Tabla de contenidos para February 2020 en Woodworker's Journal

Last fall, Rockler teamed up with The Modern Maker Podcast and challenged makers to build something with bent wood as part of its #Rockler-BentWoodChallenge. The call to action was simple: build a project that uses some form of bent wood, such as bent lamination, steam bending, kerf bending and so forth. Then, post that project’s progress and final photos on Instagram. The contest, which was judged by The Modern Maker Podcast’s Mike Montgomery, Chris Salomone and Ben Uyeda, offered $500, $250 and $125 Rockler gift card prizes for first, second and third place accolades. More than 250 makers entered a project, and judging took place in mid-November. First-place honors went to Bart Komar (@komarproject) for his low rider bicycle. Kris Crawford’s (@mortgage-andmitre) walnut and maple office chair won second place,…

No matter how much I continue to dream about having a dedicated shop space, the fact of the matter is, I do my woodworking in a cramped garage that also stores two cars. So for me, every bit of usable, horizontal work space counts! This shop desk project came about when I ran across Rockler’s Folding Shelf Brackets on rockler.com recently. They close by squeezing a release latch on the upper leg and lowering them. It didn’t take much daydreaming or time in SketchUp for me to create the plans that now give me the occasional desk space I need. I’m finding it to be a useful landing pad for my laptop when I’m watching a how-to video online. It’s also a handy place to spread out project plans or…

When examining a piece of furniture, even non-woodworkers will often open drawers and search for that pleasing interplay of pins and tails that mark dovetail joints. In the same way, it’s hard not to fawn over a blanket chest adorned with through dovetails on its corners. There’s a truism at work here: dovetails are one of the calling cards of high craftsmanship. And, in spite of the fact that we woodworkers have other joinery options that also form equally rugged connections, they just don’t get the same nod of approval as dovetails. So, it’s only natural that, sooner or later, you’re going to want to learn to make these interlocking, timelessly popular joints. At that point you’ll face a choice: learn to saw and chop them by hand — the…

Step-by-step instructions: 1. Sand the project up through 320-grit. It is a good idea to sand pieces that will be hard to reach before assembly.2. Wipe the project with mineral spirits to check for glue splotches. Sand the glue spot away if found.3. Apply a coat of dye suspended in water to the wood surface. Flood it on with a staining sponge and wipe it off with shop towels.4. Apply a sealer coat (Zinsser SealCoat™) of a shellac-based finish, flooding the surface with finish and wiping off the excess.5. If you have any nail holes, cracks or defects in the wood, fill them now with a wood putty filler that matches the stained and sealed wood.6. Apply at least two coats of a film finish such as polyurethane, shellac or…

THANK YOU FOR YOUR READERSHIP Without a doubt, this new turn of the calendar is not my first rodeo. In fact, I am clearly competing in the senior division now. Even so, that does not diminish my appreciation for all of you who read Woodworker’s Journal. It is our privilege to be invited into your homes and to be given the grace to share our love of the craft of woodworking with you. It is a blessing and a challenge that we take seriously. With that in mind, I want to draw your attention to a few “inside baseball” changes to our magazine for 2020. We have gently reconfigured what we refer to as “the front of the book” and combined a few departments together into what we now will…

Slab lumber — often thick, with waney (natural) edges retained and exposed — is a material that’s been gaining popularity over the past few years. We want to know where you stand on the topic: Have you ever created a project with slab lumber? Yes: 39% No: 61% Would you like to cut down a tree and create your own slab lumber? Yes: 36% No: 41% Not an option for me: 23% Do you have a source for buying slab lumber? Yes: 50% No: 36% I don’t buy slab lumber: 14% Do you like the look of slab lumber and natural edges on projects? Yes: 54% No: 17% Don’t feel strongly either way: 29% There’s more online at woodworkersjournal.com Check online for more content covering the articles below: Woodturning (page…

Taming My Shop Snake A long shop vac hose can be handy for extending your reach, but it quickly becomes a nuisance when you try to store it or move the vac to a new location. It becomes a reluctant serpent slithering wherever it can and finding something to snag. But I finally built a solution to this aggravation. I made four L-shaped brackets from 3/4" plywood, shaped to fit the sides of my shop vac and with enough standoff and height to accommodate the hose’s diameter and length. I fastened them to the tank with screws. Now, my vacuum “snake” is effectively tamed. Bruce Wedlock Peabody, Massachusetts Clean Swipe Solution for Hardware Marking I’ve tried various ways to mark furniture or cabinet doors and drawers for hardware locations before…

