised panels with an 8° bevel on the front face. Determine the size of the doors by making them exactly the size of the opening in the face frame. We’ll trim them to fit later.

Before cutting the joints for the doors I make the groove in the rails and stiles for the raised panels. These grooves are 3/8" x 3/8" and are centered on the inside edge of each piece, with both edges of the center rails receiving a groove. After the grooves are run, start making the tenons on each end of the rails. Make the tenons and mortises the same size as you used for the face frame. Because the panel groove was run through th...

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Bookcases

Look at projects with a different eye. Find a piece with great design, such as a Stickley No. 79 bookcase, then make adjustments to the construction to better match your skill set.If you’ve perused the pages of our sister publication, Woodworking Magazine, you might have seen this piece in the Spring 2005 issue. We dug through the archives to find a fine bookcase, then did a bit of construction modification to allow the design to better fit the “I Can Do That” column. And that’s something you should be on the lookout for as you read woodworking articles or skim the pages of your favorite catalogs. Find a piece you like and see what changes can be made to match the construction to your skill set and tools.

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For this piece, we eliminated the complicated shelf joinery, and we adjusted a few sizes to better accommodate the lumber dimensions found at home centers. But by and large, this bookcase is close to our original project and a great piece to build.

For material, you’ll need an 8' piece of 1 x 10 for the sides and one shelf, and a 1 x 10 x 4' for two shelves, the braces and one toe kick.Crosscut the material to the required length, then rip the braces and toe kick.

Add Design to the Sides
The bookcase sides require the most work, so begin at the handle area. Measure down from the top 11/4", then square a line across the grain. Also, find the top center of the sides then square a line off the top edge that extends just across the first line.

The next layout step is to grab a compass that’s set for a 21/2" radius, position the point of the tool at the intersection of the two lines and mark a half-circle with the flat side parallel with the top edge of the sides. To soften the look, round the sharp corners of the handle area. I used a pair of nickels placed at the corners to establish the radius.

To create the handle opening, use a 13/16" bit to drill holes at each corner (the bit closely matches the diameter of the nickels). With the two difficult-to-cut areas done, use a jigsaw to remove the balance of the waste. Insert the blade through one of the holes then cut on the line from hole to hole. After that’s complete, pivot the saw to cut the half-circle line. Stay close to the line, take your time as you cut and slow the blade speed if possible – a slower blade increases your control as you cut. Then clean up your cuts with a file and sandpaper.

Next, make the cutout at the base. This, too, is a half-circle with a 21/2" radius. Because you can start the cut from the bottom edge of the sides, there’s no need to drill a hole. Use your j...

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Coffee Tables

Most coffee tables are ill-equipped to handle the stresses of modern-day life. Company is coming, and your living room is strewn with books, woodworking catalogs and your spouse’s catalogs. Most coffee tables offer you only a puny shelf to help you tidy up in a hurry. This coffee table does double-duty by giving you a shelf for books and two drawers that are big enough to handle all but the biggest magazines and catalogs. And oh yes, you can serve coffee on it, too.

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Construction is simple but sturdy. You build the bottom case that holds the drawers out of plywood and biscuits. Then you screw the solid maple legs onto the case and cover all the plywood edges with moulding and veneer tape. Finally, you screw the top to the legs using figure-eight fasteners and build some quick drawers. And this project won’t cost you a heck of a lot, either. You need about one-third of a sheet of maple plywood (birch will do just fine, too), about four board feet of 8/4 maple and about 10 board feet of 5/4 maple. You’ll also need a little Baltic birch ply and a small amount of 1/4" ply for the drawer bottoms.

Start at the Top
When you’re at the lumberyard, be sure to pick through the racks of soft maple for this project. Soft maple (Acer rubrum) is a little cheaper than hard maple (Acer saccharum) and is more likely to have some curl or other figure. After you plane your maple down to 1" thickness, get ready to glue up your top. I like to cut a few biscuit slots in the mating edges of the top pieces. This doesn’t add to the strength of this long-grain joint, but it sure helps keep your boards in line when gluing up your panels. Clamp up your top and set it aside for the glue to dry.

Simple and Sweet Lower Case

The case that holds the drawers goes together really fast. Cut out the parts you need according to the Schedule of Materials. Then cut the biscuit slots to attach the sides, back and divider between the top and bottom pieces. Take some care when locating the center divider to save yourself a headache when making the drawers. See the step photo on the right for the trick to cutting biscuit slots in the middle of a panel.

Now put glue and biscuits in all the biscuit slots and clamp up the lower case. When the glue is dry, sand the case to 150 grit and turn your attention to the legs. To make attaching the legs to the case easier, go ahead and cut some clearance holes in the case’s sides where the case will be joined to the back legs. This is easier to do from the outside before the legs go on.

