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On this week’s episode of the ShopNotes Podcast, John, Logan, and Phil are back talking about following your own advice, fixing furniture, listener comments, and more… Find all of the [...]

Every woodworker has made at least a few birdhouses, but probably nothing like these. When you think of a birdhouse, you think of a square wooden box with a hole in the front. Birds don’t ask for [...]

Many of us are familiar with the technique of using a razor blade to scrape away drips from varnish and other film finishes. It’s a great way to level defects, especially if you use a brand-new [...]

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to visit the Festool USA headquarters in Lebanon, Indiana to partake in Festool’s 100th anniversary birthday bash. The red carpet was rolled out for [...]

Finishing it all up. Part 1 • Part 2 • Part 3 • Part 4 • Part 5 • Part 6 • Part 7 • Part 8 After many hours of meticulous work (see previous entries), I was finally approaching …

Wooden wing nuts are so much easier on your hands than metal ones. Plus, it’s a great way to use up shop scraps and leftover hex nuts while avoiding a trip to the hardware store. Start with a [...]

Linseed paint will change the way you approach painting a project, but this wonderful finish takes a different approach than modern paints. The world of finishes is a complex one. When I find a [...]

If you can build it yourself, why would you want to buy it? I’ve always gotten “in a mood” whenever my wife would buy something online – whether wooden, or not – that I could have built cheaper, [...]

I find my stock band saw table too small to support many workpieces, so I outfitted it with a larger, auxiliary table. However, I wanted to be able to remove it quickly when I needed to utilize [...]

An angular front and glass doors lend visual interest to this classic Krenov design. Through the early stages of my woodworking, when I was sweating away evenings in a Mississippi basement trying [...]

Turning tools come in many shapes. Here’s how to keep those shapes sharp. Many years ago, I was cooking with a friend who was home visiting his parents during a college break. He struggled with a [...]

The key to good rip cuts is a good rip fence. The Biesemeyer table saw fence is so much a part of the modern shop that the name is almost an adjective: Even if your saw’s fence is designed by …