After Grandma Mary and Holden Kron-quist decided that a little lending library would be their summer project, the question of its design was paramount. Any good design concept starts with paper and pencil … or perhaps crayon. The working drawings (left) were completed after his discussion with the primary builder (lower left). But Holden was not just a corner office designer. He got busy with painting the roof slats, whose colors mimicked Grandma Mary’s flowers. With the design delivered and the library installed, the neighborhood now has a new source of free books!…

Auger Bit Improvisation In the August 2019 issue’s Letters, Ernie Conover responded to Dean Shipley about the lack of a source for brad point auger bits. I would like to add another resolution to the problem: use a brad point bit that is a size smaller than the largest part of the screw point to drill a pilot hole for the auger bit. Then, maybe just allowing the last screw thread or two of the auger bit to follow the pilot hole, it would actually be as efficient as a brad point auger bit without the full pull of the complete screw point. I hope that this also could be an alternative to removing or damaging the bit’s screw point. Jim Sholtis St. Louis, Missouri Perfect Square Corner on Ply?…

Sounding out a solution Our October Stumper has garnered some extremely sound responses, while others frankly added a degree of bafflement to the question. Ordinarily, we at the Journal hold to the maxim, “Brevity is golden.” In his very specific response, our reader John W. Kennedy of Texarkana, Texas, proved that every rule has its exception. His answer, “It’s a shorting tool,” left us short of context and understanding. Diligent searching on the interwebs indicated that it may have been used in shorting out a spark plug when doing engine repair — a shocking suggestion. Honk if you like car radios! The person who submitted this mystery tool provided a clue that many readers took to heart in their guesses — that it was once used in auto repair. We…

Located in an unexpected south Minneapolis storefront, the Women’s Woodshop is a cozy space stocked with beautiful lathes, a SawStop table saw and a few other stationary tools tucked into the corner. Here’s a “move the band saw to use the drill press” type of space. In back is the hand tool room, at times set up with an eclectic assortment of benches for furniture-making class and other times with an intimate circle of chairs for spoon carving. Founded in 2016 by Minneapolis-based artist Jess Hirsch, the Women’s Woodshop offers a welcoming and supportive environment for women and gender-nonconforming makers. Raised in Minnesota, Hirsch studied fine art at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, then returned to receive her MFA in sculpture from the University of Minnesota. After several…

Recently, one of our co-workers had a chance to build a bank of kitchen cabinets to help out a friend. The experience reminded him that even relatively basic woodworking, such as bread-and-butter cabinetry, requires a skill set that can get rusty if you don’t practice it now and again. And that’s where this handsome little cabinet can help: it’ll give you good reason to brush up on several core techniques while also producing a base cabinet that can find a spot in any home for numerous useful purposes. Building the Carcass Constructing the carcass is a logical starting point for any cabinetry project. Get this one underway by cutting panels for the two sides, back and bottom, according to the Material List on page 38. While it doesn’t really matter…

Getting a great finish on the project you’ve just completed is a task that some woodworkers dread. And that concern is elevated if the wood you are using is one that is known to be finicky to stain — like highly figured maple or cherry. Typical pigment-based stains — oil- or water-based — often splotch badly on highly figured wood. One great way to add color and finish at the same time is to use a product like a tinted Watco Oil. On close-grained woods it pops the grain, adds color and builds up a finish all at once. And once you have the color you want and the Watco cures sufficiently, you can apply additional coats of oil-based polyurethane to create a thicker film coat. But the color options…

Cherry lumber has been one of my favorite kinds of wood ever since I first smelled it being machined in my father’s cabinet shop. Its pungent and distinctively fruity smell is just one of the pleasures that accompanies the working of this durable and beautiful hardwood. In my mind, cherry is nearly the perfect hardwood for furniture and cabinetry. Its natural color is rich but not too dark. It is a “Goldilocks” wood in terms of its hardness — that is to say, not too hard and not too soft — in other words, it is just right. It machines easily, glues up well and, when first treated with a coat of linseed oil to help pop the grain, looks spectacular with just a clear finish applied. I am, in…