Eight Screws and You’ve Got a Table

Here’s how to attach the legs: Mark on the leg where the case should meet the leg. Clamp the leg into place on the lower case and then drill pilot holes and clearance holes for #8 screws (I used a bit that drills both holes simultaneously). The holes s...

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Power Tools

Your table saw is a router table and jointer just waiting to happen. Replace one of the saw's wings (or adapt your existing table board) to hold a router table insert, and you're in business. Add this router fence to your table saw's fence and you get a router fence with the capacity to handle boards few commercial router tables could even touch. Make a couple quick adjustments to the fence and you can edge-joint boards for gluing up panels -- no jointer necessary. 

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This fence was designed for the Little Shop Mark II, a rolling workshop that was featured in the September 1999 issue (#110). However, this fence will work with just about any contractor- or cabinet-style table saw.

This fence is essentially two long plywood boxes with hardwood face fronts on them. The space between the boxes is where the router bit spins. One of the boxes stores router bits, the other acts as a dust collection chute. Though construction isn't complex, study the diagrams carefully before you begin.

It's in the Hole
First cut the hole for the insert in the top of your saw's table. If you've built the Little Shop Mark II, use the end of the long top for your table. For contractor's saws, you can use the table board on the right side of the saw. Or you can replace one of your saw's wings with a piece of laminate-covered plywood. Lay out the spot for the router table insert. I put the insert in the middle of the width of the table and between the back and front rail from the end. Cut the opening for the insert as shown in the photos. Mount the insert to the router. Drop it in the opening and adjust it so it's flush with the table.

Making the Fence
First you build the body of the fence, and then you attach the fence faces afterward. Begin by cutting the opening for the bit on the front piece. Use a rasp to round over the inside right edge of the opening to help deflect chips into the box that will later be connected to a shop vacuum. Next cut the bottom piece for the right box and cut a 45-degree chamfer on the end next to the opening for the bit, again to deflect chips.

Assemble the boxes like this: First attach the two end pieces of the left box to the left bottom piece. Then attach the larger end piece for the right-side box (with the dust collection hole) to the bottom piece for the right box. Now nail the front and back pieces to the left and right assemblies. Be sure to hold the bottom edges flush. For the top part of the fence, keep in mind there are three fixed pieces -- one on each end and one in the middle. And there are two removable pieces that give you access to the bit storage, the dust collection tube and the wing nuts that will hold the fence faces in place. Attach the three fixed top pieces and the support.

Now drill the holes in the back piece to accept the 1/4" x 20 t-nuts that attach the router fence to the saw fence.

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Planers

The best way to surface figured or difficult woods is to use a jointer or planer with an expensive cutterhead that’s equipped with “insert tooling.” Insert tooling is when the cutterhead is made up of an array of small, easy-to-replace knives arranged in (usually) a helical or spiral pattern around the cutterhead.

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These fancy cutterheads have been available on industrial machines for a long time, and in recent years, they also have been trickling onto the bigger workshop machines for the home, such as 15" planers and 8" jointers.

After poking around the booths at the International Woodworking Fair today, we’ve also learned that these fancy cutterheads are about to make a leap into uncharted territory: The 15-amp suitcase planer you can buy at a home center.

Two manufacturers are either developing or currently building these cutterheads, and we got to take a look at them in action or in place on the machines.

First up is Steel City Tool Works. This Tennessee-based manufacturer of machinery is upgrading its model 40200 13" planer to use a special investment-cast cutterhead that accepts insert tooling. The company is also planning to offer a 16" portable (yes, portable) planer that uses the same cutterhead technology, plus that machine will have granite tables.

The 13" planer will have 26 knives arranged in a spiral around the cutterhead. Unlike other manufacturers, Steel City will be using high-speed steel for the knives instead of carbide. Company officials estimate you would have to run about 10,000 linear feet of lumber using the high-speed steel knives before you had to change them out – that’s a lot of wood for the home woodworker.

The cutterhead is unlike anything we’ve seen here at the magazine. Instead of being made from one piece of metal, the cutterhead was comprised of many layers fastened together. Think of it like a stack of doughnuts.

Craig Walls with Steel City says the planer should be ready for sale by Christmas and should cost $749. That’s an interesting price. It’s $200 more than the premium DeWalt DW735, but it’s much less than an entry-level 15" planer with an insert cutterhead.

 

The Aftermarket Solution: Byrd Tool
If you already own a suitcase planer, you might be able to buy an aftermarket carbide-insert cutterhead for it from Byrd Tool of Leitchfield, Ky. Byrd Tool makes premium helical cutterheads for jointers and planers and has been making some cutterheads for portable planers.

“The customers have been asking for it,” says Garry Jackson with Byrd Tool.

Thomas Byrd showed off a DW735 that was equipped with a helical cutterhead with 39 knives. After running an oak board though the machine, its surface looked like glass, with just a few little lines running through the surfa...

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